Five Proven Ways to Reduce your Time to Hire

Did you know that only 30% of organizations can effectively fill a role within 30 days? All the remaining companies take between 1-4 months to hire a suitable candidate. Therefore, it is only natural to start thinking about ways to reduce your time to hire.You might be asking yourself why the time to hire metric matters in today's recruitment world. For starters, you risk increasing the cost per hire by taking too long to find the right person. It also means you are potentially losing high-quality candidates that are being targeted for other positions by the competitions.However, speeding up time to hire doesn't mean you should skip the screening process. A bad hire can cost your company more money and resources in the long run. What you need are effective ways to reduce your time to hire without compromising on quality. Here's how:

Have Accurate Job Descriptions

Reducing time to hire does not always come down to your recruitment process. A lot of the time, all you need to get top talent is an accurate job description. Doing this will help you attract suitable candidates because it showcases the available job and its expectations.Therefore, it will help to provide potential candidates with all the information they need about the opening. Ensure you include salary range, core skills needed, level of experience, and how you will measure success. This information will help candidates effectively evaluate their skills to determine whether they are a good fit for the job.Finally, generate job listings that have an exact closing date to help encourage prompt applications. You can only start the hiring process when you get timely applications from potential candidates. If you are frequently advertising for similar positions, periodically update your listing.

Automate Sections of Your Hiring Process

Scheduling interviews and screening candidates usually consumes a lot of time and resources. According to Yellow, 67% of recruiters take about 30 minutes to a couple of hours to schedule an interview. The numbers are even worse when this task falls to an employee who is juggling other responsibilities.Automating the interview scheduling and screening steps can reduce your time to hire suitable candidates. For example, sending a short form can help pre-qualify candidates before scheduling an initial call. Scheduling tools are also a huge time saver. They ensure both the interviewers and candidates find acceptable time slots with as little phone tag as possible.According to a 2016 Research Report by Talent Board, 17% of candidates withdraw their applications when the recruiting process takes too long. Therefore, automating a few of these processes can help increase your talent pool. You will also find it easier to weed out unqualified candidates from the hundreds of applications you receive.

Integrate Effective Interviewing Practices

You have to carry out individual interviews after screening your candidates. However, numerous organizations lose top talent at this stage due to bad interviewing practices. Here is a comprehensive look at how to improve interviewing process:

• Keep It Small and Simple

Do you need all the department heads when interviewing a candidate for a secretarial position? For starters, all these individuals will not unanimously agree on a single candidate. Therefore, it is quicker and much more effective to have a small group make the hiring decision.

• Have a Structure

In addition to using technology to eliminate unconscious bias at the sourcing level, providing structure also helps. Start by preparing a comprehensive list of questions before you start the interview. Therefore, you can easily rank each candidate using scorecards.

• Build Rapport

Connecting with potential candidates is possible when the tone of the interview is that of friendliness and helpfulness. Creating a rapport will put the interviewee at ease, thus getting you an honest assessment of their personality. However, doing this is only possible when you respect their privacy and take away any distracting interruptions.

• Guide the Conversation

Did you know that you can steer an interview conversation along more productive channels? Because the candidate is sensitive to your reactions, something like a simple voice change can offer encouragement. Therefore, use non-verbal communication to evaluate the candidates better.

Keep in Touch with Potential Candidates

It can be rather frustrating for potential candidates to receive zero communication after an interview. These candidates are likely going to apply for positions at different companies. Thus, you risk losing top talent because you took a while to respond after the interview.It will help to keep the communication channels open during the entire hiring process. Ensure each candidate knows when to expect feedback. Therefore, have a transparent hiring process timeline when looking to fill a position in your company.Please get back to all potential candidates, regardless of whether they got the job. The interviewing process can be rather stressful, and all of these individuals need to feel appreciated. Doing this ensures you build your brand reputation and increases your talent pool.

Offer Excellent Candidate Experience

Always maintain a healthy and positive relationship with every candidate that applies for a job at your organization. Although you will not hire a majority of these individuals, doing this will help you maintain a talent pipeline. Therefore, you get to cut your time-to-hire by almost half since you have a constant pool of pre-screened candidates.Having several qualified candidates on your waitlist ensures you don't advertise for vacancies, screen applications, or vet hundreds of applicants. The hiring process becomes significantly shorter because all you need to do is reach out to people already on your speed dial.Let's say you were looking to fill a managerial position a few months ago. If all the screened candidates walk away with a positive experience, they will look to increase their relationship with your company. You can quickly reach out to all qualified candidates and get the right hire if an opening becomes available.

Reduce Your Time to Hire Today

Are you looking to get in front of top talent before your competitors? At Loxo, we can help you make the hiring process shorter without compromising on the quality of the candidates. Ensure you contact us today to stay ahead of your competition while saving money and time.