5 Top Tips On How To Speed Up Your Hiring Process - Lily Shippen

Bringing new talent into your company can be a long and drawn out process, with Glassdoor.com research suggesting that in the past 5 years the hiring process has doubled from 12.6 days to 22.9 days. Coupled with this, however, is the fact that the best candidates are being snapped up quicker than ever before. With this in mind, companies/individuals need to act fast and look at ways to speed up the hiring process, so they don’t miss out on the best talent. We have put together our 5 top tips on how to speed up your hiring process to make things as quick and as easy as possible.  

1. Use a specialist recruitment agency.
   Working with a specialist recruitment agency when looking to bring in new talent can help to cut the time to hire process significantly due to a number of factors. Firstly, a specialist agency will have a good insight into the candidates in their pool such as; their salary expectations, the type of company they are looking to work for, their skill set, and their personality. With this in mind, the candidates that you receive through an agency should be a good match for the role you are looking to fill. In addition to this, using a recruitment agency will lessen the work for your company with regards to sifting through hundreds of CVs and applications. As a result, you can simply focus on interviewing the shortlisted candidates that are put in front of you. Finally, recruiters typically have a strong network and social media presence. This can be useful as it may just be that your dream candidate for the position isn’t actively looking and therefore, may not be signed up to job boards. Recruiters are useful in order to tap into their network of more ‘passive’ candidates, therefore this will allow you to connect with the more hard-to-find talent. 

2. Write a clear job description.
   This may seem like an obvious point, but it applies when you are recruiting directly or when you are using a recruitment agency to assist with the hire. The clearer and more specific your job description is with regards to the duties entailed, what experience/qualifications you are looking for the successful candidate to have and the personality fit you feel would suit your company culture, the more likely you are to receive suitable applications or CVs straight off the bat, which will ultimately lead to a faster hiring process.  

3. Take advantage of phones/technology.
   If your company is limited with regards to availability to meet prospective candidates, it may speed up the process to look at ways to conduct the first stage interview either over the phone or over video call. Typically, most companies/individuals tend to undertake a two-stage interview process, with the first stage usually allowing for the company/individual to gauge a candidate’s suitability. With this in mind, it isn’t always necessary to conduct the first stage interview in person. Think about conducting the first stage over the phone or via video call so that you can ask any initial questions you may have and learn a little bit more about the candidate and their personality fit. This may therefore help you to narrow down the process early on, which will lead to you potentially spending less time meeting candidates at the second, face-to-face interview stage.  

4. Offer quickly once you find the right candidate.
   Again, this may sound like common sense, but it is so important for companies/individuals to act quickly when they feel they have found the right candidate. Leaving candidates in the dark for too long or making them come back in for multiple interview stages is likely to put the candidate off, which may lead to them being snapped up by another company. Spark Hire found that candidates will typically wait around two weeks before giving up on a role, however, I feel that this is still too long! Try and be transparent and communicate effectively with the candidate (if you recruited directly), or with the agency if you are working with a recruiter. If you have a candidate in to interview and you really like them, but you have other interviews scheduled, make them aware of this. Tell them that you will come back to them by a certain date (as soon as you can if at all possible) so that they know what they are working towards. Alternatively, if you meet someone and you think they are a great fit with the right experience and there is no one else in the process then don’t wait around to make an offer, try and offer them the role on the same day if you can!  

5. Don’t rush, bring in a temp!
   Although these are our top tips on how to speed up the hiring process it is also really important not to rush, as hiring the wrong person will, in the long term, cost you more money and more time. If the role you are looking to fill comes about very quickly and it isn’t a position which can be taken over by another member or members of staff on a short term basis, then look at getting a temp in whilst you are undertaking the recruitment process. This will help to take the pressure off internally, whilst also allowing you to make sure you take the time you need to hire correctly and bring someone on-board who is going to be a brilliant fit long-term! 

Take a look at our temporary and permanent recruitment services to see how Lily Shippen can help your business.