Why Aren’t You Hiring Faster?

Take a hard look at your recruiting and hiring practices. Is your hiring process slow or bogged down in administrivia?

The No. 1 complaint I hear from job seekers is that employers take a long time to make a hiring decision. No. 2 is that employers never get back to job applicants at all. I’ll bet your sales reps have the same complaints about who they’re selling to.

The No. 1 complaint from employers that we read in the press is about the talent shortage. “We can’t find the people we need!” While I don’t agree there is a shortage of skills or talent, what matters is that the market thinks there is. That makes this a job seeker’s market.

The economics are simple. If there’s not enough talent, there’s stiffer competition to hire good people. The longer you take to make a decision, the more chance you’ll lose a good job candidate. Worse, that candidate may take a job with your competitor. Now you’re not just down one hire. You’re competing with that person!

So you’d better get moving and cut your time to hire.

USA Today reports an interesting new phenomenon: The tables have turned on indecisive employers who take forever to make a hire: “Job Seeker To Employer: Well? I Don’t Have All Day.”

“In June, 13% of hiring managers said the time to fill jobs shortened because companies made offers after seeing very few candidates, up from 11% late last year …” This is from a survey conducted by an employment firm, DHI Group.

Two percent isn’t a market shift, but when we couple it with more data that show “the average job vacancy duration in the U.S. fell to 28.3 days in June from 29.3 days in April,” it’s time to get ahead of the curve and start thinking about how your company hires—before your competition scarfs up the best candidates.

While the article cites some job applicants who say they were hired quickly, there are far more job seekers complaining about cumbersome, never-ending interview processes and employers who fail to follow up when they say they will. This leaves the candidate pool disenchanted. When the market turns, they’ll remember who dissed them and who didn’t.

My advice to you: Take a hard look at your recruiting and hiring practices. Is your hiring process slow or bogged down in administrivia? Is your HR department acting like the slow-poke sales prospects your sales team is so frustrated with?

(See “The Real Talent Shortage: Managers Don’t Know How To Recruit.”)

Why aren’t you hiring faster? Get ahead of the curve. With unemployment dropping in many quarters, your ability to hire quickly can become your competitive advantage—unless your competition does it first.

Next week, we’ll discuss some simple ways to speed up your hiring process.