Your Government – Education Hiring Is Frozen. What Now?
The University of California and a long list of other colleges, from Harvard to MIT to Notre Dame to the University of Washington, are freezing hiring.
The private-sector regularly does the same. When for-profit corporations cut down on hiring, they don’t cut out all talent-acquisition activities. Neither should your school, non-profit, or government.
Here are some of the steps your organization may want to take if you are facing a hiring freeze.
Define and publicize the terms
Sometimes a hiring freeze means no hires will be made for a certain period of time, period, end of storm. Other times, it means you can hire people, but only with certain approvals.
Much of the time, however, a “freeze” means no new jobs are added to an organization’s headcount. Positions that open up, for example due to a retirement or resignation, will be filled.
This may be obvious to you: You may be aware that your organization’s “freeze” allows jobs to be filled. But, the media may not be. If publications simply list your organization as operating under a hiring freeze, it may give you negative publicity you don’t need, and reduce the number of potential applicants for open jobs. Contact these publications and correct the record. Make sure your social-media sites and your own organization’s website makes it clear that you are still hiring.
Improve your data-gathering
Slower hiring periods are a great time to improve the way you analyze data, and to optimize the return on investment of any tools and technologies you use.
Many talent-acquisition technologies, such as legacy applicant tracking systems, show how much traffic various sources of hire are performing. However, they typically show this data for only some of the major job boards. And the data often only shows the views or number of applicants delivered, not how many were hired.
The most sophisticated recruiting technologies go a step further. Yes, they track how many people saw your advertisements. But site traffic does not necessarily equal results. These modern technologies track how many people applied, interviewed, and were hired, so you can see how many quality applicants each source is delivering and spend more wisely.
Build pipelines of talent
Hiring is like the stock market. You don’t always have a warning that it’s going to change for the better or for the worse. It can do so quickly and sharply.
A hiring freeze should not mean that you stop nurturing your talent pool, for it will turn on a dime. It can take years to fill some jobs, such as certain university faculty positions, so continuing to recruit during a “freeze” is essential.
Now is the time to build your brand. Now is the time to make sure that what you are saying about your institution reflects reality.
This does not mean just your website. Depending on your organization, it could mean your LinkedIn jobs page, your Glassdoor pages, or even Yelp or Facebook.
Continue to grow your database of talent. Continue to send prospects emails or other communications letting them know of the good work your organization is doing.
Be sure to vary your communications based on the role. Potential admissions-office candidates to a university might want to hear that you’ve just accepted your most acclaimed class of students ever. On the other hand, potential candidates for other roles might want to see that you are opening a new, state-of-the-art foodservice building.
We have people on our staff who have experience in recruitment branding, marketing, and advertising. Let us know if you want advice.
Don’t assume everything costs money
If you are operating under a period of very tight budgets, there are still options for advertising the jobs you need to fill.
Again, this varies based on the role. But some organizations like local Chambers of Commerce may be able to list your jobs at no charge. Some government agencies may do the same. People may be willing to spread the word on social media about your jobs. Goodwill and other groups can help you publicize jobs, such as for a cafeteria or custodian position.
Learn from past hires
So often, the talent or human resources department loses touch with a person once they are hired. This is a loss of a lot of valuable insight.
Contact the people you have hired on a regular basis. Ask them how the job is going. Ask them how the hiring process might be improved, and about good sources of hires. See who they know who might be a good prospect for any roles you expect to open up (when the freeze is undone). Get their input on your emails or communications. For example, if you’re going to be hiring for the role they’re doing now, ask if the job description or job posting you are using is accurate.
Think skills, not jobs
Many companies, and many state governments, are relaxing degree requirements. They are hiring people based on their skills. This may involve skills learned in a bachelor’s program, a master’s, the military, on a job, in an apprenticeship, through online courses, or through related or similar jobs to the one where there is an opening.
This is a good time to consider whether you should focus more on skills. If so, a cultural shift needs to happen. In many private-sector organizations, there has been a concerted effort to “hire for skills,” but managers default to people with the most prestigious alma maters or past employers. A transformation like this takes time.
Create a better candidate experience
Apply for one of your jobs. Have a friend or family member do the same. See what you learn about the application process as you become a candidate. There may be improvements to make life easier for the candidate and to become more efficient on your end.
Also, related to the candidate experience, managers’ interviewing skills can probably be improved; in many cases, the manager doing the interview is a professor, a city manager, or working in another non-human-resources job, and has little interview training on preventing bias and hiring the best candidate.
This freeze will melt away
You have probably heard and read about the many companies (like Apple) that have used slowdowns, not economic booms, to launch products. Similarly, if you are facing a hiring slowdown, this is the time to double-down on the practices that attract talent in the long run. Let us know how we can help.
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