Comments on: Are You Chasing Your Tail, or Is Your Tail Chasing You? http://www.ere.net/2005/06/10/are-you-chasing-your-tail-or-is-your-tail-chasing-you/ Recruiting News, Recruiting Events, Recruiting Community, Social Recruiting Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:03:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Jennifer Nelson http://www.ere.net/2005/06/10/are-you-chasing-your-tail-or-is-your-tail-chasing-you/comment-page-1/#comment-871 Jennifer Nelson Mon, 13 Jun 2005 04:07:00 +0000 http://www.ere.net/2005/06/10/are-you-chasing-your-tail-or-is-your-tail-chasing-you/#comment-871 This article hit many raw spots for me at the moment. I think that I could put a tick against just about every clue that you listed to identify whether a recruitment process is not strategic enough. I would say our recruitment process is completely reactive! Whilst this is not new information, it was great timing - so thanks. In fact I have just had a discussion with one of our Regional Development Managers and used this article to highlight that our current recruitment model is not going to cut it in the next financial year, and in future years. I would welcome your input on some practical steps on how to change. Our current situation is that I recruit for an IT department of approximately 350 staff. We do not hire contractors, so the recruitment and selection process is farily rigorous. I administer the whole process and conduct testing and screening interviews. We rarely outsource, so for sourcing I rely entirely on advertising response and on employee referrals. To top this off, I work 3 days per week. This model has worked over the last few years when the market for IT professionals was buoyant (if you are an employer). However, the market has changed and many new hires have been approved for the next budget. I think that we need to put some thought into the following: Employer branding - who do we want to target? How do we want to be viewed? Once we have defined this, how do we tell it to the market? Sourcing - how do we include proactive sourcing into the model? Can this be done inhouse? what is the benefit of outsourcing this? What other activies can we as an organisation do to network with other IT professionals of like skill-set?(we definitely need to have a stream of potential candidates being identified for the future) Costs - cost is a huge factor for my company. Unfortunately, the fact is that recruitment costs money whether you do it in-house or not. (There is a huge cost in not having someone in the job being productive because the Recruitment Manager is struggling to identify and process suitable candidates). What do you believe to be the key elements of a strategic recruitment model? What are other companies doing? This article hit many raw spots for me at the moment. I think that I could put a tick against just about every clue that you listed to identify whether a recruitment process is not strategic enough. I would say our recruitment process is completely reactive!
Whilst this is not new information, it was great timing – so thanks. In fact I have just had a discussion with one of our Regional Development Managers and used this article to highlight that our current recruitment model is not going to cut it in the next financial year, and in future years.
I would welcome your input on some practical steps on how to change. Our current situation is that I recruit for an IT department of approximately 350 staff. We do not hire contractors, so the recruitment and selection process is farily rigorous. I administer the whole process and conduct testing and screening interviews. We rarely outsource, so for sourcing I rely entirely on advertising response and on employee referrals. To top this off, I work 3 days per week.
This model has worked over the last few years when the market for IT professionals was buoyant (if you are an employer). However, the market has changed and many new hires have been approved for the next budget.
I think that we need to put some thought into the following:
Employer branding – who do we want to target? How do we want to be viewed? Once we have defined this, how do we tell it to the market?
Sourcing – how do we include proactive sourcing into the model? Can this be done inhouse? what is the benefit of outsourcing this? What other activies can we as an organisation do to network with other IT professionals of like skill-set?(we definitely need to have a stream of potential candidates being identified for the future)
Costs – cost is a huge factor for my company. Unfortunately, the fact is that recruitment costs money whether you do it in-house or not. (There is a huge cost in not having someone in the job being productive because the Recruitment Manager is struggling to identify and process suitable candidates).

What do you believe to be the key elements of a strategic recruitment model? What are other companies doing?

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