How to Hire Right Now
Most of us know that success in business depends on people. From an entrepreneur-led startup to a large organization, we don’t go very far without relying on individuals and teams. Some go so far as to say that the only real competitive differentiation organizations have is people.
But hiring the right talent isn’t easy. We’re often worried we may pick the wrong person.
A hiring mistake can cost up to 5x the bad hire’s annual salary. -SHRM
As the CEO of a large company, I’m often pushing managers to fill open positions. To me, an opening that drags on too long causes all kinds of other problems. Customer needs not met, employees doing multiple jobs for too long, and milestones delayed.
Scott Wintrip takes on the topic of hiring talent in his new book, High Velocity Hiring: How to Hire Top Talent in an Instant. Through his global consultancy, Wintrip Consulting Group, Scott has worked with companies around the world to hire top talent in less than an hour. I recently talked with him about his research and his new book.
It’s Taking Too Long!
Why is it taking longer and longer to fill jobs?
Two factors have caused the time it takes to fill a job to reach all-time highs: the skills shortage and an inefficient hiring process.
There’s a persistent talent shortage that’s pervasive across all industries. For example, when you look at middle-skill roles (jobs that require education beyond high-school and below the level of a four-year degree), there’s a gap between the number of jobs and the number of people to fill them. According to the National Skills Coalition, middle-skill roles account for 53 percent of jobs in the United States. However, only 43 percent of U.S. worker have current skills at the middle-skill level.
Copyright Scott Wintrip. Used by Permission.Qualified people also have more employment choices than ever, including the option of doing their own thing by joining the “gig economy” as freelancers. Because of this, an increasing number of people are leaving the traditional workforce. When you combine this with increased globalization, borders will matter less, creating a talent competition unlike anything we’ve seen before.
The old way of hiring—keeping a job open until the right person shows up—doesn’t work when there’s a people shortage. A reactive process keeps a job open for weeks or months. To have the people they need, organizations must permanently change their hiring strategy by engaging in the new way of hiring: actively cultivating top talent and then waiting for the right job to open.
“Dating and hiring have a lot in common.” -Scott Wintrip
