The average time it takes to fill an open position is about 42 days – up from just 25 days a few years ago. Due to the ease with which anyone can now apply for a job, the volume of potential candidates for most roles has increased substantially – and with this increase has come a comparable rise in time to hire.
You’ve likely experienced this painful reality at your company. It’s time to learn what will work best for your specific hiring situations, and then determine how to simplify your process and still land top talent.
Sell the Role
To attract the best candidates, provide as much information as possible to sell both the job and your company. This means being specific, detailed and transparent throughout your hiring process.
- Start with your job posting and advertisements. This is where you pique people’s interest and lead them to your door. In a recent study, 67 percent of business leaders agreed that they would see lower turnover rates if candidates’ expectations were clearer from the start.
- Emphasize growth opportunities. Candidates need reassurance that they can advance their knowledge and their careers with your company.
Make Your Application User Friendly
Be sure that your job application process is an appealing one. If individuals have to spend too much time researching a role or filling out forms, they may abandon the idea entirely.
- Mobile is mandatory. It’s 2018! There’s no excuse for not enabling people to access your application on their favorite mobile device. In the above-mentioned research, 45 percent of job seekers said they used their devices to look for positions at least once a day. Sixty percent emphasized the importance of viewing applications from their device so they could save them and complete them later.
Build Your Bench Strength
Maintain and continually update a database of qualified candidates for current and future openings. By deepening your talent pool, you will significantly reduce your time-to-hire when jobs open up.
- Nurture candidate relationships. Engage strong contenders, so you can tap into your database when the need arises.
- Increase offer acceptance rates. By building candidate trust, you put yourself in a favorable position to do this, as well as lower hiring and salary costs.
Use Smart Screening
Social media and technological advances have made effective pre-screening much easier and more realistic.
- Try video interviews. A step up from a phone interview, they enable you to more accurately assess candidates’ personalities, communication skills, cultural fit and other qualities, within just a few minutes’ time.
- Ask specific, targeted questions. Take this approach beginning with pre-screening, as a further means of narrowing the candidate field.
The recruitment experts at PrideStaff Fresno can work with you to identify your specific talent needs and optimize your hiring process from start to finish. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.
