Message to Employers: Last week, a recruiter I know found the perfect candidate for a client with a mid-level professional vacancy.
Being a recruiter is like being a matchmaker. Recruiters seek a magic combo of skills and experience required to insert the right person into a hole in an organization. This is hard work.
The position had been open for three months.That means the manager and co-workers have been filling the responsibilities for the vacant position in addition to their regular duties. This is a crazy amount of extra work. You would think they would be motivated to fill the position with the right candidate.
The candidate was perfect. He had ten years of experience. He could come in and immediately contribute. This is magic, right?
Wrong. Tripped up at the final moment by a tiny detail. Vacation.
The perfect candidate had ten years of experience and needed vacation in the first year. He had been getting three weeks of vacation in his last company. His small children expected something, even a week. As a millennial, the candidate expected a little work/life balance. But no. The company had a rule. Rules must be kept.
You might expect me to admonish the job seeker to be more flexible and accept the perfect job without vacation, but I am not going to do that. I want to have a word with the company.
Why in the world would a job seeker at any but the most entry level want to join your firm if they give up three weeks of vacation?
How can you expect to attract qualified, experienced candidates?
Older baby boomers might be willing to sacrifice vacation but younger workers are not. They want something in exchange for hard work. This is not an unreasonable expectation.
This company lost a good candidate, perhaps the perfect candidate, because they have a rule. If they showed even a little flexibility on their rule, they could have filled the vacancy with a qualified, experienced candidate but instead the company preserved the sanctity of their rule but must still scramble to cover the vacancy until they find someone desperate enough to fit their life into the company rules. Co-workers will continue to pick up the slack. Work will continue to go unfinished while the company searches.
What a foolish short sighted choice. Is the Hiring and Recruiting process costing your company Time and Money? The Interview Doctor can help!