How long does it take to hire an employee
According to our internal analytics, the hiring of C-level specialists lasts from 2.5 months to a year from the moment of the formation of a vacancy to their first working day. Moreover, with this level of employees, it is always necessary to take into account additional time for the approval of the candidate within the company.
Deadlines may be delayed if shareholders and top management change their vision about the ideal profile in the process.
Talking about hiring managers, on average they can be hired in 1.5–2 months in favorable conditions: when the factor of economic downfall or changes in company’s processes don’t affect the hiring process.
Hiring software engineers may take only 2 or 3 weeks from the moment of drawing up a vacancy to an offer in case when the employee stack is relevant, and it is clear which team a particular person can strengthen.
The speed of a specialist’s hunting of any level is directly affected by the approach of the founders, CEO or a team of top managers. For some, a quick hire is six months, for others — one month.
Here are the main components of the process:
- Research of the market, vacancies, and competitors. To find the best candidate in a certain field, it is important to understand which specialists are the “stars” of the industry, in what companies they work. And also to determine what competencies the hiring party lacks and how rare the specialists who have them are.
- Search and assessment of candidates: collecting resumes, conducting several meetings and test tasks, comparing applicants for a vacancy.
- Collecting finalists’ recommendations and insights before submitting an offer: at this stage, it is important to be as careful as possible, since the candidate might not have notified his current employer about plans to leave the company.
- The employee’s transition to a new place of work: making an offer and the candidate’s acceptance of it. It takes time for the candidate to complete all the tasks at the previous place, fulfill obligations to colleagues, employees and managers. The higher the career level is, the more responsibility this person has. Therefore, when it comes to C-level employees or top management, it is worth saving at least a month for them to finish their current work.
These processes are standard for any company, but they can be completed faster if you know what stages you can skip and what tools you can use.
Candidate search: how to speed up and automate the process
It is especially important to force hiring managers — their absence leads the business to lose money, and the team to stress. To make the search go faster, there are some rules.
Focus on a certain type of candidates
There are several priority companies that are most relevant to you in terms of profile, values, approach to work, and are close in business indicators.
If resumes of candidates from these companies get into the database, increase their priority for primary screening. You can also ask your employees if they have acquaintances from these companies and ask for recommendations.
Track not only the current staff reduction and layoffs in the market, but also follow the dynamics of the companies development
Let’s say a business declared that it wanted to grow five times by the end of the year and actively hired strong candidates. Instead, it is clear that it has no growth. At such moments, it’s worth starting to hunt its employees. People came to solve certain tasks, but now objectives have radically changed and may be absolutely uninteresting to them.
Declare your plans for the role in the perspective of six months
Of course, everyone understands that no one is making long-term plans now, but people want to see at least some certainty.
In the job description explain what the employee is to do next six months, and how he will be able to develop afterwards. The more details and specifics you provide, the more targeted responses you get. For example, if you relocate the team to another country and mention it, people who are really interested in it will come to you.
Emphasize the stability of the company in the current conditions
If your organization is hiring now, it means that it has stability and safety margin, thanks to which such an opportunity exists. Highlight these strengths in the job description.
For example, major Russian internet service Avito emphasizes that they have become a completely independent company without external financing, which means they can develop the product at their discretion. This makes the company look more stable and attractive to candidates in a situation of endless changings and political chaos.
We extensively use tools to automate the database and the search process. For example, we use ATS systems (application tracking system, e.g. Potok, Friendwork, Skillaz), which allow us to store a database of candidates and the entire history of communication with them.
We also use boolean search queries in Google and Yandex, where there are special logical operators. They help to get only the most relevant results. We compile them through the service https://recruitin.net.
The process is accelerated by the tools of mailing automation — Google Chrome extensions, or individual sites where you can fill in a database of potential employees for a certain position.
The system sends requests to candidates on behalf of the recruiter, for example, on LinkedIn. In the first letter, I ask candidates to add me to the network of contacts. After establishing contact, system sends a message with open positions and an offer to consider them. All this happens automatically.
Stages of candidate evaluation that can be skipped
Many companies have been building their hiring process for years and are afraid to abandon some of its stages.
