A new survey of human resource professionals at midsize organizations about their recruitment practices reveals that 24 percent say they lack budgets for advertising, 28 percent say they lack budgets for compensation negotiation and 18 percent can’t afford a recruiting staff.
“We were surprised at what we found from the survey, particularly as it related to cost,” said Maren Hogan, CEO of Red Branch Media, the company that commissioned the survey. “HR Practitioners and recruiters are being squeezed by rising costs and are unhappy with the results they are getting from larger job boards–even though there appears to be very little movement away from these job boards. Even more shocking was the dissatisfaction the vast majority reported with everything from candidate quality to ease of use.”
This survey, conducted by Red Branch Media and Beyond, explores the results of a survey conducted by Beyond to better understand the plights of recruiting and hiring within the midsized organizations. Often, these middle sized organizations face budgetary challenges not experienced by larger employers, but have far larger hiring needs than smaller employers. The survey explores which issues present the largest challenges and where to better concentrate budgets to serve organizational needs.
Source: Beyond.com
Three of the biggest struggles midsize organizations face when recruiting talent are: writing effective job descriptions (27%), keeping messaging consistent across all recruitment levels (24%), and accurately representing their employer brand (22%). According to midsize employers, however, job boards continue to be a great source of quality hires, second only to employee referrals.
“While a budget can certainly help small and midsize [employers] compete with industry giants, a strong employer brand could be more crucial than money,” said Joe Weinlick, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Beyond. “[Organizations] need to get better at selling their brand to potential candidates, and they have the tools, considering that it is not uncommon for an HR department to place more ads than marketing. The fact that only 6% of midsize [employers] respondents said that a weak employer brand is their biggest recruitment challenge—yet they still struggle to hire—suggests that employers need to make big changes to their recruitment process.”
For more information about the survey results and analysis, download the PDF.
