How to Speed up your Recruiting Process
The process of hiring and onboarding new talent can be a long and drawn out process. Being both irritating and time consuming, recruiting processing can cut down sometimes on processes that aren’t completely necessary. While many practices are essential, some extra things can tack on time and can be thrown aside.
Often if the hiring process takes too long, candidates sometimes move on to other offers. In Top Echelon’s 2018 State of the Industry Recruiting Report asked recruiters what common reasons were for job offer rejections and 22.4% of respondents answered that “they took too long to make an offer”.
The bottom line is, this process can be shortened! Here is your guide to doing just that.
Be selective about candidates
Often, there is a good balance between having a large pool of candidates and an overly large pool. If this ends up being a regular practice, sometimes the applicants or potential candidates for a position can also reach a number that can slow down the process.
Instead of taking every candidate that is possible, it is best to narrow the pool down to only the most qualified candidates. By sending only the most qualified candidates to the client, there are hours of saved work in interviews and second interviews right there.
This also saves the candidates time by ensuring that they are either in or out and getting put through the interview processes. So instead of taking the 20 or so good candidates, take the 10 outstanding candidates to lead your hiring charge.
Cut out unnecessary steps
If you take some time to really inspect your recruiting process, you can find places that need work. Often some places overlooked can have bottlenecks or tasks that take too long to process. Cleaning these areas up or getting rid of them altogether will speed up the process.
An example could be having candidates fill out a long questionnaire that takes them many days to complete and return. By going through and really trimming down this form of questionnaire or getting rid of it, you can reduce the time and burden.
Utilize Technology
Technology has become a big driver for recruiting. Whether it be for the interview process or keeping candidates properly managed, there is some really helpful software to provide assistance.
For interviews and scheduling, sometimes video interviews are a way to avoid scheduling conflicts. Whether they are out of town or working another job, having a video interview can help streamline the process by allowing you to complete this process both quickly and efficiently.
Another way to speed up this process is to utilize different recruiting softwares. With feature rich software, it makes it easier to manage your candidates in one place. Without having to switch back and forth between calendar and email applications, you can handle scheduling and communication right within your recruiting software.
You can also take this a step further and set certain triggers for when candidates have been moved up to the next stage of vetting, by sending them an automated email. By consolidating and streamlining your recruitment process, you can make it easier than ever to cut down on the time in between placements.
Check References ahead of time
Something that can take up time in the middle of a hiring process can be the validating of candidate credentials and references. By checking the references sooner rather than later, you are able to get moving with the calling and screening process. Typically this is done near the end of the hiring process, with the offer coming soon.
Why wait? The sooner you can call and verify this candidate is the real deal, you can get on with the potential placement process.
Communicate Effectively and Efficiently
The biggest driver of events is definitely communication. From the first communication to the last interaction, all forms of communication are important. One of the most important things to do is to use proper channels. Some channels that are preferred are often: e-mail, phone and sometimes text messaging.
With the use of technology, communication has become a lot easier. That has also led a lot of people to get very overworked and be in contact with a lot of people at once, which can drown out the important messages. Being sure that you are in contact with your candidates frequently and updating them on the process and progress they are making is very important.
So when you have information to share to either your client or your candidate, this should be done immediately and in a professional manner. You can also try to put a little pressure on both parties by encouraging them to share information and decisions quickly.
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