There’s a concept in talent acquisition I call ‘candidate shelf life’ that I wanted to explain today. Understanding this concept could be the difference in losing a great candidate or hiring the wrong one.
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There’s a concept I call ‘candidate shelf life’ that could affect your ability to land top talent.
When you go to the grocery store and buy bananas, they might be extra green. Naturally, we take them home and put them on the shelf and let them sit there for a few days, they become perfectly ripe and ready to go. If you wait too long, brown spots set in, it starts to wither, and the gnats come.
Our candidates go through the same cycle.
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Remember, big changes happen in small sequences.
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There are two things related to the psychology of change that are important to understand. The first is that oftentimes, our emotions overwhelm our rational thoughts. The second thing to remember is that big changes happen in a sequence of small steps.
If we have a candidate that we’re really interested in and we interview them and proceed to make an offer, they might be like the banana. They may not be ready and they might decline our offer. On the other side, if we have a candidate that we’re very interested in and we take them through a long process (say, eight weeks) before making an offer, they might be like the overripe banana that sat on the shelf too long and decline your offer.
There are ways to overcome this.
One rule of thumb to remember is that the ideal interview process is three to four weeks long. If it happens a whole lot faster or slower, it could be too fast or too slow. This is something we help our clients with all the time, and it’s something we can definitely help you with. If you have talent acquisition needs within your company, contact us soon. We’d love to help you.