Hiring Throughput: Next big challenge for Talent Practitioners & People Leaders

Ever applied for a role you're a perfect fit for, only to receive an automated rejection email? You might have assumed there were stronger candidates in the fray. But when the same story unfolds across different companies, you can't help but wonder, “If I met all the criteria, shouldn't I have at least had an initial conversation with the recruiter?”

Sometimes, this might be because a company has an overwhelming pool of relevant applicants. However, more often, the root of the issue lies in the challenge of “Hiring Throughput.” A vital issue, its complexities are seldom explored in HR circles or broader business forums.

What is “Hiring Throughput”?

Hiring Throughput is a concept that reflects the operational efficiency and bandwidth of the recruitment team. It's an acknowledgment that, regardless of the quality or suitability of candidates, there's a practical limit to how many individuals a recruiter or a hiring team can engage within a given timeframe.

With the recent downsizing of TA teams across many organizations, what was once seen as a mere operational hurdle is now poised to become a pivotal challenge for Talent & People teams in 2024. Its ramifications extend to operations, diversity, culture, attrition, and cost.

The Implications of Limited Hiring Throughput

For a simplistic example, Recruiters can realistically conduct 5 phone screens per day. This caps the number of interviews in a week to 25 phone screens. Provided that the recruiter on an average manages 8 roles (Hackerrank, 2022) at any given point of time, this means that only 3.13 interviews per role in a week. 

Capacity constraints compel recruiters to shortlist based on reputation or assumptions, thereby veering away from skills-based recruitment. Even teams dedicated to championing equal opportunity and who have undergone bias-training are not immune to these operational pitfalls. If candidates aren't shortlisted from the outset, even the best recruitment processes fall short.

How does it impacts organizations:

• Misalignment with Hiring Philosophy: Companies boast about being equal opportunity employers, emphasizing skill-based hiring. Yet, 'Hiring Throughput' bottlenecks push recruiters towards biases and shortcuts. This creates a disconnect between a company's hiring philosophy and its actual process.
• Amplifying Bias: Recruiters often prefer candidates from certain universities or corporations. This not only deviates from a skills-based hiring approach but also magnifies inherent biases of those institutions or firms.
• Economic Implications: Everyone vying for candidates from elite institutions leads to a spike in hiring and retention costs. This affects short-term profitability and erodes long-term strategic advantage in our knowledge-centric economy.

Addressing Hiring Throughput Challenges: How can TA Practitioners & People Leader address these challenges?

• Foster Collaborative Shortlisting: Encourage TA Teams to collaborate with Hiring Teams and Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) teams and set agreed-upon shortlisting protocols. This can foster knowledge exchange, ensuring a more comprehensive understanding of a candidate's transferable skills. Periodic audits, coupled with ongoing bias-awareness training, can ensure these guidelines are consistently applied.
• Modernize the TA Technology Stack: It's time for organizations to upgrade their Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). While some ATS platforms have embraced contemporary analytics and AI, many remain outdated. Adopting agile, analytics-driven ATS platforms with Generative AI capabilities can enhance automation, increasing hiring throughput.
• Expand TA Capacity: Given budget constraints for TA across most industries in 2023, it's wise to consider third-party collaborations to boost screening capacity. Companies like Rattleberry offer talent solutions that can augment TA Capacity with their extensive network of expert interviewers, covering HR screening to craft-specific evaluations.

In conclusion, while Hiring Throughput is undoubtedly a challenge, it also presents a golden chance for TA leaders to innovate and realign hiring practices with organizational ethos and aspirations. In the escalating battle for top talent, those addressing this issue proactively will secure a distinct advantage in 2024.