At one time or another in your recruiting career, you’ve probably experienced a hiring freeze. There are a variety of reasons why your company has decided to put it on hold. Whether you’re going through a reorganization, involved in an acquisition, conducting lay-offs, here are three things you should consider:
Be Prepared
Your organization’s recruiting documentation should include information about what to do when hiring is put on hold. There are a variety of things you can do when this occurs, and there isn’t a one size fits all answer. For larger enterprise companies, it might make sense to temporarily repurpose some of your recruiters to other departments depending on how long you anticipate the freeze to be in effect. If the timeline is shorter, have action items in place for your recruiters so they’re not caught off guard.
Pandemic or not, your company can be put in a hiring freeze at the drop of a hat. It’s important that you have a process in place for when this occurs, so you’re still able to operate efficiently.
There’s more talent available, but…
There’s more talent available, but that’s not necessarily a benefit for your company. This is a tricky concept because letting employees go isn’t the same as layoffs. Certain companies are going to be letting high performers go simply because they cannot afford to keep them.
While this is certainly true, oftentimes what you’ll see is that market becomes saturated with candidates that are good, not great. Having to process an abundance of candidates makes it more difficult to acquire top-tier talent because you’re speaking with candidates that are closer to the middle of the pack.
Every organization should aspire to acquire the best talent available, and they do. These candidates traditionally aren’t on the market for longer than 10 days. Keep this in mind as your pipelines become flooded with good candidates; you need to be highly efficient when processing applicants so you don’t miss out on great candidates.
