Unpredictability, resilience, and change are just a few words that describe the economy over the past few years. While it appears we’ve side-stepped a deep recession—at least in the near term—enterprise companies are still navigating unprecedented times.
Amidst the uncertainty, growth remains top of mind for leaders at enterprise companies, but that doesn’t reopen the door to the aggressive hiring strategies we saw during the pandemic. The enterprise companies that grow the most in 2024 (and beyond) will be the ones that hire with care. A targeted hiring strategy can help them do that.
What’s Targeted Hiring and Why’s it So Important for Enterprise Companies?
Using a targeted hiring strategy, enterprise companies prioritize candidates with specific skills, expertise, and industry knowledge, like data analytics, customer success, or proficiency in specific programming languages. Not only does targeted hiring help companies recruit and hire right-fit candidates, but it also helps them speed up the hiring process, reduce associated costs, and improve the quality of their workforce.
1. Speed Up the Hiring Process
Companies of any size in any industry should hire for relationships and fit above all else, but that doesn’t mean they should neglect more traditional metrics, like speed-to-hire or hiring velocity, which measures the amount of time it takes for a candidate to become an employee.
Here’s one of the biggest reasons that’ll be true in 2024: Many enterprise companies are letting go of sizable chunks of their workforce, including Meta, Amazon, and Google. The mass exodus from these companies, which have historically been coveted by top talent, opens the door for competing enterprise companies to hire them—but only if they’re ready to move quickly because they won’t be on the market for long.
Targeted hiring helps enterprise companies move and make decisions faster because they’re honing in on a predefined set of skills and traits, removing the need to wade through—and interview—thousands of candidates. Instead, their hiring team—or staffing and recruiting agency—can invest all their time and energy in a select group of candidates and get them on board quickly.
2. Reduce Hiring Costs
While the economy may not enter the deep recession we once thought, cost-saving measures should still be top of mind for enterprise companies in 2024. Targeted hiring is one of those measures because it can decrease the likelihood of a bad hire that, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, can cost a company 30% of that employee’s first-year salary.
How does a targeting strategy reduce costs? By hiring candidates based on specific traits and skills they know a candidate needs to succeed at their company, they can reduce the chance of a bad hire and the subsequent costs that come with rehiring, including the opportunity costs of that unfilled role.
3. Improve the Quality of Hires
We’d argue that improved quality of hires is the biggest reason enterprise companies need targeted hiring in 2024. By hiring candidates with the right skill sets, but also the ones who better align with their company culture and goals, companies will naturally hire employees who will be more engaged and ultimately contribute at a higher level.
Unfortunately, both of those are far from a given. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report, only 15% of employees are engaged in the workplace. Enter quiet quitting, which Gallup says happens when someone “psychologically disengages from work.” Unsurprisingly, these employees are far less productive and collectively cost the economy $8.8 trillion in lost productivity.
Targeted Hiring in 2024: The Smartest Move Enterprise Companies Can Make in 2024
The days of aggressive—sometimes reckless—hiring are over. Today, tomorrow, and every day in the future, enterprise companies with a growth mindset will have to fully embrace a more strategic approach to hiring. That means investing in targeted hiring strategies that allow them to recruit and hire candidates with the specific skills and expertise employees they need to hit their goals.
Want to learn more about how Wellington Steele & Associates can help you implement a targeted hiring strategy in 2024? Reach out today to learn more.