Project management professionals are trained to proactively address a Triple Constraint whenever undertaking a significant endeavor. Who knew that HR recruiters, hiring managers, or anyone else looking to on-board hard-to-find talent, could take a page right from the PMI PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge) to find talent acquisition advice? That’s because the restraints project managers face are the exact same as those experienced by anyone looking to acquire talent for their organization. What are those three constraints, and what are some creative ways to address them? TalentWoo dishes on the Triple Constraint for hiring.
Time: How long can your project be delayed before you absolutely MUST have this employee on-board? What are the ramifications if this person is not hired within the desired time-frame? Does quality suffer because there is no one qualified to perform the task properly? Does employee morale drop because you are asking one engineer to do the job of two? Does the project, product or service simply get delayed?
Options to reduce time to hire include: increased job marketing; employing the service of retained or contingency recruiting agencies; offering higher salaries or sign-on bonuses; relocating talent from another market; and hiring contractors immediately.
Cost: How much money are you losing by not having the product or service completed properly or on time? Be honest. Consider the opportunity cost of NOT having an engineer or sales person (the amount of money lost by not being able to complete a project, engage a customer, or provide a solution to a prospect) . If the cost of recruiting the right hire is less than the revenue lost by not having him, it may make sense to open up the wallet (either in recruiting fees, annual salary, or sign-on bonus).
Creative solutions to lower the cost of hire include: employee referral programs; social media campaigns such as those offered by TalentWoo; advertising directly on job search engines instead of job boards; hiring less expensive talent, and then training them.
Scope: What if you cannot afford to wait (you have no time), and you can’t afford to pay more in salary or recruiting fees? Then you MUST budge on the last constraint – scope (ie what this potential hire will be expected to do, or what qualifications this potential employee is expected to have).
Time and again we hear customers complain that they cannot adjust their expectations in any of the three areas. The truth is that they will address at least one constraint – whether they want to or not. And it will usually be Time. If a company is unwilling to change the job requirements and is not flexible with salary, then they are simply going to have to WAIT (or lose time) until someone qualified, and in their pay range surfaces.
If your organization is feeling constrained by your staffing and talent acquisition needs for 2013, then call TalentWoo today. We specialize in helping organizations find and locate the right professionals for those hard-to-fill openings. If you are looking for Construction Recruiters, Real Estate Recruiters, or Property Management Recruiters, then call us today!