A Guide to Reduce the Time to Hire

Time and a good candidate wait for none, especially in today’s competitive market full of opportunities.

So, unless you optimize your recruitment process, the top talent will keep slipping through the net. All this while costing you over $95,000 for an unfilled position.

In this article, we will tackle this problem by fixing one of the most critical metrics of the recruitment process– time to hire.

What is Time to Hire?

The time to hire is the number of days it takes you to select a candidate from the moment they submit their application. The duration of this depends on how extensive your recruitment process is.

And a shorter time to hire means more cost-efficiency and getting your hands on the right match quickly.

But you shouldn’t mix time to hire with time to fill a position. Where time to hire is calculated from the day a candidate submits their application till their employment, time to fill is measured as soon as you receive a job description for a vacant position. By this definition, the time to fill will always be more than the time to hire.

 

 

As per the SHRM report, the average time to hire ranges from 20 to 36 days.

How Can Slow Time to Hire Affect Your Organization?

1) Losing Candidates to Competitors

57% of the candidates lose interest in a job if they have to wait more than a week for confirmation. It’s alarming, considering the probability of suitable matches passing you by because they already have other options to choose from.

So, if you are slacking in keeping your time to hire in check, it’s automatically making your competitors stronger.

2) Swelling Your Cost to Hire

Candidate sourcing, shortlisting, and interviews cost you time and money. So, until you hire the desired candidate, you are expected to burn cash along the way.

But unfortunately, that’s not the only expense. While finding a candidate costs resources, a vacant position in the team adds to the loss and unproductivity.

That’s double the beating which can be easily limited by optimizing the recruitment pipeline.

3) Failing to Create an Impression

A tedious hiring procedure affects the candidate's experience– badly.

Your recruitment process is the first impression the candidate will have of your company, which might also affect their decision to join. So, if it lacks planning and promptness, it will result in a poor company image.

4) Trickling Inefficiency in the Whole Recruitment Cycle

Like the domino effect, if one thing is delayed, the whole recruitment cycle gets lengthy and loses its purpose.

Unnecessary roadblocks in the hiring phase also increase the total time to fill a position.

Why Your Time to Hire Might be Slow?

1) A Broken Candidate Pipeline

You can’t recruit the right match unless the candidates are sourced effectively. If you struggle with an inefficient candidate pipeline, it will naturally delay the whole hiring process.

Revisit your application process and see how many candidates are finishing through it. If the application percentage is low, shuffle things around.

2) Lengthy Interview Cycle

You have never been more wrong if you think multiple hour-long interview rounds can help you get your star candidate.

It will only tire out the candidates while wasting your team’s time with redundant rounds.

3) Bottlenecks in Candidate Communication

Ineffective candidate communication is a sure-shot way of blowing your chances with the perfect fit.

Inadequate and delayed information adds to the time and inconvenience in the recruitment process.

4) Immature Evaluation Process

An unorganized interview round breeds misunderstanding and inefficiency.

If your team is unsure about the metrics on which the candidate needs to be judged, it will result in redundancy in interview questions or, worse– a bad hire.

How to Minimize Time to Hire?

1) Start With Clear & Definite Goals

If you aren’t clear with your expectations from the candidate, you are bound to halt and add more time to hire.

That’s why it’s crucial to be prepared in advance.

1) Get in touch with the respective departments to understand the requirements. Prepare an effective job description accordingly.

2) Decide the metrics on which you will judge the candidate. These can be the key performance indicators (KPIs).

3) Plan how many employees you need in the organization and divide your resources accordingly.

4) Also, set aside an ample budget to finish the recruitment process without hiccups.

2) Smoothen the Application Process

The faster the candidate can apply for the position, the sooner they will be hired.

For this to happen, you need to streamline your application process.

1) Create a concise application form and ask for only critical information. The rest of the details can be optional for the candidate to give.

2) Deploy an easy-to-use portal for the candidates to apply.

3) Enable automated emails to acknowledge the applications.

4) Use popular platforms to promote your job listing.

3) Automate the Candidate Screening

While hiring a candidate, you can’t afford to lose time in screening each resume manually. It will consume a lot of your resources and labor.

The best alternative is to automate your screening process for shortlisting suitable candidates quickly and without errors.

1) Use tools for conducting the screening tests based on the profile up for filling. Select the tool which provides a wide range of test series and can provide accurate reports in real-time.

2) You can implement basic skills and personality assessments to proceed with in-person interviews.

4) Prepare Your Sourcing Pool

Reaching out to candidates only when you have a position to fill isn’t a proactive hiring approach. And it will naturally increase the time to get the suitable candidates pooled in.

To bypass this hassle, consider candidate sourcing as continuous work instead of a one-time activity.

1) Start with your existing team. Gather employee referrals to build your candidate database.

2) A reliable referral system improves employee retention and helps you engage with quality candidates.

3) Go for the tool that provides easy integrations for a smoother transition.

Once your candidate pool is ready, you won’t have to start your search from ground zero.

5) Schedule Interviews Without a Hitch

You must move your candidates quickly between interviews. But that’s not possible without organized interview scheduling.

Delay here can amount to a loss of good candidates and turn the opportunity cold.

1) Research for a tool that lets you schedule one-on-one or group meetings easily by checking each party’s availability.

2) Send or trigger automated reminders to the participants to join the meeting.

3) Brief the person from your team taking the interview about the agenda and ask them to prepare their questions beforehand.

4) Note the meeting minutes to refer to later and avoid redundant questions in the following rounds.

6) Power Up With an Applicant Tracking System

Introducing an applicant tracking system is one of the best strategic decisions for your hiring process.

Here is how it can help you.

1) Create workflows that can automate the hiring journey based on specific triggers.

2) Track each applicant’s progress and close the leads in time.

3) Segregate candidates based on their skills and abilities

4) Get accurate data and analytics to improve further.

Hire the Right Candidate Every Time

Hiring the perfect candidate demands constant work and time. So, expecting your hiring issues to get resolved in a day isn’t realistic.

But what’s important is to introduce small yet necessary changes into your process to compound the results.

While transforming your hiring process, remember to experiment and measure the effects. Without visible proof, you would be shooting in the dark, which can do more harm than good.

If you are looking for a stepping stone, getting a talent acquisition tool like RippleHire is your best bet. It can handle your complete hiring journey, guiding you with the right prompts at the right time, ensuring you don’t miss any chance to bag the candidate.Consider it an investment that can save your hiring cost and time.