Why do you need a faster hiring process?
Hiring Costs
The longer a position is open the more expenditures occur in the hiring process for advertising and personnel time. Time to process resumes, time to phone interview, time for in-person interviews, cost of bringing people in for interviews and most importantly the cost of work not getting done because no one is in the position. DHI Group’s Hiring Indicators Report says time to hire varies from 62 days for engineers to 40 days for customer service and administrative functions.
Acceptance Rates
Lengthy hiring processes gives candidates time to use your position and your interest in them to market themselves to other companies. Lengthy hiring processes have candidates believing your level of interest in them is low, otherwise there would be energy and speed expended in getting them into your company workforce.
Reputation
Slow decision makers and slow hiring processes get bad reviews on Glassdoor.com and through word of mouth. Poor or slow hiring processes reflect badly on the company itself. If you can’t put your best foot forward in your hiring process, probably the first interaction of the candidate with the company, what must your project approval process be like? Your personal reputation is also negatively impacted by too many open positions that have been open for too long. You get unhappy hiring managers and overworked existing staff.
Why is your hiring process slow?
Poor Job Description
Without direct input from the hiring manager on the job description, you won’t get the candidates they want to hire. Good job descriptions must include screening tools or must haves that the non-line person can check for and eliminate inappropriate candidates.
Lack of Hiring Process Buy-In
Establish a process before you start with agreement on how many rounds of interviews, who will be involved, calendars blocked for availability and clear understanding of who has the final decision to hire.
Plan for Managing Rejected Applicants
70-80% of applicants who apply for the job won’t be a fit. Do you have technology to manage those rejections without ruining your company reputation or should you use a recruiting firm to avoid being inundated?
Multiple In-Person Interviews
Utilize phone screens and Skype interviews as much as possible. Plan for an intensive single in-person interview with, maybe, a second in-person if necessary due to indecision. Do not ask applicants to interview three or four times because calendars can’t be coordinated or decisions can’t be made. Applicants will resent it and your reputation will be tarnished.
Waiting for an Ideal
Heard about the unemployment rate being at a forty year low? Achieving perfection is difficult in an employer driven market but in today’s candidate driven market, some flexibility is required if you really want to fill the position.
How to speed up the hiring process?
Clear Job Description
Attract the right candidates and generate enthusiasm from the applicants.
Use a Contingency Recruiting Firm
As long as you find a recruiting firm in the niche you are trying to hire, you will see far fewer candidates but all you do see will be right for the position and ready to interview asap. This means an increase in quality candidates, decreased number of interviews, less administrative work for in-house talent acquisition and constant communication with the candidates on your behalf. Recruiters do the reference checks, too!
Communicate
The more you communicate with your recruiter, your candidates and your internal staff, the faster the process works. Energysourcing.com says, “Staying in contact with interviewed candidates is so rarely done that, even when you are delivering bad news, you are still presenting your company in the best light.”
