Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/234597
Recruitment Within Reach A new report examines the current talent landscape. By Pam Berklich Far from simply filling existing gaps as quickly and economically as possible, recruiting has become a highstakes competition to foresee economic conditions and business projections, estimate critical talent gaps as early as possible, and source the highest-quality talent available. Even in the face of economic recovery in many global markets, recruiting top talent remains a major concern; in particular, a shortage of skilled labor continues to vex hiring managers. Accessing quality talent remains a top concern. As many recent studies confirm, among the biggest challenges HR professionals face is recruiting quality talent. The 2013 PwC CEO Survey found more than half of United States CEOs report a shortage of skills is a potential threat to growth this year. Respondents to our RPO survey report similar frustration. Sixty-one percent say they experience difficulty recruiting staff, and of those, 87 percent blame a shortage of skilled recruiting staff in the roles required. Other critical challenges include being unable to offer a competitive salary (49 percent) and offering an undesirable work location (30 percent)—both of which only sustain the all-important challenge of attracting and retaining top talent. [44] HRO TODAY MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2013 Hiring Challenges A shortage of high quality talent is a serious problem for more than two-thirds of companies. Sixty-eight percent report talent shortages slow or stall the hiring process (see Figure 1). Among other top factors slowing the hiring process: hiring manager satisfaction (37 percent), time-to-hire (36 percent), cost-to-hire (25 percent) and quality of recruiters (23 percent). Not surprisingly more than a third report their organization's average timeto-hire is more than 45 days, a statistic signaling that despite reports of high unemployment, a number of roles are still very difficult to fill. Time-to-hire is still a difficult statistic to benchmark given variation by type of hire, industry, company size, and outsourced vs. inhouse recruiting. As a point of comparison, however, the Society for Human Resources Management reports the average time to-hire for large organizations—those with more than 1,000 employees—is 43 days. Time to hire for small organizations—defined as having fewer than 1,000 employees—is 29 days. Hiring appears robust for the coming year, both for internal full-time labor as well as contingent hires. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of companies surveyed plan to increase the number of internal full-time hires in next