Hiring managers among top challenges for HR in recruitment: Survey

Finding qualified candidates, technical skills also difficult

When it comes to finding and acquiring talent, hiring managers are one of the biggest challenges facing HR professionals, according to a survey by the McQuaig Institute.

Fifty-three per cent of HR professionals identified issues with hiring managers — such as getting them to make time for interviews and gaining their agreement — as one of the top three challenges they face in recruiting talent.

Nearly one-half (45 per cent) said their hiring managers are not strong interviewers — that number climbed to 65 per cent for large companies.

Also challenges are finding qualified candidates (53 per cent) and finding the right technical skills (41 per cent), found the 2014 McQuaig Global Talent Recruitment Survey.

“HR professionals are frustrated,” said Ian Cameron, managing director of the McQuaig Institute. “They’re focused on bringing the right talent into their organizations and the single biggest obstacle is not skills shortages, candidate supply or qualifications; it’s their internal partners.”

When it comes to filling a position, 45 per cent of respondents said the average time is two months while 25 per cent said it’s up to one month and 21 per cent said three months.

The top three reasons a candidate turns down a job offer are:

•Total compensation isn’t high enough (39 per cent).

•They accepted another offer (29 per cent).

•They accepted a counter-offer from their current employer (11 per cent).

One-half of HR professionals said it’s hard to find a good cultural fit. New employees are also getting unhappy earlier, with 54 per cent saying disenchantment begins to set in during the first three to six months, found the survey.

To help improve talent acquisition, HR professionals said their top three investments for this year will be in:

•social media management

•onboarding programs

•employment websites.

Latest stories