Seasoned HR professionals know that it isn’t always easy to hit key performance metrics and achieve hiring goals—despite these being critically important milestones for any business to be successful. Sourcing the best available talent for your company’s open positions, engaging with the right candidates effectively, keeping them interested in joining your team, and maintaining a talent-rich pipeline of active and passive candidates for key job openings is mission-critical if your company is going to stand out from the crowd in your industry, innovate, and lead the field.

On top of having to face intense competition for available job seekers in the current candidate-driven job market (with everyone from industry behemoths to eager young start-ups swimming in the same talent pool), the very rules of the hiring game have changed in recent years—thanks to seismic shifts in technology, analytics, and job searching tools, which make it harder than ever before to grab the attention of potential employees and keep them interested.

With all this in mind, don’t forget that not all hiring challenges are created equal—some issues are easily handled with proven solutions, while others serve to fully test the abilities and patience of even the most seasoned hiring veterans. Let’s take a look at what industry experts say are among the biggest challenges when it comes to hiring for their teams.

You Have To Do More With Less

Companies today across industries and sectors are expecting their HR teams to hit increasingly lofty performance targets—with fewer resources, smaller budgets, and shrinking staffs. It’s the modern approach to doing business in a volatile and competitive economy—do more with less—and HR teams are not immune to this bourgeoning corporate philosophy. In an increasingly technologically-driven and competitive job market, the challenge to achieve an organization’s hiring goals with a shrinking toolkit is very real and makes the jobs of hiring experts more difficult than ever before.

We’re In The Customized Candidate Era

Any hiring expert worth their paycheck knows that no two candidates are created equal—and in today’s candidate-driven job market neither are their employment expectations and demands. Today’s top candidates not only come with specific contractual expectations as pre-conditions to accepting employment, but their demands are also actually being met by employers who are eager to attract the right candidates. We’re living in the “customized candidate era”—top-tier candidates often expect a tailored benefits and perks package that meets their unique lifestyle and needs—everything from flex work schedules to bonus incentives, childcare stipends, time off for charitable pursuits, and more. While some hiring professionals who are backed up by enormous war chests can deliver on these demands, others with fewer resources and discretion at their disposal struggle to attract premier talent. Simply put, they’re trying to reel in the big fish with inadequate bait, which can be quite frustrating.

You’re Tasked With Managing The Culture

In progressive companies, brand identity and culture have gone from nice-sounding buzzwords to absolute essentials, and for good reason—like it or not, the era of corporate transparency is upon us and companies sink or swim by how they’re perceived, both internally and externally. This includes today’s job candidates, who care about more than just a paycheck. They want to feel good about the cultures, identities, and missions of the companies they devote their time and energies to and seek employment opportunities that align with their own interests and beliefs. As a result, the successes (or failures) of hiring personnel are based on perceptions of culture and brand identity that they rarely have full control of.

It takes the coordinated efforts of an entire company—from the top executives and key decision-makers down to the entry-level and support personnel—to make a company a great place to work, and the ability of HR staff to attract job-seekers and achieve their hiring goals hinges upon all departments working together to support the culture and brand. This can be a real challenge in companies that lack cohesiveness and dedication to building a strong and positive identity, which will adversely affect the level and quality of talent they attract and are able to hold on to.

Today’s hiring experts face all manner of challenges—both large and small—as they work to ensure that their companies have the best possible employees on their teams and are able to retain them for as long as possible. What’s the bottom line? They’ll need to meet the challenges presented here head-on, and with a solid strategy for overcoming them, if they’re going to be successful.