Why Is My Resilience Role Still Open? The Hidden Hiring Challenges Behind Business Continuity, Crisis, and Resiliency Roles

If you’re a hiring manager in business continuity, crisis management, IT disaster recovery, emergency management, cyber resiliency, or third-party/supplier risk, you may have found yourself asking a familiar question lately:

“Why is my job still open?”

Weeks turn into months, and despite dozens, or even hundreds, of applicants, your shortlist remains thin. You know what great talent looks like. You’ve described it clearly. And yet the right candidates just aren’t surfacing.

The truth? It’s rarely because the talent doesn’t exist. It’s usually because your internal hiring process isn’t set up to identify or attract it.

And while this is not a critique of Human Resources, most HR teams are managing dozens of requisitions across very different disciplines, it is a call to action for resilience leaders to become active partners in educating, guiding, and influencing the recruitment process from the start.

1. The Core Problem: HR Doesn’t Speak “Resilience”

Resilience roles are uniquely complex. Even within the field, terminology can vary widely; business continuity in one company might mean governance and policy oversight, while in another it includes hands-on recovery planning or cyber crisis activation.

When HR receives your requisition, they often face a wall of acronyms (BCM, DR, RTO, RPO, ISO 22301, BIA) and nuanced distinctions that aren’t easily interpreted without context. So, they do what HR is designed to do: they match keywords to resumes.

The problem is that keyword matching doesn’t work well in the resilience ecosystem. For example:

• Someone may have “crisis management” experience but not list “business continuity.”

• A DR specialist might describe “technology recovery and failover testing” without ever using the words “continuity” or “resilience.”

• A strong program manager might get screened out because they lack a specific certification, even if they’ve built continuity programs for years.

  
  

The result: dozens of applications, but only a small fraction, often 10% or less, have relevant experience.

2. Are the Screening Criteria Too Rigid?

Many internal recruiters default to filtering by degree or certification requirements because they’re tangible and easy to validate. But in resiliency hiring, that approach can eliminate outstanding candidates who’ve learned through hands-on crisis response, program development, or operations leadership.

If your posting says “Bachelor’s degree required, CBCP preferred”, consider revisiting whether those are truly non-negotiable.Ask yourself:

• Is a certification a “must have,” or does it simply validate knowledge that could be demonstrated in other ways?

• Could equivalent experience substitute for a degree requirement?

  
  

Loosening rigid filters can open your candidate pool dramatically, without compromising quality.

3. The Silent Challenge: Candidate Engagement

Even when your HR team knows what to look for, the next barrier often comes from candidate engagement.

Today’s resilience professionals, especially mid-career and senior practitioners, are receiving multiple recruiter messages per week. Many have grown skeptical of generic outreach or unfamiliar names sliding into their LinkedIn inboxes. Some worry about scams or phishing attempts. Others are simply burned out by the volume of cold inquiries.

So while your HR partner might be doing outreach, the silence they’re getting back isn’t necessarily disinterest; it’s distrust. The resilience community is highly networked and relationship-driven; most professionals respond better to outreach that comes from a known, credible source within the field.

This is where a specialized recruiting partner makes a dramatic difference. When outreach comes from a name that candidates recognize from conferences, benchmarking studies, or prior industry interactions, the engagement rate often multiplies. Candidates feel safer, more respected, and more inclined to have a conversation.

4. The Clock Is Ticking: The Risk of an Aging Requisition

Every week your role remains unfilled increases the risk of losing your budget or requisition altogether, especially if the approval was hard-won. In many organizations, unfilled roles are re-evaluated after 90 days. If no visible progress has been made, leadership may reallocate those dollars elsewhere.

Delays also impact morale and bandwidth. Existing team members are often absorbing double workloads, stretched thin across program management, testing, audits, and executive reporting. Over time, this erodes both performance and retention.

5. Navigating Internal Barriers to Specialized Recruiting

Even when hiring managers recognize the need for outside help, internal policies often slow down or restrict the process. Common barriers include:

• “HR must have first right of refusal.” Many companies require HR to work on the role for 30–60 days before engaging external partners.

• “We already have approved vendors.” These vendors may not specialize in resilience, and you end up re-explaining the nuances all over again.

• Procurement hurdles. Adding a new partner may require lengthy onboarding, paperwork, and approval cycles.

  
  

Ideas to influence internally:

• Build the business case early. Document how long similar roles have stayed open, the resulting operational impacts, and the internal resource strain.

• Educate with data. Share benchmarking insights that show the limited candidate pool in this niche, and help HR and procurement understand that this is a specialized market, not a general talent category.

• Propose a hybrid approach. Suggest letting HR work in parallel with a specialized partner rather than sequentially. This preserves control while accelerating outcomes.

• Champion credibility. Emphasize that a specialist brings trusted access to passive candidates who won’t engage with general recruiters.

6. What Specialized Firms Bring to the Table

Engaging a specialized recruitment firm, especially one embedded in the resilience ecosystem, brings tangible advantages:

• Terminology fluency. They understand BCM, DR, EM, cyber, and supplier risk language fluently and can vet candidates accurately.

• Established relationships. They already know and are trusted by many of the professionals your company wants to hire.

• Market insight. They can provide salary benchmarking, skill availability, and competitor hiring trends.

• Efficiency. Instead of 100 irrelevant resumes, you’ll see 3–5 highly qualified professionals ready to engage.

  
  

When your internal HR team and a specialized firm collaborate effectively, it’s a win-win: HR retains oversight and compliance control, while the specialized partner delivers the depth, speed, and credibility that the resilience field demands.

7. Takeaway: Lead the Search Like You Lead a Crisis

As a resilience leader, you already know how to manage uncertainty, build cross-functional trust, and align stakeholders under pressure. The same principles apply to staffing.

• Communicate clearly and early. Ensure HR truly understands your program’s mission and the skill sets required.

• Collaborate, don’t delegate. Stay actively involved in reviewing applicants and refining criteria.

• Advocate for the right resources. Whether it’s a budget for specialized support or flexibility in requirements, your leadership voice carries weight.

  
  

Hiring for resilience isn’t about filling a seat; it’s about finding a trusted practitioner who can help safeguard your organization’s people, processes, and reputation. Getting the right person on board sooner not only strengthens your program but also protects the continuity of your team itself.

Final Thought

If your resilience job has been open for months, it’s not a reflection of a weak talent market; it’s a signal that your internal search strategy may need recalibration.

By partnering early, educating your HR allies, and engaging specialized recruiters who speak the same language as your target candidates, you’ll shorten your hiring timeline, strengthen your team, and preserve the momentum your program worked so hard to build.

At Resilience360 Advisory, we partner with organizations and professionals across the resilience ecosystem to deliver actionable data, insights, and talent solutions. Through customized benchmarking reports, complimentary industry-wide insights, and a trusted network of consulting and recruitment resources, we help programs define their roadmaps, secure resources, and find the right talent.

For professionals, we provide tailored support that spans resume and LinkedIn optimization, interview preparation, salary benchmarking, and compensation coaching. Whether you’re planning your next move, strengthening your leadership presence, or positioning yourself for long-term advancement, our career services are designed to meet you where you are.

With over 25 years of industry expertise, we offer both organizations and individuals practical, data-driven guidance to advance resilience programs and careers.

👉 Learn more at Resilience360 Advisory