Panic hires don’t happen to prepared companies. If you want to prevent panic hires, the secret is to always have a team of qualified “players” on the bench, ready to jump in the game when called upon.
Good coaches know that the “winningest” teams are built through constant development. Winning teams start with cherry-picked players — the very best the coaches can get. And they are constantly on the lookout for the next great player. Why shouldn’t your company constantly be on the lookout for its next great hire?
The “Always Be Courting” (or ABC) approach is an important component of a ready-for-anything, agile approach to hiring. Essentially, it’s ongoing recruitment and hiring. It’s about positioning your “team” to respond quickly, efficiently, and with positive results when a “player” is pulled out or booted from the game. In other words, no more panic hires.
The ABC approach is well-suited to the new reality of what CareerBuilder has termed the “candidate-powered economy,” reflecting the power shift from employer to candidate during the recruitment and hiring process. In a candidate-powered economy, competition for qualified candidates is fierce, and companies with slow, clumsy hiring processes lose good candidates. Savvy companies get ready and stay that way.
For an ABC approach to succeed, you must lay the proper foundation for a hiring process to identify what your next right fit hire looks like and ready them to hit the ground running. That means doing the work to:
We recently wrote about how to make the best of a bad situation if you must make a last minute “panic hire.” At that point, if you have not already laid the groundwork to hire properly there is little you can do at the last minute to make a bad situation good. It’s more about mitigating damage and considering postponement (a smart move, considering that 73% of employers say a bad hire is “far more costly” than leaving a position open, according to CareerBuilder’s 2015 Candidate Behavior Study).
On the other hand, if you have taken the necessary steps to prepare your company for a last minute hire, then it is entirely possible to make a last minute, same-day hire with a great outcome (see Dr. John Sullivan’s discussion of how to pull it off). Such a one-day hiring system (fast yet strategic) is a great addition to your hiring repertoire and depends on your ability to implement the ABC approach and have an established hiring process in place.
What does it get you? Here are the many potential benefits of an “ABC” approach:
What are you doing to build your bench in the new candidate-powered economy? Let us know in the comments or on social.
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