Top performers come and go in the blink of an eye, and the speed with which you hire will determine whether or not you get your pick of the best candidates. The best applicants will take advantage of your competitors’ speed and efficiency, while you’re busy planning your next interview. Your hiring process could be ruining you.
Candidates are no longer willing to “work through the process” to find their ideal job. Currently, the best candidates are off the market within 10 days. Unfortunately, many hiring managers miss out on this pool of viable candidates when they spend weeks, even months, going through hundreds of applicants. Here are some reasons you need to get the ball rolling on a revamped hiring process.
They already received an offer
Top applicants become more expensive the longer they stay in the job market. Because competitive bidding hasn’t begun when a top applicant has just applied, you want to move the process along swiftly. If you can land them before they hit the job market, you’ll save money because, by the time you’ve made an offer, they may have already accepted a different position.
They’re looking for full transparency on the role they applied for
“Be extremely clear about your expectations. This is particularly important for younger generations who want a better work-life balance than their parents. Outline what a typical day and week look like for the person in the role you’re hiring for. How much time is spent in meetings? How much will they really be expected to travel? How much overtime do they truly have to work? Will they be expected to work on weekends? The answers to these questions should be given to any potential hire so they know what they’re getting themselves into if they accept the position. It’s better to be honest and have people self-exclude themselves from the job than it is to hire someone, train them and have them quit after a few months. Be honest about expectations and you’ll find the right person for the job.” – Jonathan Prichard, MattressInsider.com (from Forbes)
Transparency should be expected. Be honest about everything from the candidate’s expectations to the timeline. It’s unlikely that your organization is intentionally misleading candidates and there’s a good chance that miscommunication or misunderstandings are at fault for any discrepancy. The perfect time to create transparency is now.
If you are unsure about your timeline, create one. Just as with any goal, it is oftentimes impossible to accomplish things in a timely manner when there’s no standard for the team. Streamline your process to prevent candidates from losing interest and moving on. Many candidates are going to ask about your timeline at the end of your interview. If you’re answering with a “We are willing to wait as long as it takes, we don’t really have any deadlines”, there is a problem.
They want a written offer
So, you’ve given them a verbal offer. That’s good enough to buy you some time, right? Wrong.
If you’ve provided a verbal offer, you need to get the written offer back to them within 24 hours, ideally, on the same day that you spoke to them. Nothing is ever official unless it’s in writing. Candidates are keener on competitive offers that are typed out. There needs to be no confusion between the hiring manager and the candidate.
The process has a lot of unnecessary elements
This is one of those situations where you need to make time to save time. Identify why the process is taking forever in the first place. Is it because you have too many interviews? Is it because you aren’t using a recruitment firm? Is it because the candidates are ghosting? Managers can’t complete their managerial work when the process is taking an eternity. The entire recruiting process will suffer, which takes the manager and recruiter time while amping up the initial hiring costs. Dedicating concentrated time, in the beginning, is almost always worth it. Candidates are certainly expected to make time to interview, and so should management.
Slow hiring doesn’t attract the best
Slow hiring cuts out the best. Top talent is rarely available after the 30-day mark because of alternative offers they’ve received. Passive candidates will be unwilling to wait and oftentimes they’re the most qualified candidates. If these lower-quality hires stay, the cost of low-performance work accumulates fast. Just as bad, if they quit or get fired, you’re now back at square one.
Outsourcing to a recruitment firm can widen the talent pool and increase your hiring speed. At JDI, we offer quality candidates after just 3 business days. Ready to fix your hiring process? Reach out to one of our recruiters here.