Gone are the days when recruitment included only posting job openings and waiting for your dream candidate to apply. Hiring the best possible candidates to perfectly suit the needs of your company is an overwhelming job. Despite the proliferation of digital recruitment software, finding qualified candidates is still a challenge in the 21st century.

No doubt, HR professionals are swamped with recruitment challenges at every step of the hiring process. Of course, the kind of challenge would depend on the size of the company or the type of role they are hiring for. But overall, recruiters usually face similar recruitment challenges.

This article discusses the most crucial recruitment issues and how to address them.

Recruitment Challenges and Solutions

Let us discuss some of the most prevalent recruitment challenges and tips to overcome them.

According to Glassdoor, 76% of recruitment managers admit that attracting quality candidates is one of the major challenges they face on a regular basis.

Recruitment Challenge 1: How to Attract the Right Talent?

HR managers spend countless hours trying to find a suitable candidate that has the necessary skills and experience required for the job opening. They sift through thousands of CVs to find the best person for each job, but most of the people who apply don’t meet the company’s requirements.

On top of that, they simultaneously need to juggle multiple positions, which escalates their workload and results in low productivity, delayed joiners, and a loss of revenue. In desperate situations, many hiring teams tend to hire the wrong person for the job.

Solution 1: Use AI to narrow down the search and combine it with industry-specific job boards to avoid clutter. Reach the right candidate with automated resume screening, resume parsing, and online assessments that help you eliminate unqualified applicants faster. There are several recruitment software platforms available that can help you leverage these features.

Solution 2: To address your primary concerns directly, use an application form with “knock-out” questions. For example, do you need someone who knows Java coding? Include a yes/no question asking candidates if they are familiar with Java. It is a quick technique to eliminate candidates who aren’t a good fit for the role.

Recruitment Challenge 2: How to Overcome the Scarcity of Local Talent?

Employers all over the world are struggling to find qualified applicants in their local areas. The availability of local talent often improves the joining ratio, which is important for recruiters.

20.8% of businesses reported having trouble finding and attracting a suitable candidate pool in their region.

Talent shortages, particularly in technical jobs, continue to be a major issue for most countries around the world. India, known for its tech talent, has seen many of its tech developers relocate to Southeast Asia or other parts of the world in search of better job opportunities. In fact, a recent survey by DigitalOcean Holdings showed that India’s developer talent shortage has the potential to worsen in the future.

Solution: To overcome this problem, you must look for talent outside your company’s headquarters. For instance, you can create a distributed workplace by offering a flexible, work-from-home schedule to overcome the geographical location barrier. It will increase the quality of your hires as well as reduce the time taken to fill the position. You can also hire international employees to help you combat bias by bringing a more diverse set of cultural backgrounds, work experiences, and skills to your organization.

With the right automation tools, you could have millions of job seekers discover your job postings on Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn every day. You can also use geotargeting ads to target a group of people across a particular area. It will help you to develop a solid recruitment strategy, allowing you to target specific locations that might be valuable for your talent search. 

Recruitment Challenge 3: How to Attract Passive Candidates?

According to LinkedIn, 70% of the global workforce is made up of passive candidates, who are not actively looking for work but would consider a new opportunity if one were presented to them. As per the same study, 87% of active and passive candidates are open to new opportunities.

Solution 1: Nurture your database. You may have thousands of resumes in your database that would be suitable for the current opening. You can use automated recruitment management software to store, track, organize, and manage your talent pipeline of passive candidates.

Solution 2: Build personalized job promotion mailers to reach out to the right candidates with relevant job openings. Designing unique mailers will help recruiters increase the response rate of passive candidates during these labor shortage times.

Solution 3: Showcase your company’s culture to attract passive candidates. Build a positive image of your company and focus on its employer branding. You need to show the candidates how your organization is a great place to work with. You can do this by posting photographs of your office and employees, sharing employee testimonials, and highlighting the various employee engagement activities your company undertakes.

Recruitment Challenge 4: How to Reduce the Time to Hire?

Many organisations have inefficient recruitment processes in practice. Employers cannot afford to waste time on candidates who are not a good fit for the role, especially given the talent shortage. Unfortunately, many recruiting processes are still time-consuming and manual. This means that employers are spending more time than ever before on recruiting, but they are not seeing the desired results.

Solution: To address this issue, you must invest in robust recruiting technology. There are numerous excellent applicant tracking systems (ATS) on the market that can assist employers in automating their recruiting process. You can use an ATS to post jobs on multiple job boards with a single click, trac k applicants through the hiring process, and even schedule interviews.

To reduce the time to hire, it is also crucial that recruiters and hiring managers envision the same job description and are on the same page regarding the candidate’s experience and skill set. The ATS software also ensures coordination and collaboration between the two parties. Recruiters can save time by using this recruitment software to screen candidates for the key competencies, educational backgrounds, and skills that the hiring manager asked for.

Recruitment Challenge 5: How to deal with Increased Competition?

Due to a lack of skilled workers, employers have to compete for a smaller pool of applicants. This means they have to stand out from the other companies and make sure theirs is the one people want to work for.

Solution: To solve this problem, you can start by designing a shorter interview process and a better job description that clearly outlines the job responsibilities of a potential employee. Employees prefer to work for companies that are quick to respond to their queries and have a transparent decision-making process.

Candidates want to work for organizations that offer equal opportunities, gender equality, competitive pay, a flexible working environment, and learning and development opportunities. Employers must focus on creating a personalized recruiting process that addresses the candidate’s needs. They must also ensure that their recruiters are properly trained to market your company as an effective brand to potential candidates.

Recruitment Challenge 6: How to Fix Recruitment Funnel Leakages?

These days, most companies experience “leaked” talent at every stage of the recruiting process—from the moment a candidate becomes aware of the company, applying for the role, evaluation, and onboarding. Firms may miss out on great talent when candidates drop out of the recruiting process somewhere along the way.

In fact, more than 10% of employers reported that being “ghosted” by candidates who do not show up for interviews or do not respond to their communications was their most difficult online recruiting challenge.

This is not surprising since job seekers have more freedom in the current market to choose which opportunities to pursue and when. Applicants believe that skipping an interview or declining an offer letter has little consequence. But for the employer, losing candidates in the middle of the process is inconvenient, wastes valuable resources, and causes delays in the hiring process.

Solution: You can provide your candidates with a delightful experience to fix your recruitment funnel leakage. Begin by making the interview process as simple as possible. Prepare the questions in advance and ensure that they do not alienate candidates. Also, give candidates as much information as possible about what it’s like to work for your organization. Recruiters should make the necessary efforts to simplify the job application process so that applicants have no difficulty completing it. Chatbots can be used to communicate with applicants and provide answers to their questions. You can also ask candidates for feedback on the hiring process to make them feel like their thoughts are important to the organization.

Conclusion

Your recruiting process is the driving force that shapes an organization. By overcoming the above recruitment challenges, you will be establishing the high standards that your firm requires to remain competitive in today’s market.