I recently asked one of recruitment managers about how do you form your recruitment strategy and he discussed various aspects about talent acquisition/management, sourcing, advertisements, referrals and so on. However, at the end of the discussion - I thought he looked outside so much that he completely forgotten about looking inwards. What do I mean?

For corporate recruitment departments, recruitment not only mean finding/interviewing/placing the candidates but it starts right from job spec design, hiring manager interview, search criteria, interview process design etc. These internal process aspects are same importance as of the external hiring aspects. Rather I would say that internal processes are stepping stone for the further points. How well really one manage these aspects. I would like to share a short story to elaborate on where I am coming from.

X company needed to hire about 40 odd positions in their new location. The positions were entry level BPO positions along with few TL/supervisor. They were opening new office in new location where they did not have much physical presence nor local market understanding. One fine day, their HR leader told them that they need to line up 30 odd interviews for above positions in 2 days as a hiring manager would go to that location to take the interviews and finish the process. Internal recruitment department - getting in pressure jumped on to Monster to search these candidates. However, within these two days though they called 150+ candidates they could just arrange few interviews and within that only handful showed up. In midst of these - Hiring Manager mentioned one key criteria which was unknown to recruitment team and most of candidates were rejected. Also, being local entry level positions - they struggled to convers as recruitment team was carrying out this activity from other location.

All in all it proved to be a failure for everyone and result was none. If you observe, the external part of sourcing, recruitment was not that bad but I think the major failure was the "inwards" part. I wonder being internal recruitment department, was they taken for granted by hiring manager? Was the target given was really achievable? Was there any planning/strategy behind this campaign? Why wasn't everything clear right upfront? In all - was this the best approach OR forced approach?

This made me think whether there needs to be a fine balance between being pressurised and being forceful. The recruitment department - being subject matter expert should educate their hiring managers about best practices which are tried and tested internally. It's one thing that hiring manager wanted 40+ people within 2 days but it's executing it in haste is other thing. Recruitment department is a strategic component which should have inbuild plans, strategies, tools, timelines which can be flexible but well defined. Recruitment leaders should take a stand against inproper expectations and demands from hiring managers - even if those hiring managers are influencial/high level. All the recruitment activities/campaigns need to run with in partnership of hiring managers and not with their authority. The recruitment dept would know what is the best course of action for any requirement(s). The proper JD design, requirement capturing, creating search strategies, project planning, interview scheduling, documentation are not the luxuries but necessities. These should be worked well in conjuction with hiring manager setting right expectations and not the ones they "want".

At the end - wrong hiring decisions cost company a great deal. It's time when companies should take their recruitment departments not as a tactical one but as a strategic profit-centre.