This is the seventh article in the Eight Biggest Challenges Facing Recruiters series by Smart Recruit Online. 

Measuring what you are doing is vitally important if you want to deliver a best in class service and this metric in particular is quite a key one, as it’s a pretty good indicator of how efficient your recruiting process is and provides a benchmark around which you can drive improvements.

Operating an efficient recruitment process isn’t just good for the company to get roles filled quicker, it usually contributes towards a better candidate experience and there is a lot of evidence to prove that a smart efficient recruitment process enables a higher fulfilment rate, with fewer candidates dropping out of the process or declining offers.

However, if you are going to measure your performance in this area, you need to ensure that you are measuring the correct metric and ‘time to hire’ should in fact be ‘time to offer’ as the recruitment team have virtually no control over notice periods.

The industry average time to offer, depending on what stats you read, seems to be between 35 and 40 days. However, a best in class recruitment service should aim to maintain an average time to offer of under 30 days.

Forbes research clearly indicates the need for a central recruitment management system, in order to deliver a best on class service and for this metric it undoubtedly going to contribute massively.

So here is a list of the key components that can help contribute towards improving your time to hire:

Post your job to the widest network of relevant advertising and sourcing channels that you can.

Around 75% of all applications should come in over the first week and choosing a wide range of advertising channels will trigger the watchdogs of more potentially suitable applicants and increase your chance of getting an appropriate number of suitable candidates into your prospect list as early as possible. It is important that companies apply a sensible budget from the start if they want to deliver an effective direct hire strategy. Avoid a strategy of dripping advertising budgets as this increases the time to offer metric.

Post to agencies early on

If you are willing to consider applications from agencies, you should consider getting them involved by the end of the first week. Set the agencies tight deadlines and challenge them to meet KPI’s (i.e. provide us with your best 4 applicants within the next 10 days). If agencies are operating on a contingency basis, it is a no risk strategy and carefully selected applicants can be used to compare quality and act as a safety net in case your own direct hire efforts fail to deliver.

Write good advertising copy that is well optimise

Maximising the number of people that apply to your job is critical. Getting the job found quickly by more people inside each advertising channel is down to keyword optimisation and then writing advertising copy that influences candidates to believe that your job sounds better than the one that they already have will combine to increase application numbers by as much as 500%.

Place deadlines on applications

Placing deadlines will incentivise applicants to apply there and then, but most importantly it keeps the recruitment team and recruitment agencies focussed on getting the prospect pipeline filled quickly.

Start shortlisting immediately

A best in class recruitment process will involve assessing the applicants against important criteria, such as key competency’s and cultural and behavioural alignment, as well as deploying technical assessments. Therefore, you can start to issue requests to the best applicants as they come in. This needs to be done tactfully and the correct balance between nurturing and screening of those shortlisted candidates should be maintained.

Communicate with the best applicants continuously

Avoiding applicant drop off is a serious consideration, as the majority of the best candidates will probably be in employment already and are the most likely to lose interest or be put off. It may add to the administrative effort, if you are to email every applicant to acknowledge receipt of their application and if you are to perform screening on the best applicants you will need to ensure that this is balanced with communications that help retain the interest of candidates. That will probably mean sending emails, texts and making telephone calls? This should not however, slow down the process, but will minimise drop off, speed up the screening aspects and reduce the number of offers being declined, thus avoiding having to start again or missing out on your preferred individual.

Pre book interview slots

Ok, so much of the hard work has been done to get the best applicants into your final shortlist, screened and ready for interview, so why companies start trying to schedule and co-ordinate interviews at the last minute is quite baffling. This issue is often responsible for delays and for losing applicants. We are all busy, but recruiting new talent into the company is critical in assisting effective corporate growth. It is much better to agree on 4-5 interview slots at the start, around 21-25 days in and aim to have your final selection completed within 21 days. If a really good set of applicants come in during the first week, you can always try to pull the interview slots forward. At least this way, you are working to a worst case scenario of 25 days to complete interviews. If you are operating a two interview process, again you might want to pull the first interview dates forward.

Use video tools

First interviews and telephone interviews are better conducted using video technology. It’s far easier to co-ordinate and is more convenient for the applicant in most cases. Screen share services with video conferencing capability have the option to record the interview, so that those unable to attend can watch the interview back afterwards and still contribute.

Make offers subject to references and background checks

If you find someone that you like and you want to hire them subject to references, don’t wait for the references to come back before making the verbal offer. The candidate is unlikely to put their notice in until confirmed 100%, but they can remove themselves from the market and withdraw from any other applications they have live. Some applicants will want to come back in to meet the team once an offer has been made and this period is a good time to do that.

Read the previous article here. 

Read the next article here. 

About the Author

This article was originally published on the Resource Library. Mark Stephens has over 20 years of business management experience, across Sales, Marketing, Recruitment and technology environments. Mark is a serial entrepreneur and is the current joint MD of the F10 Group and the founder of Smart Recruit Online, Ask the Experts, Websmart UK and most recently the Recruitment Alliance.