As if the previous couple of years have not been challenging enough, 2023 has been a difficult year for many companies and their employees in riding the economic turbulence and the ongoing technology sector layoffs. Many tech companies are trying to right size their organization to navigate the unknown market turbulence going on now and possibly in the near future. Even though companies are not hiring at their earlier paces, they will need to backfill positions where needed and still hire for moderate growth. The question that many companies are facing is: should I try and hire the staff that have been laid off or should I go after passive employees who were not impacted by the recent layoffs?
Should I Hire Employees who have been Laid Off by other Companies?
Many employees have been caught up in the massive tech layoffs and it is difficult to navigate the surge in available talent. You might have the opportunity to add talented individuals that might not be available to your company in the future. Some hiring managers have the belief that if someone was laid-off they must be a lesser value employee or have had some type of issue or deficiency or else why would they have been let go. This is a bias that could be preventing your organization from finding some fantastic talent who are eager to continue their career path. There could be people that are diamonds in the rough that could plug into your company and benefit from their years of experience and their excitement for joining your company.
Should I Target Passive Candidates who are still employed by other Companies?
Each company’s hiring strategy should be consistent but not all positions will always require the level of effort to identify and invite passive candidates to apply to open positions. Passive candidates can be great targets. Keep in mind, once you find them, you still need to convince them to consider a new position. Uncertainty in the economy can create fear among passive talent and may make this a more challenging pitch. The advantage of multiple layoffs is there are some great candidates in the talent pool. The key is always in the screening and interview process. How will you find the right skills, experience level, and culture add for your company?
Some guiding principles for your future hires who may have been laid off:
- Check your own personal bias and the bias of your hiring team. Ensure you are creating an equitable evaluation process.
- Do your diligence in the screening process to understand the merits of each candidate.
- Ask every candidate the same questions and train all hiring team members to do the same.
- Show empathy in the hiring process. Being laid off can create lower confidence or accelerate imposter syndrome for candidates.
- Give feedback to all candidates even when you do not select them so they can use this information to improve on future interviews.
Want More Info?
If you are having difficulties in creating a go-forward plan or are struggling with finding the right talent for your company, please feel free to reach out to us at Recruiting Experiences, and we can set up a time to understand your unique talent and business needs.
Here is a link to one of our previous blog posts with great information on interview questions.
