The Recruiting Rodeo 🐎: WHY SO MANY COMPANIES CAN'T HIRE THEIR OWN TALENT

Vol. 4: My POV + Takeaways From Hiring Leaders

Howdy, job seekers, fellow recruiters, talent acquisition, HR professionals and Hiring Managers! In this installment of The Recruiting Rodeo 🐎, we’ll hear from some of my favorite Hiring Leaders — straight from the “horse’s mouth,” if you will — about challenges they face when hiring talent and why they often need to go outside for help.

But first, I’m going to share my “Top Eight Reasons Why So Many Companies Can’t Hire Their Own Talent” — informed by my own observations, working as both a retained and corporate executive recruiter for 25 years.

Why eight, you may ask? Because to even get a ride scored in a rodeo, the cowgirl/boy must stay on the bucking bull or horse for a minimum of eight seconds.

We’re getting really close to entering “the ring.” in fact, I’m thinking that with another two Rodeos under our belts, we’ll be ready to wrestle some big steers to the ground pretty soon. So I hope you’ve ordered your boots, gloves, chaps, and spurs. And In the meantime, let's take another warm-up ride!

THE TOP EIGHT REASONS WHY SO MANY COMPANIES CAN’T HIRE THEIR OWN TALENT

1. The Company needs to hire talent for a transformative or specialized position and doesn’t have the “bench” internally (i.e., current or existing employees) with the expertise/qualifications required, so the Company needs to go deep into the competition and/or external marketplace to find it. Often, these positions are newly-created as the result of emerging technologies like AI and other industry-wide innovation.

2. The Company is looking to hire a “hybrid” (my FAVORITE type of candidate to search for!) — an executive who possesses a unique mix of skills from multiple job function areas and frequently, experience in multiple industries. Speaking strictly hypothetically… this could be an SVP of Marketing for the gaming division of a newly-formed, publicly-traded, global media and entertainment conglomerate that is in the process of switching its entire gaming product line from hardware, software and mobile technologies to subscription-only mobile gaming. The Company may have acquired a mobile gaming startup to make it all happen and needs a marketing leader who can not only a) integrate and lead a newly-combined and sizable global marketing and product team supported by outside contractors and consultants but also b) select all of the outside creative and social media agencies that will be involved in rolling out the new brand which is projected to debut in less than a year. Sounds like someone might need to call in the cavalry…

3. The Company is replacing someone who is already in the role, but the person being replaced doesn’t know s/he is being replaced😔, so the search requires the utmost confidentiality.

4. The Company’s internal talent-acquisition function is severely under-resourced. The person in charge of HR or People at a small company could actually be the Office Manager or COO — yet Company leadership expects him/her to function as the Company’s defacto Talent Acquisition “head” and lead Recruiter for any and all hiring that takes place within the organization. Depending on the number of hires that need to be made in a certain time period, the seniority of the positions to be filled, and other factors, it’s a completely unrealistic expectation… but quite common nonetheless. In this scenario, the person in charge of hiring often relies heavily on online job postings and contingency search firms.

5. The Company’s internal recruiters are over-reliant on the Company ATS (Applicant Tracking System) and online job postings to find candidates and have never had to “hunt” for talent proactively. Their only jobs may have been in-house at the Company; they never worked at a Search Firm. If you’re Microsoft or Netflix, and you post a job online, your Company ATS gets flooded with resumes from highly-competent candidates (not to mention completely unqualified ones). Hundreds, if not thousands. Most Companies don’t have the luxury of instant brand recognition and a (high) stock price that’s always in the news. Combine that challenge with a) the significant reduction in recruiter headcount over the past year due to company-wide layoffs and b) Company leadership mandating significant investment in AI-fueled software in the hopes it will produce top candidates more easily and solve many of the problems that Companies have finding talent… and we could see Companies working more often with outside search firms, rather than less often.

6. The Company’s internal Recruiters do not understand the job functions for which they need to find and recruit candidates, and Hiring Managers have limited time to teach them and bring them up to speed. C-level execs, VPs, Directors — they all have busy day jobs and need to trust that the Company’s HR or Talent Acquisition leader(s) know what they’re doing when in pursuit of highly-qualified candidates.

7. The Company hires kids straight out of college or elsewhere (or elevates existing employees) who possess no real-world business or job-function experience, and then, gives them searches to work on solo — including senior-level ones. I have seen Company Executive Assistants (EAs) or receptionists get promoted to the role of lead Recruiter, a position in which his/her chief responsibilities are managing the entire hiring process on behalf of her/his C-level Hiring Leader and managing all day-to-day contact with the external search firm or Recruiter. (A Leg Up 💡while I am all for on-the-job learning and promoting from within, these kinds of salary-saving and well-intentioned shortcuts are not a viable talent acquisition strategy, no matter how “lucky” 🍀 entry-level and new recruiters get in filling open positions).

