When it stops at hiring!

I heard some of the most disturbing lines in my career today morning. I was having a conversation with a recruiter who hires for one of our largest business units. He said – ‘Our job is to hire. It doesn’t matter how he performs post hiring. If the manager is on the fence, we urge him to hire the candidate.’

 This is a clear indication of danger. When recruitment is run entirely on metrics which have no bearing on a candidate’s performance post joining, recruiters are bound to let the standard fall. Our demand of new hires has significantly grown over the past few months. Business is continuously pushing the team to hire more at shorter turnover periods. This has led to unreasonable demands being made to the Talent Acquisition team and them finding shortcuts to fulfill demands.

 Under performance, non compliance to organization values is some of the issues which emerge in course of the candidate’s tenure with the company. This results in us having to look for counseling, training and subsequently means of separation for the employee. The shortsightedness only leads to further loss for the department. For most of the year, we are so engrossed in replacement hiring that growth becomes a secondary issue.

 This pressure on the recruitment team also results in them finding ways to break rules of the game. Short term benefits are always preferred over long term relationship building. Vendors fight over resumes and HR interviews become a mere formality. Rarely is a candidate rejected once he passes the business selection. Cultural fit, communication skills are overlooked for junior resources. What results is a big mismatch in the culture the organization is trying to drive and what results from our actions.

 Recruitment is a key function. Having recruiters tweak the system to benefit them while compromising on values is a failure most small to mid-sized companies face. We need to re-look at the metrics they are held by. As BHR’s it is equally important that we take a look at how this function is working in our organization. Are they doing the best they can to help us with our job or are they hiring people only for us to let them go.