Recruiters & Stress: How to avoid these major recruitment pitfalls.

All recruiters and candidates experience the double-edged sword of deadlines in one way or another. For candidates, the issue is to apply at the right time, while the recruiter’s struggle manifests itself in the form of acquiring the right talent at the right time. Recruiters that operate on a global scale, be it for a multinational company or recruitment agency have to carry the responsibility of personnel acquisition within a certain timeframe. However, the task of filling roles with the right kind of talent can be difficult to complete with a ticking clock in the background.

There’s always pressure from management to recruit suitable candidates as soon as possible. In addition, the demand for highly qualified talent placements is always on the rise.

From the management’s perspective, the mantra would be that the sooner recruitment is finalized for a position, the better. But candidates don't think that way. The majority are deadline-driven and end up signing up a few days shy of published vacancy deadlines.

If we examine six months of recruitment data, we’d see that submissions for recruitment events, business courses, and professional activities see a rise in participation in the final two weeks before the deadline. In the last week, roughly 40% of the candidates would submit themselves as applicants, and at least 60% of all candidates apply in the last three days.

Changing the status quo

There’s only so much that a recruiter can do beyond setting a deadline and following up with candidates to ensure their applications are received within the appropriate amount of time. There really isn’t a straightforward solution for this issue, but there are some ways to mitigate it by carefully defining in-house milestones and optimizing communication. At Manatal we always alert our clients that the larger number of candidates commonly apply on later days and that it’s a normal occurrence that should be expected and planned for. Anticipating candidate behavior is actually a lot simpler than initially expected. If looming deadlines are a key motivator that drives application rates to the roof, recruiters can bend this particular point to their advantage. In order to minimize last-minute applications and late candidate submissions, recruiters can set the public deadline on their published job applications to a week or a few days earlier than the actual deadline. The extra amount of time acquired through this technique gives recruiters some breathing room in terms of finding qualified talent and appeasing management regarding the recruitment rate.

Another way recruiters can incentivize candidates to apply earlier and at a more competitive rate would be through putting emphasis on how limited vacancies are. For example, lines such as “There are still (X) spots available” pushes candidates towards early applications, driven by fear of missing out on a great opportunity.

Stress & Recruitment Relationships

Recruiters rely heavily on their capability to forge and maintain connections and relationships with potential candidates and valuable talent. However, recruitment as an industry is a highly competitive and stressful sphere. If it isn’t about competing with another company or firm, then it’s about the particular talent that drops out unexpectedly, a candidate that misses the interview, and so on. All of these potential hurdles in a recruiter’s path can cause unnecessary stress that impacts the recruitment process they’re trying to maintain. A recruiter’s ability to connect with candidates at the right level can suffer from stress, impacting their judgment and emotional intelligence negatively, leading to subpar hiring decisions and making genuine connections with the candidate almost impossible.

Employer’s role

Granted, these are little methods that can be implemented into the process in order to influence the candidate’s behavior. These tips might not seem like much, but the effect is instant breathing room for recruiters, both on the job front, and when handling their own management. It also yields just enough time to vet and assess candidates as they apply.

But stress is still a major threat to recruiters, especially in a recruitment agency setting, where clients are numerous and placements are required at a certain level of frequency. Recruitment firms generally don’t put as much emphasis on the mental health of their recruiters, as it’s mostly perceived as “Another part of the job”. However, companies nowadays are less likely to stigmatize mental health issues than those a decade or two ago. With the right practices implemented at the proper stages, recruiters can perform their functions with less stress for better results.

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