And now, my personal favorite….

8. The Company’s internal Recruiters are hiring for positions that will be based at the corporate HQ, and the Recuiters live nowhere near the HQ and understand neither the geography of nor the commuting challenges posed by the region in which the corporate HQ is located. One of my Los Angeles-based, C-level candidates may have said it best: “The number of miles is in NO WAY reflective of the time (and frankly the pain) involved in getting where you need to go.”

(Okay, I lied! If you’re reading this, you’ve already done the equivalent of staying on the bull for the required eight seconds – with your free arm confidently in the air 🎉, so I”m going to keep going!)

9. The Company’s internal Recruiters are working on too many searches at once and no mere mortal could possibly get them all done in a timely manner without assistance. Imagine walking into a new recruiting job where you would be finding and recruiting candidates for positions that exist at some of the highest levels of a Company — and being assigned five searches within two weeks of hire in completely different job-function areas, meaning that no two searches for candidates will be alike or overlap in any way. These positions could be in finance, marketing, technology, business development and partnerships, corporate strategy, etc. And you have no support. Many of you might not have to imagine this scenario at all, because it’s all too real. (A Leg Up 💡overloading Recruiters, experienced or inexperienced ones, with too many searches — especially high-level ones for positions that have the potential to drive millions, if not billions, of dollars in revenue growth for a Company — is never a good idea and will produce neither a great candidate experience nor the desired results for the Hiring Leader).

10. The Company’s Management Consultants, VC partners, or FWG (“Friend Who Golfs”- typically a C-level exec) told the CEO or other Company Leader to hire his/her favorite, retained executive search firm — regardless of that firm’s actual expertise and track record in hiring for similar roles and in similar industries. More often than not, the individual who made the recommendation has an MBA from an elite business school, which, while impressive, does not automatically make him/her an expert at evaluating and hiring executive search firms — nor an expert in the complex process of executive-search or a specialized job function and how the team in that job function, works best.

“FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH” — REAL HIRING LEADERS SHARE THEIR HIRING CHALLENGES AT THEIR OWN COMPANIES

I asked some C-level executives I have known for decades (and whom I admire and trust) to share their perspectives gained from their own hiring experiences. Specifically, what some of their challenges look like from inside the Company and why they have often had to “go outside” — to contract external search firms — when hiring. Though the question stayed the same, they all gave markedly different answers. Even more interesting was how the style of their responses varied based on the size of their Companies, even within the same industries. The feedback, all invaluable, from the high-level execs from the smaller, non-publicly-traded Companies in my sample (Companies with 500-1000 employees) provided much more nuance than the two, senior-level Hiring Managers (both Vice Presidents) at larger, publicly-traded Companies — one of whom even alluded to being hands-off in the Company’s hiring process 😱.

Former Global Editor-in-Chief of One of the Most Pioneering Media Companies of All Time (Which Just Closed Down Its Shop and It’s Such a Shame!)

“Having been on both sides of the executive-recruitment table, working with an external recruiter saves money, time, tears, and fears. The best firms offer a crucial buffer between talent, hiring managers, and internal HR teams — aligning their goals to find the right match. The burden of weeks or even months of interviews and negotiations can be shifted offsite, ensuring the right candidates rise to the top. Oftentimes the talent pool for crucial positions is so specific and scarce that without the help of an outside recruiter you might as well grab a metal detector and start looking for your next hire in the sands of Far Rockaway [Beach].”

C-level Executive in the Online Healthcare Industry

“Recruiters, of course, want to fill open roles with top talent... but they also want to fill open roles, period. Hiring managers also want to get their roles filled BUT they have to live with the consequences of their hiring decisions day in and day out. So they often want to keep a high bar and hold out for the best candidate. At times, with teams that aren't really closely aligned, this can be an inherent challenge — with pressure from the recruiting team to lower the bar, make a ‘compromise hire,’ and just get the seat filled.”

Vice President at a Big Pharmaceutical Company (publicly-traded)

“Internal recruiters have been impacted by workforce reductions, which has resulted in a struggle to balance recruiting efforts with other responsibilities. Thus, it is taking longer to fill positions.”

“External recruiters can inadvertently leak information about job openings or sensitive company details, whereas the challenge with internal recruiters is maintaining confidentiality within the organization.”

