HR Challenge: A Difficult Position to Fill
Scenario
For this assignment, assume you are an HR professional working as an HR business partner for one of the most prestigious nonprofit scientific research centers in the United States. The center is large enough to have its own office of general counsel. Recently, one of the assistant general counsels departed for a job at the White House. The general counsel wants the finest and most talented attorney candidates who are practicing in the field of research in a nonprofit setting. You have announced the open position and have had 807 applicants. You chose a group of 12 candidates, all of whom were turned down by the supervisor (hiring manager). The general counsel’s office demanded to see all applicant resumes, and your HR director agreed. After they reviewed all the resumes, they said none were good enough. However, they provided no additional information to you about their preferred applicant qualifications.
Your Challenge
While you are the HR business partner to the general counsel, you have many other organizational clients, each with their own needs and expectations, and therefore a limited amount of time to give to this particular client. Given that you have failed to select appropriate candidates, you consider spending some money from your very tight budget to hire a recruiting firm, but that is not a guarantee of success. You are considering the following three options: 1) recommending to the hiring manager that she reconsider the 12 candidates you selected, 2) asking her to allow you to re-announce, possibly with some changes to the position vacancy announcement, or 3) going to the outside (expensive) recruiting firm in spite of your budget constraints. The option you recommend should offer the greatest return to the organization and its employees.
