EmployersHiring Advice For Employers
You Need to Speed up your Hiring Process…
Both demand and competition for top talent are at an all-time high. So, it’s not only important to get the hiring process right, but also not to waste unnecessary time.
On average, it takes just shy of 28 days to make a successful hire in the UK. Whilst we’re still operating in a candidate-driven market, qualified talent isn’t staying on the job market long enough to justify such lengthy hiring times.
By the time you’ve decided to hire, the candidate has accepted a role elsewhere. And you’re left wondering what went wrong.
To have a competitive edge over other businesses, you need to be streamlining your hiring process. We touch on this in our article about hiring top talent, but in this blog, we will look in more detail at not only why you should speed up your hiring process, but how…
⏩ Why
The time it takes to hire is one of the most used methods to measure recruitment success. As top talent is here one minute and gone the next, long hiring processes are not going to cut it in the current climate.
Because companies are enforcing 2/3/4 stage interviews, taking the weekend to ‘think about it’ and not providing initial, upfront feedback, they’re losing out. Resulting in higher costs, lower productivity, and frustrated hiring managers/recruiters.
Dragging your feet is only going to hinder the candidate’s experience and impact your ability to fill roles. To hire the best talent, your hiring process needs to be organised, cutting out inefficiencies, and staying ahead of the competition.
It is essential before you begin to implement new best practices, that you can pinpoint what it is that is causing the problem. Once you know this, you’ll be able to make the necessary changes to your hiring process.
⏩ How
🚀 Create a clear, authentic job advertisement
Ensuring your job ad is clear from the beginning will ensure you’re attracting the right candidates. Work with your hiring manager/recruiter to define the candidate profile, paying particular attention to cultural fit and experience. This is the basis for every following step in your hiring process. If you can get this right the first time, it will eliminate unsuitable applications.
🚀 Communicate!
When your recruiter, or hiring manager, sends you CVs, ensure you’re responding in a timely manner. Especially if there is a candidate you want to interview. It can be so frustrating for all parties if a candidate is no longer available due to poor communication, or prolonged responses.
🚀 Interview once
This isn’t always feasible, especially if you conduct an initial interview regarding cultural fit and a 2nd interview with the hiring manager. However, where possible, keep your interviewing to only once. Once you get into the territory of 3 or 4 interviews, it is likely the candidate will either drop out of the process or have multiple job offers. Especially if the interviews are not conducted close together.
🚀 Set expectations
When you interview, confirm when they’re likely to hear feedback. This will prevent them from accepting another job right away, as they know they will be hearing from you by X date.
🚀 Provide feedback
If you use a recruitment agency, be sure to provide your recruiter with feedback so they can feed this back to their candidate, especially if it is good news. If you don’t use a recruitment agency, it is still important you provide some initial feedback to the candidate, whether this is at the interview, or in the following days.
🚀 Make a decision
Too many times employers decide to ‘take the weekend’ to think about offering a position or want more candidate options. In this market, taking the weekend, or interviewing more candidates for the sake of it, will only mean your ideal candidate will accept a role elsewhere. Don’t delay, if you think the candidate is a good fit, offer them the role.
And, if you don’t feel the candidate is right for the role, let them/the recruiter know. The candidate journey isn’t just about successful candidates. We will discuss ‘ghosting’ candidates in an upcoming blog.
In conclusion…
Speeding up your hiring process will ensure you aren’t missing out on top talent. Nothing is more frustrating than missing out on the perfect candidate when your delays could have been avoided.
If you have a role you’re struggling to fill or don’t have time to deal with, please get in touch.
