Recruiters: How to manage a hiring freeze

Posted by: Mindy Fineout

Over the past few years, economic changes and uncertainty have led companies across all industries to lay employees off, institute hiring freezes, and reduce recruiting marketing budgets. What has been the impact on the recruiter? They’ve experienced endless stop and gos and reduced recruiting budgets, have had a harder time keeping candidates interested, and been forced to obtain numerous approvals to work around the freeze. All the while still having to meet their hiring managers’ needs.

Hiring freezes can be an easy way for companies to achieve their short-term goal of improving the numbers. But in the long term, it can be more costly, as the company can miss out on hiring top candidates who go to competitors not in the midst of a freeze. Plus, the company can incur increased costs of marketing and recruiting.

When companies reduce hiring, all parties involved are affected. The recruiters need to relay the information to the candidate. The candidate is anxious as to if the position is viable and when the company will start hiring again. And the hiring manager wants to hire regardless of a freeze.

When a freeze happens, the recruiters are put in the precarious position of providing accurate information without losing the candidate. Maintaining a good relationship with the candidate is imperative. Candidate experience is a buzz word in the industry, and hiring freezes can negatively affect that experience.

During a hiring freeze, recruiters should constantly be preparing for when the freeze is lifted. They should be keeping candidates warm, staying in touch even if they take other roles; pipelining for positions that you know are common; and performing competitive analysis. Communicate status and updates to the candidate and managers, as these actions will show that you are working even though the company might not be hiring.

And most importantly, don’t fear the hiring freeze. It will lift eventually, and when it does, you need to be ready.

This post was written by former Seamless Workforce contributor Donna Vespe.