The Great Resignation is finally showing signs of slowing, and the news could not come a moment too soon. The pandemic reshuffle often resulted in drawn-out efforts to attract talent and delays in the hiring process. While your organization may have thought, and individuals still believe, it makes sense to pull back on hiring when the employment environment is so fierce, without the right analysts or new business development directors, all forward momentum stalls.

Not Hiring Equals No Competitive Edge

Organizations lose out on new clients and project opportunities without skill-matched employees to connect with customers and conduct the work. Delaying your hiring process, freezing it, or not immediately addressing employee turnover pushes your sales back another quarter, setting you inextricably behind your competitors. The missed income cannot be made up. It’s gone, which is why finding, acquiring, and retaining quality talent is at the heart of an organization’s edge.  

A McKinsey study found that superior talent is eight times more productive than the average. Given that statistic, profits are directly tied to enticing the best workers. But how do you do that when the demand for solid market research talent exceeds supply? Sure, one part of the answer is ensuring a terrific candidate experience through the vetting process. Still, a complete response is complicated now since the hiring process steps have changed, and those participating in hiring have evolved.

Talent Acquisition Processes Have Transformed

Previously HR departments were fully responsible for talent acquisition, but now, by necessity, all levels in the C-suite are involved. It’s not unusual for the whole team to be scouring LinkedIn network profiles or scrutinizing job descriptions. Leadership at the most robust organizations realizes that people matter, and engaging with the hiring practice is critical to staying competitive. But those heading up larger teams don’t have the time to keep up with hiring best practices such as reconciling pay scales across countries or between U.S. cities.

The problem is directors and managers are constantly on the go, traveling to industry conferences, selling to new clients, and overseeing employees. You don’t have the bandwidth to focus on the appropriate hiring process steps to bring in the top candidates. In addition, there is a host of new hybrid recruiting challenges and candidate expectations with which to contend. With an overwhelmed HR department and without a healthy competitive overview of the latest hiring trends in the market research insights industry, your organization has open positions, and you are wasting valuable time interviewing unqualified candidates.

One positive approach is to reach out to an executive recruiting firm that knows how to hire employees because talent acquisition is their core business. These firms have a more comprehensive view of the latest trends in the industry, especially if the firms specialize. Executive recruiting companies have more time and expertise with hybrid hiring.

It’s easy to question whether you will find a more talented pool of candidates if you offer a position that is entirely remote, but is it valuable to have that worker in-person among your team? An outside point of view with a broader impression of the segment is more capable of answering those types of questions and more adept at rapidly filling your pipeline of carefully screened candidates.   

If you are still not convinced that holding back on hiring costs you dearly in the long run, here are some factors to consider.

Strategic Goals Are Late

Having a trusted partner executive firm to quickly identify candidates means you can accomplish strategic objectives faster. You know that even carefully conceived plans need the right candidate with the accurate skillset to execute. Trying to place an additional load on current workers leaves them dissatisfied and your company more vulnerable to employee turnover. Deferring hiring puts all well-laid plans on hold. Any tactical vision for the company is put off too.

The Hiring Process Takes Longer Than You Think

It is easy to underestimate how long it takes to source a qualified candidate. If the role is empty, the search could take three weeks, preliminary interviews another two weeks, and then final rounds even more time, with some candidates accepting other jobs. It is not a seamless process. The search involves creating a well-worded clickable job description, checking references, and a resume review. A prolonged process may be a turn off for applicants looking for a positive brand impression. Besides, none of this time outlined includes the best standards for onboarding new employees, which may take a full quarter to complete.  

The reality is that recruiting digitally, onboarding virtually, and managing remotely take more time than most directors can accommodate. All this time has a ripple effect across departments. Working with a trusted executive recruiting firm, particularly one that specializes in placing market research and consumer insights professionals, will allow you to spend time interviewing candidates to ensure they fit in with the team and culture. Trusted Talent are experts in the insights industry, so they know the ins and outs of what MR applicants need. Using Trusted Talent will keep your recruiting efforts more organized and focused on onboarding new employees.

Delayed Revenue

Hiring talent offers unparalleled opportunities to increase your company’s brand recognition and pursue new revenue streams. Executive teams freed up from the talent search can concentrate on their actual responsibilities, so they can hit profit targets more effectively. Often the 4th quarter is the highest revenue for the year, so if you haven’t hit employee levels during your most profitable revenue cycle, your goals will fall short. Organizations must pay attention and be proactive about hiring before the peak revenue generation time.

People Are Everything

If you agree that people are critical to achieving your long-term goals, you can’t afford to short-change those plans with short-term thinking or knee-jerk reactions that delay talent decisions. This will inevitably derail your competitive advantage. Trusted Talent finds and thoroughly vets full-time seeking and interim MR professionals. Because of their global reach, core skills, and concentration in market research and consumer insights, Trusted Talent can promptly deliver qualified, interested analysts, sales directors, and business development applicants so you can move to the critical step of interviewing top candidates.

When you put a pin on hiring, it’s a pin on business success.