3 Simple Ways To
Reduce The Time It Takes To Hire
On average, it takes 23 or more days to hire someone to fill a job role. There are a variety of different factors that impact how long it takes to fill a role ā things like location, skills required, screening methods, pay, and company reputation and package all come into play. However the biggest factor is competition and how many of the same jobs are open your market.
Finding the right talent for your job position is critical but it doesnāt always have to take weeks to find the right talent. The trick is to figure out how to separate your opportunity from the competition, speed up the process and have the right people and resources working on the job openings.
Leaving a job vacant week after week can take a toll on a few things. Your output capacity is one thing; overtime and cost to compensate for the opening is another. But leaving a job vacant can also take a toll on your current staff and resources.
If you have someone tasked with the hiring functions, likely their only job role is not only hiring and recruiting; it is hiring and recruiting in addition to the other impactful job functions for which you count on. They must balance their work with the work required to hire a candidate. Now youāre in a situation where someone has too much on their plate and quality of work suffers. Theyāve got to find time in their now over-capacity work day to put time into recruiting and hiring and it will require taking time away from those other impactful duties.
With the vast amount of job boards and hiring resources and advice out there it seems like anyone with or without experience in recruiting or hiring can post a job and perform the initial steps involved with hiring ā but posting the job is only the start. The rest of the hiring process is not that easy and smart businesses need to consider what their hiring strategy is.
When looking to fill a job it seems to be feast or famine. Hiring managers or people tasked with hiring either post their job on a job board and receive no candidates or they post on all the available job boards and get a huge influx of candidates.
The first scenario is obvious that help is needed and the job will be open longer than necessary. The second scenario appears to be good but in reality, it is not.
The fact of the matter is that candidates have more options in the current employment market. Just because theyāve applied to your posting doesnāt mean that they are genuinely interested or qualified. An influx of candidates requires more time to weed through to determine who is even skilled enough for the job then more time to actually track down and get in touch with the top choices for interviews. This kind of work can take weeks. Even more if you have to start over due to poor candidates, candidates not returning calls, not showing up for interviews, not passing pre-hire screening or the worst, not showing up for their first day of work!
So what can you do if you have been left in either situation?
1: Allocate the RIGHT person, the RIGHT amount of time and invest in resources.
If you have someone on your staff that is primarily responsible for hiring, give them the TIME AND BUDGET to source candidates in a variety of different ways. You can post on free job boards and just hope people find your job posting and your company, or you can go out and find people who would be great fits for you by searching for them. Postings only give you a small snapshot of active job seekers who are in the market at that given day and time. A high percentage are unemployed and using quick apply therefore applying to 30 jobs at once.
The most desirable candidates may be in that group but you have to filter through a large number of applicants to find them. The most desirable candidates are working so connecting with them typically takes numerous voicemails, phone tag, or hours on nights and weekends.
Hiring in this competitive climate is a full-time job and requires a dynamic person who understands how to compete and how to sell.Ā They must be able to effectively set your company apart from the other companies trying to engage the same talent. Not having the right person or team puts you one step behind in reaching the most desirable candidates.Ā
62% of people who hire find more success in inbound sourcing techniquesĀ as opposed to traditional sourcing techniques or waiting for the resumes to come to them. Inbound techniques require investment and tend to be things like prospecting on LinkedIn for possible candidates, prospecting through resume databases and tapping into a vast network of connections to inquire if anyone is looking for a new opportunity.Ā Looking into a passive AND active job seeker pool is essential. Effective hiring takes an investmentā¦.investment of time and money.Ā Ā
2: Modify your hiring process to be efficient and focused on engagement.
The number of open jobs is currently greater than the number of people looking for jobs. Competition is fierce for top talent.Ā A potential hire could lose interest in an open job if the company takes too long to hire them (more than 50% of people have reported losing interest in a job because the hiring process took too long).Ā
Creating a hiring process that is short and focused on engagement can help you reduce the time it takes to fill a position in your company. A hiring process with multiple application steps or some sort of testing before a member of your team even engages with a candidate are sure to cause you to lose out on good candidates. Hiring in an employee market requires companies to examine their steps and make accommodations to compete effectively.
Evaluate your hiring process and how long each step is taking. Are there unnecessary scheduling delays? How many times does a candidate need to come in to interview? Streamline the process and steps necessary in filling a position so that any guesswork or unnecessary delays are eliminated. Be prepared to make decisions quickly and communicate with candidates what the next step will be. Companies that are able to minimize legwork for the candidate PRIOR to receiving and offer, have a streamlined and efficient hiring process, and have a competitive compensation package are the ones that are getting positions filled with the top talent.
3: Consider outsourcing part of the process to an expert.
If all of this work sounds like a full-time job to you, thatās because it is.
There are many stages of hiring to effectively fill a job. Some take a full business week to complete and if your process has multiple steps you could be looking at weeks of time spent to hire someone for your job role. An effective staffing agency can get you qualified candidates to consider much quicker which will jumpstart getting the position filled. They have an ongoing recruiting strategy, invest in resources to have a pipeline of passive and active candidates and have a team of people dedicated to do the legwork pre-qualify candidates. Youāre only outsourcing a portion of the process (the time intensive part) while remaining completely in control of deciding who to hire.
Staffing agencies are your competitive advantage in this hot job market. They have full time sourcing and recruiting teams ready to react quickly with pre-qualified candidates when you have an opening. They understand how to engage qualified candidates and know how to separate opportunities from others in the market. The turnaround for pre-qualified candidates sourced by an effective staffing agency can happen in a day or 2 versus weeks if taking the DIY approach. Leaving you with MORE TIME to focus on valuable and impactful activities rather than reading resumes of all of the unqualified candidates in the market or sitting there wondering where all the candidates are.
Think back to the last time you either hired or went through the hiring process. How many people have you lost to other jobs? How many times has someone told you that they had already accepted another job before you called to schedule an interview or offer a job? Are you feeling like your always one step behind in reaching the desirable candidates? If the answer is yes, get into the game and find a staffing company that can help you compete to WIN.
Let us help.
Save yourself time and reduce the time it takes to hire someone by partnering with a staffing agency. To talk with an account executive at Global Technical Resources to learn more, fill out this form.