Lately, everyone I talk with expresses how significantly demand has picked up in the Healthcare IT job market. Most employers have multiple positions open and most candidates I speak with say the volume of calls they receive for positions has certainly picked up compared to a year ago.
With the job market rebounding, many people who felt apprehensive about exploring career options a year ago now feel like the time is right. As a result, employers are dealing with a dynamic that appears every time we see an uptick in the job market: On the one hand, employers I talk with are feeling good that more people seem to be answering their ads posted for open positions. On the other hand, they have more positions to fill.
Employers have the perception that, since more people are responding to ads, their choice of potential candidates is increasing. In a sense, this is true; however, a high percentage of candidates who respond to one employer’s job postings are often applying to numerous other employers’ job postings. After all, as I’m sure most people would agree, if you’re going to change jobs, you might as well explore all available opportunities.
Due to increased candidate volume, many organizations become more selective regarding whom they begin to interview. Specifically, they become more selective in evaluating the skills, knowledge, and experience that appear on a candidate’s résumé. On the surface, this seems pretty logical: screen résumés for the “most qualified,” consider them Group A, and interview them first. Résumés that are not the “most qualified,” but suggest candidates who could excel in the position, will be put in Group B and interviewed if necessary. Easy enough, right? But there’s one big issue: deliverability.
Clients hire Healthcare IS, for example, to help them identify candidates who have the skills, knowledge, and experience to excel in their critical positions. A major part of our qualifying is not just, “Does the candidate have the potential to excel in the job?” but rather, “What is their deliverability?” We define deliverability as the likelihood that the candidate will “accept” the position at the end of the interview process, should one be offered.
Many organizations spend their time interviewing three or four candidates who are 90% qualified but only 10% deliverable. These are situations when you feel like you have three or four really good candidates, but at the end of your hiring process you’re starting over because your offers have been turned down.
These organizations would be better off interviewing two or three candidates who are 75% qualified but 60% deliverable.
There are actually some very predictable techniques that organizations can use to group a candidate’s deliverability (which I’ll discuss in future posts). For many organizations, getting good people hired in a timely manner and contributing in key roles on major projects is a high priority right now. Spending more time at the beginning of the hiring process to qualify candidates on their deliverability will lead to a highly improved interview-to-hire ratio.
You may also like: Yes, They Are Qualified, But Are They Deliverable? Part II
Comments