Insights

You’ve just interviewed a fantastic candidate – they’ve got the skills, experience and would fit right in to the team, you’re in the process of putting together an offer when you find out they’ve accepted a role elsewhere. Does this sound familiar…? While you were following every step of your firm’s recruitment process, the competition pounced and snapped up your ideal candidate.

Rising vacancies combined with low unemployment means the recruitment market is turning in jobseekers’ favour, increasing the competition for the very best talent. The average time to hire for a sales job in the UK is 24 days, but the best candidates are off the table in only 10 days. This means that those companies who act fast have a huge advantage when it comes to securing new talent.

Why does hiring take so long?

Recruitment processes have become out-of-date and needlessly drawn-out. Multiple interviews with different stakeholders, wrangles with HR over salary and benefits, low-ball offers, prolonged negotiations all slow down hiring, meaning employers are missing out.

Companies are uncomfortable making an offer without seeing multiple candidates ‘for comparison’, even if the first person was ideal. Or they get obsessed with the idea of a “perfect candidate” and miss out on someone with the right skills, who is ideal for the business.

Furthermore, nobody wants to make a decision and put their neck on the line regarding a new hire, unless several colleagues are in agreement, so that not one person takes the fall if the new employee doesn’t work out!

Why slow hiring damages your company

If your company takes a month or more to fill their vacancies, it can cost you more than just your ability to recruit the right candidate.

The longer you take to hire, the more likely it is that your candidate will have multiple offers on the table, meaning you might well have to offer a higher salary to secure them. There will also be fewer candidates remaining after a long hiring process, which means you might have to settle for someone less suitable. It could also have a negative impact on your company’s diversity. 

Slow recruitment also puts pressure on remaining employees, as they’ll have to pick up the slack while the position is vacant. In the worst case scenario, the pressure created from having to cover multiple roles can lead to a cascade of resignations.

How can you speed up recruitment?

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the best way to speed up the whole recruitment process is to spend more time preparing before you start. Get your ducks in a row before you ask for CVs, and you’ll be able to streamline the whole process.

Here are CPR’s top tips for speedy hiring:

• Put together a proper, up to date job description and person specification and agree a salary range. This will save you seeing unsuitable people and wasting time before making an offer.
• Determine who needs to be involved in the interview process and keep it to as few people as possible. Schedule interviews with multiple stakeholders wherever possible or use Skype or telephone interviews to save time.
• As soon as you find a candidate who interests you, invite them for interview. Don’t wait until you have other suitable CVs or stick to pre-set interview days – you’re just delaying the process.
• Keep the recruitment process as streamlines as possible – do you really need 3 interview stages or is 1 enough to make a decision?
• Let candidates know your expected timeline for recruitment and keep in constant contact to keep them interested in your role. Give them feedback as soon as you have it and if you’d like to invite them back for a second interview, let them know straight away, even if you don’t necessarily have a set time yet.
• If you find someone who’s right for the role, offer it to them right away. If you wait to interview a minimum number of candidates or keep looking for a perfect candidate who may not exist, you could fail to hire anyone and will have to start the process again.
• Finally, using a recruitment specialist like Collins Property Recruitment can really help cut your time to hire. Our consultants concentrate solely on recruitment, rather than trying to juggle it with another full-time job, so can make your search and selection process quick and painless.

If you are struggling to fill a role or want to streamline your recruitment process by using industry specialists with access to those hard to find candidates, please get in touch on 020 7435 0309 or email us on info@cpr.jobs.