69 % of companies reported significant talent shortages in Germany – a 20-year all time high. The estimation of labour population in the next 5-8 years will further aggravate this situation, given the baby-boomer generation in Germany will get closer to retirement until 2033. Means – if you think the talent situation in Germany will cure or better itself, it certainly won´t! Innovative ideas for robust talent winning strategies in- and outside of Germany are the key for higher employer productivity and improved professional HR-leadership in any company.
In former HR-days, the classical role of HR-Leaders & Recruiters were clearly specified in any business. HR Strategy, Talent Acquisition and Development were the core essential 3 functions to enhance productivity and drive leadership efficiency throughout the company. Meanwhile – HR might evolve into the most confusing department of your entire organization. Either HR-teams & leaders still haven’t found answers in „how-to-recruit-in-modern-times “, or they are still overwhelmed with tons of legal & administrative post-covid bureaucracy – maybe even lost significant people in their HR-teams or personal faith in fulfilling biz-expectations.
As external Recruitment Consultants, we experience huge differences in the proficiency and biz-impact of HR people nowadays – even more extreme than before 2020.
Dependent on company size and current biz situation, our professional counterparts in HR-teams appear:
- „Healthy“ HR-departments:
- well organized & structured, close to the biz, help driving company growth + supporting employees & leaders throughout their life-cycle in the company
- typically found in bigger companies above 2,500 employees; HR-teams higher educated, wealthy generation-mix and up-to-speed with software – at least usually
- know, why they need external consultants and for which specific goals to accomplish
- often clear briefings, shaped skill-needs and live-models of the company´s culture
- Collaboration results: often sporadic & timely in initiating headhunting projects on a pure-need-basis
- „Under-Water“ HR-departments:
- unstructured, often bigger gaps between HR-goals vs. abilities; often disconnects between HR-strategy & execution-track; often distant to biz-expectations
- typically found in small to medium companies below 1,500 employees, HR-teams of 2-8 people, HR is constantly running behind alert to-do´s – or – focusses on operational HR-tasks only; either very experienced or very young HR-team-members – rarely a healthy generation-mix
- often have multiple & long-unfilled vacancies, but don´t know how tough it takes to get vacancies filled > external Consultants often are „eye-openers “
- often wrong or insane briefings, often far-away from reality & biz-needs + different story-telling by biz-leaders; vendor decisions driven mostly by „minimum budget“ & ASAP-placement
- often constant supplier-changes and unrealistic placement-expectations > external headhunting is often seen as competitors and own reflection: I could get it done better and faster, if I just would have more time.
- Collaboration results: often quick & multiple headhunting projects at a time for peanut-cost, obvious: „Hiring“ is 1-of-100´s HR-duties – means: sometimes erratic assignments and project adaptations & trainings needed throughout recruitment process.
SO – what does this mean for developing people relations & building trust between HR-People inside companies – and Recruiters & Executive Search Consultants on the external side? Well – it depends. A first answer might give this 4-Blocker:
| Low-Prof. External Recruitment Consultants | High-Prof. External Recruitment Consultants | |
|---|---|---|
| Low-Prof. Inside HR | PARTNER – MAYBE Decisions - Result? | NO PARTNERSHIP Trust & Prof. ? |
| High-Prof. Inside HR | NO PARTNERSHIP Trust & Prof. ? | PARTNER - YES Values & Trust |
When high-professional HR-Leaders line-up with high-professional External Research Consultants, then the result of co-operation is a target-oriented & timely filling of the vacancy – on trusted PARTNER-level.
When high-professional HR-Leaders line-up with low-professional External Research Consultants, they rule-out these external suppliers and go a different route with trusted vendor relationships. Most of times, these vendors are not seen as proper Ambassadors for their company.
When low-professional HR-Leaders line-up with high-professional External Research Consultants, then the value of co-operation often becomes incalculable, as coincidences or external influences often determine the co-operation and expectations on proper pricing. Means – any project-work could be on low PARTNER-level, but most typically does not lead to the intended results. Either HR-Leaders are not professional enough in briefing, interviewing or decision-making – or biz-departments are often „the curer“ of such issues.
When low-professional HR-Leaders line-up with low-professional External Research Consultants, then both sides may „meet“ for a fast-solution-project result, but typically lack any project-result and vacancy-placement. Once these search assignments will not be placed with proper talent, the next agency will be selected with similar parameters – and the story continues. Means – any project-work could be on random PARTNER-level, but typically will not lead to reliable talent results.
As you could imagine, concrete placement results of combination of internal HR-departments & external Recruitment Consultants do vary massively, if you are a fully-trusted, half-accepted or just tolerated HR-vendor.
Well – what could HR-Managers improve using external Recruitment Consultants proficiency:
- Have competent HR-leaders to select and brief external Recruitment Consultants. Otherwise you might end up with Sales people of any vendor „promising everything you want to hear“ – most often with no candidate results. Remember: it is much easier to promise unrealistic talent deliveries, timelines and pricings, when you never target to accomplish a full search and win a fitting person for the assigned & critical vacancy.
- Since 2022 we experience strongly diverse recruitment strategies by varying generations of HR-departments. A say 50+ aged HR-leader of a company has a very different idea on how to describe and fill any vacancy, than a 30+ aged HR-junior with early-AI & multi-software-tool-experience (if). Similar generation-variety is to be found on side of external Recruitment Consultancies. What we found as absolute KEY to any project success, is to develop a concrete search strategy by individual vacancy – bridging the ideas and needs of distinct generations!
- Ordinary search methods and typical HR online-advertisings are often no longer attracting talent for your company, not even beyond regions or boarders. Means classical ways of attracting talent lose their effect at an unimaginably rapid rate – but – old methods from the past reappear in new guises! There need to be future-oriented and visionary tools, how to turn necessary skill-inventories and biz-expectations into meaningful profiles – and how -to-find and attract fitting candidates for these critical vacancies in off-classical labour markets.
- Often, the differences in talent solutions by vendor lie in estimated project-time until successful placement. Rapid quick-delivery-projects without any search strategy do often compete with sophisticated & levelled fit-skill-profiles of other vendors, which may take double the time. These massive differences in perception of time often continue in interviewing, decision-making, onboarding, developing performance and retained life-cycle of candidates. Well – we do wonder sometimes, how companies & leaders do improve or keep team productivity, but changing a critical person in a specific role IS really worst case for all. Back to the point: many agencies, especially those that pretend to be industry-specific recruiters for a specialized industry, often fail to deliver on promises made, or may just target for quick revenues of any search-project, forgetting the successful filling of the vacancy. Based on experience – we do challenge this quick-hurry-process for specific talent!
- There is an ever-increasing gap between being an „extended HR-workbench in Recruitment“ – or – a trusted external HR Recruitment partner of your company. Please have in mind, that for both distinct solution concepts are highly different external partners existing – whatever AI-supported marketing concepts would have you believe. So better chose carefully, which concept brings you to short-term candidate success and a healthy talent acquisition med-term!
All the highly professional Recruitment capabilities will be needed to win talent for critical-to-success-roles in any business, especially in Germany or DACH-region. As CANTOR and Founding Partner of the CFR Global Executive Search-Network – we are passionate about Headhunting and Executive Consulting for more than 25 years. We could support YOUR business growth with attracting critical hybrid-leaders and high-performing expert labour. Together with our CFR-network, we are happy to support your international assignments in more than 20 countries with local market expertise and well-integrated talent search procedures. Challenge us with your hiring needs.
Article written by Marc Steuer, Managing Director CFR Global Executive Search Germany and Board Member
Photo source: Pexels