Central PA Employers Face Long-Term Recruitment Challenges
By now, everyone knows employers across America are facing a historic labor shortage. While the pandemic amplified the crisis, it’s actually driven by three long-term trends: an aging workforce, more stay-at-home parents and a boom in self-employment.
An Aging Workforce
Baby Boomers, Americans born between 1946 and 1964, are one of the largest generations in history. Their tidal impact on the workforce cannot be underestimated. In addition to providing the workforce a surplus of men and women laborers, they also created a new level of consumerism that remains in force.
These days, we’re also hearing about “excess retirement,” a term to describe the acceleration in retirements compared to pre-pandemic trends. Retirement among Boomers spiked during the pandemic, but the trend has continued each year since, with retirement rates well above predictions in 2023. Millions of Boomers are leaving the workforce ahead of schedule.
This means employers are losing their most experienced employees much earlier than expected. Pennsylvania companies responded by either searching for senior replacements (in short supply) or promoting from within, leaving more junior positions open.
A Million Women
According to a report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 3% of both men and women were absent from the workforce at the height of the pandemic. However, at the time of this study in 2022, women’s labor force participation was still a full percentage point lower, translating to one million women no longer in the workforce.
Many of these women cite a lack of childcare as the primary reason for staying home. There is also a movement among families, especially ones with young kids, to reorganize their finances in ways that allow them to manage with one full-time income. As a result, many moms or dads quit, opted for less demanding part-time work or began a more flexible home business.
The Gig Economy
More and more people are opting for self-employment, freelance jobs, or contract work. This widespread migration to “gigs” instead of jobs has been dubbed “the Gig Economy.” A 2021 Harris Poll reported that one-third of American adults started a side hustle in addition to a full-time job or were self-employed. More recent surveys report that 10.4% of the workforce, or about 16.5 million people, are self-employed.
These numbers show that self-employment is yet another stress on the job market. The perfect storm of the rise of a gig economy, combined with fewer women in the workforce and the surge in early retirement, results in a real labor pinch. These factors make it more challenging than ever to find and hire great employees.
Tips for More Effective Hiring
The numbers are in and they show a significant shortage between the number of employees and the number of job openings. As a result, your firm will have to work harder than ever to find and employ enough staff for your business. However, some preparation makes it easier to locate and hire the best employees. Here are some tips to help.
1. Name a Hiring Manager
Assign responsibilities to one person or a team of people. This doesn’t have to be their only title, but when you designate hiring tasks to one person or a team of people, you ensure that someone is continually overseeing the process.
2. Create a Position Overview
The start of the search for a qualified applicant begins by preparing a job description. This description includes associated tasks, responsibilities, goals and metrics. Determine hiring qualifications such as prior experience, industry certifications or education. Make sure the position overview includes the ideal candidate’s personality, attitudes and attributes.
And if you’re stuck, remember that MANSI Media can help you write industry-leading job descriptions.
3. Develop a Compensation Plan
Your compensation plan not only assigns a salary but also spells out the hiring bonus if one exists. It should include associated vacation time, personal time and holidays, 401K benefits, and more.
4. Identify Recruiting Strategies
How will the hiring manager find candidates? MANSI’s streamlined solutions allow small businesses to find qualified applicants quickly and efficiently. We help hiring managers create job postings and continually monitor and optimize campaigns on behalf of our clients to drive the best results.
MANSI Media’s MAXRecruit packages combine advanced AI with the power of social media to blanket the web with messages on job sites, social media, and job boards. We post on a series of targeted networks that reach college entry-level employees, diversity audiences, social media networks and veteran hires.
To help you find job seekers with interest or experience in your industry, MAXRecruit allows advertisers to choose two targeted industry networks, which may include healthcare, education, sales and marketing, accounting and finance, cannabis, green, hospitality, IT, manufacturing and trade, nursing, transportation and logistics, call centers, law enforcement, construction, and energy and engineering,
The system programmatically distributes ads to the right aggregators, while MANSI provides active monitoring and optimization to improve a job post’s performance. We offer a variety of approaches in our MAXRecruit Gold, MAXRecruit Platinum and MAXRecruit Diamond packages.
5. Make the Selection Process Easier
Companies can create efficiencies by developing a well-organized selection process. Instead of analyzing the initial application, ask the applicant to fill out a questionnaire that reveals the candidate’s attitude towards work, personality, fit with the company and problem-solving ability. When the questionnaire is formatted properly, the hiring manager can conduct interviews and rank candidates based on the job description and attribute profile they developed earlier.
6. Check Referrals
Some companies are so excited to find good hires that they skip the referral process. However, referrals are the hiring manager’s safety net, designed to identify issues and set off alarms. Even in a tight labor market, it’s not smart to bypass the referral process.
7. Make the Offer Promptly
It’s essential to move quickly and efficiently through the process. Remember that good employees are in high demand, so if you move slowly, your candidate may find another employer.
Let MANSI Media help you find qualified employees in Pennsylvania.
Finding good employees doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming. When you allow MANSI Media to help you streamline your recruiting process, you’ll discover how AI, social media and digital job searches can help you turbo-charge your search.
Contact MANSI Media today to learn about our recruiting options and affordable pricing. Ask about MAXRecruit Gold, MAXRecruit Platinum and MAXRecruit Diamond packages. We’re here to help!