3 Effective Tips that Can Help HR Managers to Improve the Time-To-Hire

The times when recruitment success was dependent on basic intuition are long gone!

Today, talent acquisition functions in a more factual and data-backed way. The different metrics tracked through analytical tools and techniques remain one of the key performance indicators for hiring managers and their teams.

Time-to-hire is one such important metric. More and more hiring managers are placing greater importance on tracking the average time-to-hire at their organization as they find that it’s relatively straightforward. There’s an increasing need to streamline the hiring process and reserve the best candidates quickly, mainly because slow hiring can severely damage business results.

“Our business has a fast hiring process due to the pace and nature of our industry. One downside of slow hiring is that you will likely miss out on top candidates. High-demand candidates are likely receiving multiple offers, so if you delay an offer, you could miss your opportunity to bring an all-star player onto your team,” says Scott Scully, CEO of the Abstrakt Marketing Group, in one of his recent interviews with The Business Journals.

You’d be surprised to know that nearly 39% of job seekers lose interest in an opening if the hiring process is lengthy!

So, to help you up to your game as a hiring manager and optimize the recruitment process at your company to build a strong employer brand, here are a few simple yet effective ways to reduce the time-to-hire.

1. Establish a Structured Hiring Process at Your Company

Having a structured hiring process is extremely important for mitigating the overall time needed to fill an open position. Otherwise, you’ll only start from scratch every single time.

When formulating an effective hiring process in the job market, it helps to begin with some thorough brainstorming. You can also involve your hiring team in the process and ask every member to provide feedback on what they think can be done to improve the hiring funnel.

Think about the candidate’s journey in detail from start to finish, what does the process look like, what the steps are involved, and how long does each stage last.

Source:Harver

Having a documented hiring process can help you considerably reduce the time-to-hire for each new resource because you have a better idea about what to do at each step moving forward.

Adam Robinson, CEO, and Co-Founder of Hireology, in one recent article , explains why there is an increasing need to have a structured hiring process:

“A structured hiring process is cost-effective and will streamline how you find and qualify candidates. Plus, it can provide measurable, tangible results for your business by helping you avoid damage caused by bad hires.”

Some of the best practices you can follow when wanting to structure your hiring process the right way to mitigate the time-to-hire and attract quality candidates quickly are:

Map out your client’s entire recruitment journey from both their and their potential candidate’s perspective.
Keep questions handy when interviewing candidates.
Identify the areas that don’t need much human intervention and, therefore, can be automated to speed up the hiring process. This will usually include repetitive tasks such as candidate information gathering through forms or email reminders.
Consider conducting group interviews at the early stages of the hiring process.
Divide tasks based on high and low priority, then address those needing immediate attention first. For example, once potential candidates enter your hiring funnel, keeping them engaged through periods of no response will fall under the high-priority category. Otherwise, there’s a higher probability of them losing interest in and leaving your hiring process midway.
Leverage tech innovations such as predictive analytics to identify past employment patterns of the prospective candidates. This will give you further insight into who will be a good fit for your company, that too quickly.
Keep all hiring data on your applicant tracking system (ATS) current.

2. Build a Talent Pipeline You can Depend on

A talent pipeline – or a pool of candidates who are ready to fill a position – can be one of the most effective ways to mitigate the time and cost per hire at your company. Building a robust talent pipeline ahead of time can be the differentiating factor you need to get ahead of your competitors in the industry.

When you have several previously qualified active and passive candidates on your existing database, you don’t need to wait to advertise your opening, attract candidates through marketing, and vet the many applications received. All you need to do is reach out to the candidates within your talent pipeline and inform them about the opening at your company.

One tried-and-tested strategy you can use to build a quality talent pipeline includes:

Identify the roles you hire for frequently.
Determine the specific requirements for those roles (company culture fit, skills, etc.).
Try to locate the channels where ideal candidates with these requirements could be hanging out (e.g., industry events, conferences, referrals from current employees, job sites such as LinkedIn, etc.).
Expand your reach on potential channels and reach out to the candidates that come across as good fits for your company.
Stay in touch with these candidates and keep them engaged by sharing meaningful content that provides knowledge from within their niche (establishing your authority as an industry thought leader through content marketing can help here). You can also engage them through personal messaging channels such as emails.

Building a talent pipeline is also often considered the most effective way of sourcing candidates. But how do you do it efficiently when dealing with high-volume recruiting ?

The solution, again, lies with automating as much as possible and letting technology help you.

3. Leverage a Digital Hiring Platform or Partner with an Agency

While there’s not one single solution in the market that can combine all the disparate hiring procedures you follow at your organization and get them under one roof, there are solutions that can take care of your hiring needs end-to-end.

Yes, we’re talking about outsourcing either the entire process or at least some part of it!

According to one recent report published by Grand View Research, the global recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) market size was valued at $5.48 billion in 2019. It is only expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.5% for the next five years.

You can either look to leveraging:

A digital hiring platform that helps plug any leaks in your existing recruiting toolkit and connects your current tech stack to function as one
A recruitment agency takes care of all your hiring needs, from sourcing suitable candidates to onboarding them.

These are both surefire and widely used methods for mitigating time-to-hire by recruiting managers today.

While a digital hiring platform can help you create a hiring workflow and map the different tools you’ll be needing at every stage of the hiring cycle, a recruitment agency will have years of experience in providing hiring help, which is why it will know how to leverage various tech innovations to furnish a positive candidate experience and speed up the recruiting process.

Recent research from the Korn Ferry Institute suggests that a certain recruitment agency’s RPO assessment considerably helped advance the hiring process for many of its clients. For one, data from 1,111 call center hires at a large security provider demonstrate two significant advantages of this screening methodology:

The RPO assessment helped increase screening efficiency by three to six times, depending on the job type.
The RPO assessment saved three days of recruitment time per candidate on average.

Reduce Your Hiring Time Today

Another way you can reduce your hiring time is by partnering with the right recruiting agency. The right agency will have expert recruiters who can help you, but Recruiter.com also has a powerful AI sourcing tool to help you easily identify qualified candidates.

At Recruiter.com, we’ve got years of experience in providing recruitment outsourcing services. Our skilled and qualified on-demand recruitment professionals are equipped with a robust database of candidates from different niches and spread across other states.

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By Recruiter.com