For the last three to four years, the primary concern for hiring managers and talent acquisition specialists has been the challenge of sourcing candidates due to the extremely tight talent market. LinkedIn, social media sites, campus recruiting and headhunting took on a whole new focus for recruiters as they tried to identify qualified and interested candidates for their open positions. Candidate Sourcing was the most sought after service which companies cried out for and desperately needed.
Covid-19 has now turned the whole talent market on its head. Employment is not just going through a correction but creating available talent numbers surpassing those of the great depression. So far, the economic shock and shelter-in-place orders have created an unprecedented economic situation that has resulted in the loss of over 20.5 million jobs. The vast majority of these jobs will once again need to be filled and the incoming flood of candidates applying for the open positions will be something that recruiters and hiring managers will never have experienced before.
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Even in “normal” times, electronic sourcing and résumé management has been one of the most timing consuming and critical parts of the recruitment process which most technology solutions do not handle well. Keyword searching, résumé parsing and binary filtering are, for the most part ineffective, and certainly cannot identify from a resume which candidate has the right skills, experience, education, etc. for each unique open position. These technologies can more or less cull and potentially sort, however, some of the most qualified individuals are passed over and never make the cut because of the limitations of the search methods. Companies miss out on candidates who could potentially be the most qualified, experienced and productive for their organization.
Companies need to reevaluate their hiring processes and technologies now to be prepared for this tidal wave otherwise they will be left to drown in the aftermath of having to sort through the thousands of unqualified resumes that will hit their career sites and ATS systems. More importantly, they will miss out on the very best and most qualified candidates to help get their organizations back to full productivity and profitability again.
Are you ready? If not, it might be time to prepare!
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