Can you afford to lose productivity and revenue for an entire quarter? If you don’t have a streamlined interviewing and hiring process, you just might.
Sourcing, hiring and onboarding a new employee is a big financial investment. But you and your team may be more concerned about how long it can take to fill a vacant position and get your new hire ramped up. In the meantime, the longer your remaining team shoulders a departed employee’s workload, the higher the risk of burnout and additional turnover. With so much at stake, you can’t afford to have a lengthy and disorganized interviewing process.
But it’s not just revenue, productivity and turnover that are at risk in a long hiring process. You might lose your best candidate, too. The longer you wait to make an offer, the more time the individual has to explore other opportunities and counteroffers. Fortunately, there are actionable things you can do to accelerate recruiting and interviewing and make offers to candidates more quickly.
immediately identify candidate criteria
Of course, before you can present candidates with offers, you have to find them — and that’s much easier said than done. Recruiting has never been more challenging due to a shortage of available skilled workers in today’s marketplace, and the country’s four percent unemployment rate means you’ll likely be selecting from a pool of candidates who are not only talented, but also gainfully employed. Meanwhile, companies are creating more jobs, which means that when you're hiring for a new position, other organizations are, too.
To get a jump on this process, work with your team to determine the criteria your perfect hire should have, including experience, education and culture fit. You should also have your salary range defined before starting your search, and find out if you have approval to negotiate compensation — and by how much. It's critical to ensure the rate you’re offering is competitive. Otherwise, you’re likely to lose your best candidates.
rally your stakeholders
The usual process of scheduling a phone conversation, arranging a few in-person interviews and then holding committee meetings to review multiple candidates can take weeks, if not months. Wait too long, and you’ll lose top candidates before you even have a chance to make an offer. You can eliminate a lot of that waiting by including the decision makers in the process from the very beginning. However, it’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page about the new hire. Make sure you agree on the questions you’ll use and at which stage of the interview process they’ll be asked. Create a clear interviewing schedule — and ask your stakeholders to commit to it. By bringing all relevant parties into the planning process, you’re giving them the chance to answer questions immediately and spot concerns that might eventually slow everything down.
speed up the process
Consider eliminating phone screens altogether by scheduling a multi-session, in-person interview and ensuring that all the decision makers can participate. You may also want to hold interviews via apps like Skype or Google Hangouts. Many people, especially Millennials, are looking for more flexible work arrangements, and that includes the ability to work from home. If you’re open to letting employees work remotely, conducting interviews this way can demonstrate that your organization embraces telecommuting and understands the value of work/life balance.
Prioritizing speed during the hiring process may seem counterintuitive, especially when you want to take your time in determining a candidate’s skills and culture fit. But think about how much productivity you’ll lose by letting the position stay vacant for too long. Haggling over a few thousand dollars in salary or the number of days an employee can work from home will pale in comparison to what you might lose in a lengthy hiring process.
get expert help
We get it — hiring’s hard. Knowing where to post your job and how to identify top talent is always tough. Plus, moving through the interviewing process to the offer stage can be frustrating and time-consuming for you, your hiring managers and other stakeholders. If you’re at risk for losing your best candidates due to lengthy hiring processes or below-market salary offers, it might be time to get some help from the experts. A proven, experienced staffing partner can help you step up your recruiting game, keep your hiring managers happy and decrease the risk of additional turnover. Stop panicking and start hiring.
Stressing about staffing? We can help. Let us show you how Randstad can assist in all of your staffing and business needs.