In fact, if necessary, you can always save time by removing:
- reconciliation with other teams — companies often conduct additional interviews with colleagues from other teams, with whom the candidate will never work later. For example, this practice is often used by Google. When, after checking soft and hard skills, a person is transferred to another team for an interview to verify that he is suitable. If this team has points against him, the candidate will either be rejected, or sent to another round of interviews.
- test weeks — when the company offers two trial weeks of work and expects specific results from the person that the organization will be able to use. Often the candidate does not show the necessary result because he has too little time to dive deeply into the product and the task. As a result, both sides often have a misconception about one another. The best substitute for a test week is a deep test task with payment based on the result.
- separate HR interviews and interviews on corporate values — combining these stages into one will significantly save time. HR should know the interview method by values, by cases, and by competencies, so that the check is faster.
Despite the fact that some companies do not really like tests, sometimes they allow you to cut off candidates with weak motivation.
For example, we had an employee who came from retail. We gradually trained her, and two years later she began to show very good results. At some point, she left us back to retail, and then she wanted to come back again.
We offered her a test assignment for a new task, which would determine whether she would be able to take on a new direction. When it was time to check the task, it turned out that she hadn’t done it and didn’t want to be back much. So we didn’t waste both our time and hers.
Easy transition: industries that are “friends”
Now many specialists will change the field. One of the ways to close vacancies more quickly and efficiently is to consider candidates from industries that are similar.
Hiring a person from another field, it is important to look closely not at brands, but at the principles of the organization where the candidate worked: how tasks are set there and what the corporate culture is.
For example, among our clients there is a digital company that is looking for a marketing and PR director. At first they asked to search people in Adidas or BMW. We explained that these companies work according to extremely strict guidelines, and most of the projects were sent to their employees from the headquarters.
The main task in this type of organizations is to adapt advertising campaigns, not to invent them from scratch. Instead, our client needs a person who is able to find a solution by himself and go through a lot of unknown variables.
We have collected several areas that are compatible with each other in terms of approach to work, types of tasks and required knowledge.
Smooth shifts are among these «friend» areas:
- all Tech companies — FoodTech, FinTech, EdTech. By the way, we noticed that EdTech is a perfect match with dating services;
- it is easy to switch from Retail and any B2C to e-Commerce and marketplaces;
- pharmaceutical companies are mostly combined only with each other, but there may be successful transitions from them to B2C companies in other industries.
- employees of international B2C brands, which are now leaving the Russian market, are ideal for local FMCG companies. They know well clear marketing strategy that has been built for years, and this experience can also be implemented in local Russian businesses.
- telecom is a universal industry for transitions to both large and small Tech services, consumer products and marketplaces. For example, Inna Pokhodnya, the former marketing director of Russian company Tele2, first moved to Rostelecom, and now she has become the marketing director of one of the largest social media platforms VK.
During the next three or six months it will be especially interesting to observe the transitions of top management. Perhaps we will see something not obvious, because times of crisis require non-standard solutions that can later become the standard for the entire market.
One thing is obvious: people who are able not only to invent new products, but also don’t refuse to “work with their hands”, independently drive directions and brands, will be especially appreciated.
How to identify a strong candidate quickly
Here are some more tips that will help you determine the right person in a short period of time:
- Check if the candidate has launched similar products. Perhaps he made successful launches during previous crises or budget shortages. At the same time, if something new and breakthrough is expected from the candidate, it is worth paying attention to people who have acquired such skills in foreign markets.
- Collect recommendations from colleagues, employees, and managers of the candidate from his previous job. Find out how the person interacted in the team and would his current manager hire him again. If the potential employee you are planning to hire works for your competitor, it is better to introduce yourself as an external consultant without naming the company.
- Prepare questions for the interview using the STAR method. They will help to find out what problem Situations the candidate faced, what Tasks he had to solve, what Actions he took and what Results he came to. You can also use another approach — PARLA, it is similar to STAR, only adds more questions related to what the candidate Learned when solving the problem and how this knowledge was Applied by the person after.
- Make sure that the candidate fits the core values of the company. For example, if your business plans to change course completely and develop quickly, and a person is conservative and wants stability in work, it is better not to consider him.
When a company wants to hire quickly, it is important not to make the basic mistake: don’t overestimate candidates just because you desire to close the position as soon as possible. To avoid it give a person the opportunity to talk more and exclude the expression of your own thoughts during the interview.
