Time is Not on Your Side

When it comes to making a hiring decision in the office technology dealer channel, it’s crucial to avoid the trap of hiring complacency. Unfortunately, many dealers seem to follow Mark Twain’s advice a bit too closely: “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done the day after tomorrow just as well.”

Recruiters at Copier Careers®, a leading firm in the office technology dealer channel, have identified a critical issue: Procrastination is a recruitment killer. This trend has been on the rise, as revealed by Jenna Humbert, a seasoned senior recruiter who joined the company in 2021. In her early recruiting years, decisions were made swiftly. “It was quick because clients understood that if I presented a qualified candidate, they needed to act fast or risk losing them to a competitor.”

Humbert advises clients that they will lose the candidate if they don’t move promptly. “I’m not saying we have to interview on Friday, make an offer, and the candidate starts on Monday, but every recruiter on LinkedIn preaches that the interview process is too long,” she said. “If you can’t decide that this candidate is qualified in three interviews, then maybe you’re not asking the right questions.”

This prolonged-interviewing situation has been going on since 2023 as more Copier Careers’ clients began requesting multiple interviews with candidates—as many as three or four—and including as many as four or five people in the interview process out of fear of making the wrong decision. “The need for people has not changed, and the request for people has not changed because we’re being told all the time we want to find these people,” observed Paul Schwartz, president of Copier Careers. “But the urgency has gone out of it in the last six to eight months.”

Hiring Complacency Red Flags

For Humbert and her fellow recruiters, red flags appear when the hiring process extends into the second week or four interviews. Asked what’s a reasonable number of interviews, Humbert noted three. But it all comes down to momentum, according to Schwartz. “Once you start the ball rolling, you must keep it going, or it will die from inertia or complacency.”

Schwartz, who has been around the office recruiting block a time or two, recalled a situation a number of years ago with a client in desperate need of OEM-trained technicians. Schwartz sent him the résumés of three top-notch certified techs and received no response. Eventually, the client told him he was too busy dealing with service calls because he didn’t have enough techs.

“And I go, well, you have three in your inbox,” recalled Schwartz. “The dealer responded, ‘But I don’t have time to get to them because I’m out servicing devices.’” Schwartz suggested the dealer find time to interview them even after hours or on the weekend. Eventually, the dealer found the time to interview one of the candidates and made the hire.

Hiring complacency isn’t new; it’s a reversion of how things were pre-pandemic. Things changed in 2021 and 2022 as employers had to make quick decisions because they were desperate for candidates. Jessica Crowley, senior vice president of Copier Careers, understands today’s delays even though, as a recruiter, she finds it frustrating. “It costs a lot of time and energy, and they didn’t want to make a bad hiring decision,” she said. “I’m not saying that all hiring decisions in ’21 or ’22 were bad, but employers are being much more cautious now.”

Natural Consequences of Hiring Complacency

That cautiousness, bordering on procrastination, has multiple downsides. Crowley referenced a client entering a new market and looking for someone certified on their product line, which included high-volume devices. After presenting the client with a worthy candidate, a couple of other candidates not sourced by Copier Careers came into play because of recent merger and acquisition activity, and the candidate from Copier Careers was put on hold.

“I’m like, why? You already know that he’s one of your top-tier candidates,” said Crowley. “Why not move him to the next step so you can keep the candidate engaged? You have to keep them engaged, otherwise, what’s the incentive for them to wait because you’re not ready to make a decision?”

“It’s hard for us to keep candidates engaged and warm if the client’s not trying to keep them engaged and warm,” added Humbert. “We can only talk to candidates so much and tell them, yes, they like you, without any engagement from the client. When they don’t follow up or follow through, or that résumé sits in their inbox for a week, that’s sending an indication to the candidate that either they’re not serious about them, they don’t care, or that’s how they’re going to behave once they come on board.”

Copier Careers’ recruiters have even experienced this with sales candidates with three years of President’s Club credentials who continually hit and exceed their numbers. “It absolutely blows our minds that they don’t immediately respond based on the metrics of these individuals,” observed Schwartz. “This is a revenue stream for them. I don’t know any dealer who doesn’t want another really good sales rep or can’t make room for another sales rep who will produce revenue. And then they look at the résumé and say, ‘I will think about it.’”

Schwartz added, “We understand that interviewing and the process is not fun, but at the end of the day, you’re not going to maintain or grow your business if you don’t engage in this process. It’s the only way to do it. The biggest variable they have in their organization is their people.”

Reject Hiring Complacency and Engage in the Process

The message to Copier Careers clients and all office technology dealers looking to build their teams is to engage in the process. But it’s not just the office technology industry experiencing this slow hiring decision phenomenon. “I read a lot of LinkedIn articles and posts from other recruiters in other industries that say the same thing,” said Humbert.

As Schwartz noted, hiring complacency kills, but it doesn’t have to be that way. “One of the questions we always ask our clients is, how are you going to feel if that great tech or that great sales or service manager, or that rockstar sales rep ends up at your competitor down the block? That should be the moment of truth for them,” concluded Schwartz.

Read all the Copier Careers® Insights℠ at The Cannata Report®