“Most external recruiters do not fully understand or prioritize the company's values and culture when sourcing candidates. Internal recruiters have limited resources and the need to fill open positions quickly, resulting in not always finding the best cultural fit.”

Former Vice President at a Large, Global Technology Company (publicly-traded)

“Hiring internally is so much easier than hiring externally. But you need to mix in new talent on an ongoing basis, so external is necessary.  I find external hiring more difficult, as I’m not on the front lines, and sometimes, some of the best candidates get filtered out by AI algorithms or by the recruiter.  Other times, the recruiter doesn’t know how to excite the candidates, as they lack understanding of the day-to-day of the job the person is being hired for… The best HR and recruiters I have worked with take a big-time interest in the job, the organization, and the job description, with the intent to sell good talent, not just be administrative.  I found those recruiters to be invaluable partners and wish there were more like them — those few gold nuggets made a big difference in getting the best talent!!” 

As a follow up, I asked the Former Tech VP to clarify if s/he was describing her/his own internal Recruiters and HR team, or external recruiters and search firms. The reply was: “I am referring to internal recruiters and HR. I have not worked directly with external recruiters, although I think the HR team does behind the scenes in some cases.“

WHOA, THERE…

That last answer, my friends, tells you EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHY TALENT ACQUISITION IS BROKEN. If you leave the Hiring Manager out of the direct hiring process, you will not get optimum results. No matter how busy s/he is, the Hiring Manager MUST be involved in the talent acquisition process, especially when hiring for senior-level positions on his/her team. VPs and Directors at Companies should know exactly how their internal Talent Acquisition process works AND provide inputs into the process.  

Having held senior-level positions in communications and marketing before making a career pivot to executive search, I know all too well how busy Company leaders are. Most weeks, I worked seven days, 10-14 hours a day, to manage and maintain the image and “magic” of the highest-grossing restaurant in America. I needed to hire, too - outside agencies, an assistant. It took a lot of time out of my day. So when working with Hiring Managers on a retained search, my top priority is making their lives easier, not more difficult. Alleviating the very time-consuming parts of the search process so they only see the results — highly-qualified, “engaged” and interested candidates.

But if there’s one thing all of my experience has taught me, it’s that THE HIRING MANAGER MUST BE INVOLVED DIRECTLY IN THE HIRING PROCESS WITH THE RECRUITERS (INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL) FOR THE POSITION TO BE FILLED SUCCESSFULLY AND IN A TIMELY MANNER. If HR is made the primary “point of contact” (POC) and the HR leader has no experience recruiting — and limited knowledge of what its competitors and other Companies in the space are doing — that could be paying, leveling, and what candidates really want — because HR is not at its core an external-facing job function, it will simply delay the search and possibly, not produce the best results.

Hold your horses: I am not in any way suggesting that HR be removed from the Talent Acquisition process. HR is a critical and valuable function (and audience), not to mention a critical stakeholder in the completion of a successful search. But the job of the HR team is very different from that of the Recruiters responsible for finding the talent. In my view, inserting HR (or any other person who is NOT the Hiring Manager) into a key search is like playing a game of “telephone” when you were a kid — things always get lost in transmission. Is it necessary? Sometimes the answer is “yes” because, as we have learned, many Companies (especially smaller ones) don’t have the budgets and resources to hire their own dedicated recruiters.

Executive search is a full-time pursuit, its own professional or job function, and a rewarding and lifelong career for many of us who do it. My North Star in writing these Substacks is this: if people are, in fact, a Company’s “greatest asset” — words we see repeated ‘til the cows come home in places ranging from professional social media platforms to “Best Workplace” issues designed to generate ad dollars for the media companies who produce those big annual awards shows — doesn’t it make sense that Recruiters would have a seat at the talent-acquisition table? Especially the experienced ones?

Let’s keep moving forward and try to better understand the POVs of the various audiences who work in Talent Acquisition — including the perspective of those searching for jobs — so that we can actually treat the root cause of the dysfunction rather than just the symptoms. And because I just mentioned the Candidate experience, I want to say that I’ll get around to that often-overlooked-but-absolutely-critical part of the talent-acquisition process real soon.

If you have questions you’d like me to answer or topics you’d like me to cover, please feel free to email me at therecruitingrodeo@gmail.com. With respect to your questions, I’ll do my best to answer them in the next Rodeo or on the Rodeo Substack thread. Please rest assured that I will NEVER reveal your name, company name or exact title — but also understand that sharing your industry, general job function and general location (e.g., CPG, HR, Northeast) is an essential part of helping our fellow wranglers.

Until next time… see you out on the trail! 🐎