Proven Ways to Speed up your Hiring Process

Proven Ways to Speed up your Hiring Process

The job market is now even more competitive for businesses looking for new talent.

There are more positions open than there are qualified and talented applicants to fill those potions.  And high-quality candidates have multiple options to choose from.

If your hiring process is not nimble and agile, then you could lose out on having highly talented candidates fill your vacancy.

As a manger or business owner, an inefficient and cumbersome hiring process should be of concern to you.

On the flip side, you don’t want to rush through the hiring process without fully screening candidates or managing their expectations.

While it’s important to move quickly, speed will not be a good thing if you end up with the wrong candidate which ends up costing your business more time and money than the hiring process itself.

Here are 3 ways you can speed up your hiring process and still aim to attract the highest calibre of candidates.

Start With a Clear & Targeted Job Description

Writing a job description is the starting point.

However, writing a clear and concise job description is the first step in streamlining and improving the speed of your hiring process.

While this may sound obvious, here’s why a clear and concise job description is such a critical first step.

The ‘job’ of a job description is to tell candidates about the job you have available for them.

The ‘real job’ of a job description is to attract the right candidates and set the right expectations about the job available.

The clearer and targeted the job description, the more likely you will attract the desired candidates.

At a minimum, your job description needs to include:

• The top 3 or 5 key skills that are needed for the role – these will serve as the focus of the job description details
• Set the expectations – what tasks will the new hire spend most of their time on and what can they expect to learn
• What are the success KPIs – how will performance be measured, how will success in this role be measured
• What is the level of assumed experience for the role – very often hiring managers want to throw out a wide net to see what catches, this is a time-wasting exercise for both the business and the candidates who are applying – be very specific as to what level/years of experience you are wanting

By creating a clear and concise job description that is an accurate reflection of the position, you cut out a massive amount of time you might otherwise spend screening candidates who don’t fit.

The description does the screening for you.

Perfect your Interview Process & Skills

A well written, concise, and targeted job description will narrow down the list of potential candidates – you will now attract the ‘right’ candidates for your vacancy.

The step in further narrowing down the list is the interview.

Too often, suitable high calibre candidates are put off with the interview process only to withdraw their applications.  Some of the key reasons are:

• Panel based interviews at the first interview; having 3 or more people interviewing is an overkill and will only lead to as many opinions as the number of people involved in the interview – none of this will help to narrow down even further. Rather, have multiple stakeholders have the initial input to the job description.
• Off script questions; asking about hobbies, what movies they watch or sports they play are not a predictor of on job performance. Rather, go back to your job description and ask questions around the key requirements – always remember, past performance/behaviours are a predictor of future performance/behaviour.
• Follow up with all involved; it’s critical that you follow up with managers/supervisors and candidates while the interview is still fresh in their minds. Give everyone a chance to make notes and debrief from the interviews, and keep candidates informed on next steps.

Maintain the Talent Pool

Maintaining a positive relationship with as most of your candidates, including those you don’t hire, you gain a talent pool full of candidates who are already screened, qualified, and interested.

Creating a positive relationship with every qualified candidate means you could cut your time-to-hire way down on a future job.

Recruitment Australia and help you streamline your hiring process and significantly reduce the time it takes to onboard your new candidate.

For more information, contact us on +61 2 9634 5912 or request information on  info@recruitmentaustralia.net.au