How is Short-Termism Impacting The Recruitment Industry?

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Have you ever had this feeling that companies nowadays are focusing more on short-term results instead of long-term growth? Well, this is the basic principle of short-termism. A vision that some specialists have pointed out is affecting investors, companies, and even countries. The need to deliver immediate results directly influences the way organizations plan and assemble their teams, but is it something affecting the recruitment industry in a negative way? 

What is short-termism? 

As the name implies, short-termism is a type of outlook focused on immediate results. The essence of this approach is to meet quarterly earnings and goals at the expense of long-term investments. Due to its nature, startups may be tempted to plan under a short-termism vision as they aim to keep up their revenue to make their business sustainable. 

Depending on the scenario, short-termism can be seen as a positive or negative approach. While some people state that it creates pressure to meet the expected results in the short term, others may argue that the immediate earning you receive from your efforts allows you to plan medium or long-term. 

Losing sight of the overall scope and purpose of short-term and long-term strategies may corrupt the benefits you can get from either type of planning. In such cases is when the risks of short-termism appear. As companies start focusing too much on the immediate rewards, they’re likely to reach a point where they start reducing budgets for research, development, and future investments. 

Another effect of this type of mindset that you should be aware of is how the constant pressure to deliver effective and immediate results may put your workplace happiness at risk and turn your work environment into a stressful one. 

The impact of short-termism in the recruitment industry

Now that the theory is settled, is short-termism positively impacting companies? Many C-suite executives and managers across different industries have stated that they’ve felt pressure to generate strong financial results within a short period of time. From a revenue and results standpoint, McKinsey’s Corporate Horizon Index unveils that organizations with a long-term approach have outperformed those with a short-term view. 

So, how do these patterns impact recruitment? First and foremost, short-termism positions time as one of the main, if not the most important, metric for evaluating results. And of course, moving fast is key as a recruiter; but there’s a difference between managing competing deadlines and looking for talent in a rush, focusing on task completion rather than the main goal of this craft: sourcing the best candidate possible for a role. 

In these scenarios, short-termism can become a plague for the recruitment industry. A-1 recruiters know that finding the right person for a role takes time. It requires an extensive searching period for getting the appropriate talent, and this is just speaking about an optimized hiring process time length. Nevertheless, unexpected circumstances may come up and change the course.

More demanding placements, such as hiring the ideal manager, can create complex recruitment challenges, such as budgets or positions being put on hold, candidates not ready to move to a different location, or company structure changes. So you can imagine a recruiter’s responsibilities can shift when dealing with the pressure of a company’s short-termism planning.

Recruiters must be adaptable to handle variability and overcome short-termism to succeed at their craft. Most successful recruiters are those who approach the talent search as a relational function instead of a transactional one. Completing easy tasks and gaining the trust of hiring managers is the best way to buy time when hard-to-fill roles come. It’s about finding the right pace for each job order.

Another aspect that sets the tone is a hiring manager’s approach to each placement, especially when they lean toward short-termism. Therefore, from a company’s standpoint, it all comes down to trusting that long-term benefits will pay off better than immediate results. Making a balanced approach between setting short-term and long-term strategies the optimal range for companies.

Short-term or long-term planning when attracting talent? 

Building your staff is a key aspect when it comes to short-term or long-term planning. Unfortunately, both talent acquisition and recruitment tend to struggle when short-termism takes over a company’s growth plans. 

First and foremost, remember these are two different aspects of staffing. While talent acquisition focuses on analyzing the needs and open positions that will cover them, recruitment is more about sourcing the profiles that could fill those roles. One is about planning and the other one focuses on execution. Therefore, recruiting is directly impacted by short-termism or long-termism goals.

In case you have temporary or seasonal positions you need to fill, here are some tips for short-term hiring.

• Define the skills needed and the time period for hiring.
• Emphasize time and role details in the job description.
• Evaluate costs, quality of hire, and employment terms before making decisions.
• Partner with a recruiter to improve your talent pool and time span. 

On the other hand, if you have more needs for permanent roles and achieving strategic goals, here are some actions for building a long-term hiring strategy.

• Create a recruitment calendar with specific goals to meet.
• Level up your employer branding to get a competitive edge.
• Set a selection process for fresher and lateral hires.
• Encourage employee referrals as a sourcing method.

While short-termism hiring works for some minor roles, you can also fill these vacancies using contractors, freelancers, or suppliers. But if you’re more interested in building a championship team, then, your best option is developing a long-term hiring plan detailing every aspect of it. In the long run, this will benefit you the most, especially considering the cost of a new hire. 

How gpac can help you balance your long-term and short-term hiring strategies

gpac recruiters approach the craft in a unique way. Instead of just looking for clients and limiting their search to fill their roles, gpac’s search consultants aim to build partnerships that allow them to share their expertise and dig deep into companies’ hiring plans. 

The main objective of this approach is to enable them to work as an extension of a company, enabling them to know more in detail about the role so they can work faster and more effectively. This also allows them to contribute and work on behalf of organizations. This means gpac recruiters can help you develop your hiring plan and identify how many short-term and long-term roles you have. 

Regardless of the case, whether you need to fill positions quickly or you need a growth talent pool to get a C-level employee, gpac recruiters will do the work. It doesn’t matter if you have a big or small talent acquisition area, they can perform under any circumstance. 

Contributed by Luis Arellano