“Hire slow, fire fast”
We’ve been told it so many times we pretty much accept it as conventional wisdom – hire slow, fire fast.
It makes sense right? Hiring is the most important thing we do, we should take time over it.
The last job I applied for had 7 interview stages! Slowly but surely I worked through them, meeting the entire, 45-strong, team along the way. Fortunately, before I reached the grand finale I got an offer to join Beamery and the ordeal was over – thank god!
It pays to be thorough when you’re evaluating a candidate, but you should be aware that the longer you deliberate, the higher the chance that you might lose the candidate to a competitor.
We all seem to be taking our time – the average time-to-fill in the US has been on the rise over the last few years. John Zappe reports that the national average is now roughly 25 days, the highest it has been since 2001.
There’s a major problem with this – the best candidates are off the market within 10 days! To get the best talent companies need to work faster and recruit in a more agile way.
Here are 7 (huge) reasons that you need to start hiring faster:
Why should you hire faster?
The very best candidates are in high demand and are likely to receive multiple offers. If you’re not prepared to be decisive you may lose out to your competitors!
Recruiting faster doesn’t mean you have to abandon your hiring standards, but it does mean you have to move fast. This might mean you have to re-evaluate your process. Here’s why it’s worth the extra work:
1) Saved money and resources
Think of the cost of recruiter time, the cost of continually taking your managers out of work for interviews, and the cost of unfilled positions.
You’d be shocked how much this all costs! You might be wasting as much as $12,570.75 every year (per recruiter!) Hiring faster lets you eliminate (or at least minimize) a lot of this!
2) High quality hires
Moving fast means that you won’t miss out on top talent. There’s no real correlation between evaluation time and quality of hire (providing you can get your major stakeholders involved in the process.)
Everything might be moving faster, but you’ll still need to show candidates exactly how awesome your company is though!
3) Better candidate experience
Being decisive with your hiring process helps you differentiate yourself from competitors and improve your candidate experience.
You’re not forcing applicants to continually return for interviews and wait patiently for feedback.
4) Better response rates
A faster hiring process will generate far higher response rates. Candidates will be thrilled that you’re getting back to them quicker – it’s a great way to keep them tied in and avoid losing talent from your hiring funnel.
Analyzing our data at Beamery has shown us that prompt follow ups dramatically enhance response rates and speed up the hiring process ( it’s part of the reason that our software is helping recruiters achieve 400% industry response rates!)
5) Great acceptance rates
Reducing the time from interview to offer gives candidates less time to reconsider your proposition. It also gives them less time to interview elsewhere or listen to counteroffers from their current managers – there’s less chance they will get poached by someone else.
6) Your recruiters will like it
Whereas a long hiring process requires a good slice of recruiter time (to schedule interviews and calls), hiring quickly helps them close requisitions, hit targets and stay happy.
As we all know, a happy recruiter is a productive recruiter!
7) Your hiring managers like it
Short recruitment cycles give hiring managers the talent they need immediately.
It also helps them understand if they are causing delays in the hiring process – correcting these can dramatically improve efficiency and turn your organisation into a hiring machine!
Conclusion
There are clear benefits to hiring faster, it will help you attract, convert and hire better talent, and it should save you significant resources in the process.
