READ TIME – 3 MINUTES
There are many very persuasive reasons to speed up your recruitment processes. For starters:
- Improving the candidate experience, giving you a better chance to attract candidates and project a positive image of your company
- Saving you money – unfilled vacancies can be costly, potentially affecting everything from productivity and turnover to customer satisfaction
- The chance to snap up the best candidates first – some of the best talent could be hired elsewhere in a matter of days, so it’s important to act fast.
So, it’s important to hire quickly, but without compromising on quality as you speed up your recruitment processes. It’s crucial to get the right person first time. A bad hire can cost over £132,000 in terms of money wasted on recruitment, training and lost productivity.
How To Speed Up The Hiring Process
There are lots of proven ways you can hire faster, and still make the right decisions. Here’s how to speed up the hiring process.
- Use a recruitment specialist. If you don’t have the time to recruit, work with someone who does. Specialists such as AvA-V develop bespoke strategies and use tried-and-tested techniques to place the right candidates in the right roles – and quickly.
- Put a clear structure in place. Set out a clear, trackable ‘journey’ for your candidates, with fixed deadlines that are communicated to everyone. This means you can manage candidate expectations, while staying on track with your recruitment goals.
- Automate where possible. The less you have to do manually, the quicker the process will be. Make use of automation tools and apps for sifting CVs, tracking applications and reference checking.
- Choose your platforms carefully. If you post on every job board around, you’ll get a lot of applications – but most won’t be right for the role and will take time to process. Consider whether a niche board or platform would work better, if it would result in enough applications.
- Use social media. If you’ve got a great job advert written, make sure to post it on social media too. This is a dynamic way to get the message out there and boost candidate engagement.
More Ways to Make Recruitment More Efficient
- Pre-screen. Tools such as skills tests and telephone interviews is a quick, effective way to weed out candidates who aren’t right for the role at an early stage. This is another area which specialists such as AvA-V can be best placed to handle.
- Only interview the very best candidates. This sounds obvious, but many companies interview many candidates ‘just in case’ – even if they aren’t hitting all of your criteria. Save time by being a little more ruthless and only selecting the very best for interview.
- Consider flexible interviews. If you don’t have to wait for a suitable date for the interview panel and candidate, using telephone or video interviews instead, you can cut days or even weeks from the interview stage.
- Look internally. It’s around 1.7 times more expensive to hire externally, rather than hiring a current employee. An internal candidate, who knows the business, its culture and values, is likely to perform better in the role too.
- Use an employee referral programme. Current employees are great at identifying people they know who would be a good fit for the role and the company. With an incentive in place, they can do some of the head-hunting for you.