Now is the time for CHANGE!

We are in one of the most turbulent times of change in recent history.
We just elected the first African-American President, Investment Banks, once the bastion of big risk taking capitalists are now bank holding companies and heavily regulated, the “big 3″ automakers may become the little two and we are seeing some of the most well known companies collapse before our very eyes.

Ahh, yes, change is upon us.

So as a Recruiting Leader – now is the time to change!  Heck, with all the bearish news and C-Level nerves at defcon 1 you can change your organization and no one will probably realize it until 2010 when we start to come out of this mess.  So what changes and when?  Here are 5 simple steps to greatness you should be taking today:

First; clean house.
Evaluate everyone in your organization and streamline your staff.  Keep only those Recruiters and Recruiting leaders who have headhunter DNA.  Anyone who is an administrative recruiter (those who shuffle paper, email or text everyone and don’t own a headset because they really don’t want to talk to candidates) needs to be redeployed.
The net effect of this single step is that you will create an actual recruiting department that is effective and focused.  Redeploy those Admin Recruiters to support the Headhunters in reference checking, scheduling interviews and putting together paperwork for new hires.  Chances are that’s really what they want to be doing anyway if they aren’t actually headhunting!

Second; Re-0rganize the department.
Thin on Leadership and long on talent is the optimum department.  Recruiting Managers who routinely meet with hiring leaders to put out fires for recruiters and “consult” on their behalf are rendered unnecessary by step one above.
Your staff should be comprised of 75% headset wearing, cold-calling agressive sales-type recruiters who can consult with leaders and drive hiring decisions, 15% support staff to manage process for these folks and 10% Leadership.  Today, I’ll bet you have 60% admin recruiters, 20% support staff, 5% headhunters and 15% leadership.  Totally inefficient.

Third; Run the department “like it’s 1999″.
Not a play on Prince’s song but a mindset that you must have even in this market.  Your recruiters (see 1 and 2 above) should be BUSY – building networks, identifying talent, interviewing people even if they don’t have jobs today.  The reason the C-Suite is so enamored with Retained Search is that this is what they are doing today – building supply IN ADVANCE of demand.  Business 101.  When you need them, don’t go looking for them.  Find them in advance and have them at your fingertips.  Try it, you’ll like it.

Fourth; Provide Value outside of hires.
Yes you can.  If you do 1-3 above, your department will be a storehouse of competitive intelligence, candidate/customer feedback and market data.  This is information that if gathered correctly, can give your company a distinct competitive advantage in today’s market.  Experience the joy of walking into the VP of Marketing’s office with reams of competitive data your team has gathered.  She will be forever your advocate and tell 6 of her peers what an amazing group you are.

Fifth; Get your systems in order.
No need to “buy” anything but during this lull in hair on fire activity, get a CRM system in place, connect it to your ATS and finally get your ATS to do what you need it to do (like talk to candidates and end the black hole!), not what the vendor tells you it can do.  Befriend your tech department (they are slow too) and divert some online advertising dollars to paying for changes and/or upgrades.

5 steps to create a real 21st century recruiting department.  Do it today, do it now.  If you wait the economy will come back, you’ll be forced into reaction mode again and you’ll look back at your chance that passed you by like you look at Christmas Day on December 26th.