Renewed Sense of Urgency Marks Hiring For Second Half of 2011, According to MRINetwork

June 10, 2011 - PRLog -- As the economy gains speed and companies staff up to reach their 2011 revenue goals, hiring managers are concentrating on finding experienced top performers who can hit the ground running. Despite this urgency, many companies are taking too much time when seeking to hire good talent, according to recruiters at MRINetwork® (www.mrinetwork.com), one of the world’s largest search and recruitment organizations.

“It’s unwise to assume there is an unlimited talent pool in this market,” says Rob Romaine, president of MRINetwork. “The best talent is most likely already working, particularly in fields such as healthcare, science, and technology. While the first challenge is finding qualified candidates, the bigger challenge is closing the deal and hiring them. Why? Because they have options.”

This is especially true for college-educated professionals. “The unemployment rate for those with a four-year degree is down to just over 4 percent, nearly half the national average. Over the last decade, total U.S. employment has grown by a meager 1.5 percent. Over the same time, however, employment for those with a four-year degree has grown by more than 20 percent,” points out Romaine.

“As companies accelerate hiring, they are almost entirely hiring for positions which require four-year degrees or better. If they are looking at high unemployment rates and expecting they’ll be able to easily find high-quality candidates, they are going to be surprised when the best candidates aren’t beating a path to their door,” he continues.

Romaine believes that candidates are vetting prospective employers just as carefully as the employers are vetting them. “In today’s job market, an employer must realize that a highly qualified candidate will not tolerate an inefficient interview process,” he says. “In fact, top performers use the interview process to size up the organization. Delays and indecision signal weakness in the organization and the best candidates tend to move on.”

Just because a candidate has agreed to an interview doesn’t mean they will stay committed to an opportunity. “All it means is that they may be ready to take the job if it is the best opportunity at the time for them and their career,” says Romaine. “If the candidate is greeted by interviewers who are late, unprepared, or not fully engaged, only the weakest candidates – with the least amount of options – will remain interested in the role.”

Once candidates know that they are attractive to other organizations, there is a very short period of time to make the hire. “If there is a delay, candidates who were initially excited about a job can easily become enamored with an opportunity that presents itself in the meantime,” cautions Romaine. “In our experience, the longer the interview process gets dragged out, the more likely a hire won’t occur.”

If this scenario is happening repeatedly, Romaine advises companies to reexamine their hiring process. “This isn’t a short-term situation that companies can ‘wait out.’ We are in a perpetually advanced economy that requires an increasing number of workers with advanced skills in order to grow,” says Romaine. “When key positions are waiting to be filled, a sense of urgency may be the key to ensuring that the company is able to meet its goals.”

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About MRINetwork®:
Management Recruiters International, Inc., branded as MRINetwork®, is one of the largest executive search and recruitment organizations in the world. A subsidiary of CDI Corp. , a global provider of engineering & information technology outsourcing solutions and professional staffing, the MRINetwork has approximately 850 offices in 35 countries. Visit MRINetwork at www.mrinetwork.com.