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companies now take months to make hiring decisions,
putting the candidates through round-after-round
of interviews with long pauses in between, as the
employer picks through the many worthy candidates.
Some of the cost-cutting took out recruiters. They
used to be the people pushing back on hiring
managers, asking “do you really need someone with
a graduate degree to do this job?” or telling them,
“you aren’t going to find someone with 10 years of
experience at that salary.” Outside recruiters report
that they often have to bring in many candidates who
turn down a client company’s job offers before the
client is persuaded to raise its pay. And some of the
cost-cutting also took out training and development
capabilities, so that hiring managers have no choice
but to wait for candidates who already have all the
skills needed to do the job.
Finally, part of the explanation may also be that this
recession has gone on for so long that it changed
what hiring managers think they can find in the labor
market. Early on in the recession, when literally millions
of people were being laid-off, it was easy to find
someone fresh out of a job with the experience and
skills needed to step right into your vacancy. Now in
the fifth year of the downturn, unemployed candidates
have often been out of work for quite a while. The
candidates with current work experience that hiring
managers want are working for someone else, and
they aren’t desperate to take a new job.
So where does this leave employers — and the
unemployed? The reason markets adjust is because
the participants, in this case the employers, eventually
learn that they either have to raise their pay or lower
their expectations in order to get the workers they
need. That process of learning and adjustment slows
down a lot, though, once companies have cut the
recruiters, who used to do the learning for them, and
the trainers, who could turn imperfect candidates into
credible workers.
HR
Want more on this topic? Come to HR West® where
Peter will speak on “Today’s Talent: Laborforce
Dynamics and Solutions.” For more about
Peter Cappelli, see page 10.
©2014 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by The
New York Times Syndicate.
> CANDIDATES ROUTINELY
REPORT THAT COMPANIES
NOW TAKE MONTHS TO MAKE
HIRING DECISIONS.
