The cost of time-Why time is costing you good candidates AND MONEY!
One of the biggest pain points in hiring is always that it TAKES TOO MUCH TIME. On average it’s estimated that recruiters spend over 52 days to close one position. That’s 52 days job candidates are in limbo not knowing what’s going to happen. But apart from the fact that this means your team is spending 52 business days which results in 52*their daily salary, let’s look at other ways this is hurting your company.
- Candidates lose interest in the job & company
As we mentioned before, it’s very obvious now that we’re operating in a candidate-driven job market and candidates are more than ever likely to accept or decline your job offer. Let’s remember that these particular candidates in reference are millennials now since they dominate over 50% of the workforce now. This is the same generation that grew up with instant coffee, pizza delivery and taxis in a beep! Yeah! They believe it’s your work to convince them why they should work for you. Not the other way around. And they have been raised to believe people have all the technology to make everything instant. But HR doesn’t deliver the same experience that is expected.
If we look at a candidate as a buyer, which they are, then we will appreciate all the different stages a buyer goes through while deciding whether to purchase a particular item. So say I’m online with an agent ordering pizza. There’s about a 30-second window for me to start contemplating ‘Oh wow. This pizza is going to take long. If I cook maybe I’ll take a shorter time” or ‘If I cook I’ll end up spending only half as much as I would have spent’. So any second the agent gives away to the customer, he/she will start having second thoughts.
As we highlighted earlier, the sad reality is most recruiters spend over 45 days to get in touch with candidates about their application status. This poor experience leads to many candidates rethinking the job offer and rethinking what kind of employer you are if you don’t even respect their time enough to get back to them in good time. Let’s remember that on average an active candidate has applied to about 16 jobs at a time, meaning they have or will receive offers from other companies. (47% of candidates) This is very worrying to recruiters who have seen the war for talent as their biggest concern for 2017. And employer branding is one of their key priorities. So how can we change this narrative?
- Eliminate the long application process
With the attention span of a goldfish, Millennials get bored very easily and will often abandon applications midway if they deem them too long or boring. It is with this in mind that new job sites will be working to shorten applications by making them a single-click process and later using gamification techniques to make assessment questions more fun. When You cannot afford to lose applicants in the first stage! It’s suicide.
2. Reduce screening times
Screening as confessed by recruiters is the most difficult part of hiring. And we make this process even longer by using manual or outdated screening tools such as manual screening, paper CVS, or taking too much time passing CVs through emails to get feedback from hiring managers. Meanwhile, like we saw, this is the time the candidate is also receiving offers from other recruiters. Especially if they are a star candidate. Modern technology can help reduce screening time & accuracy by using machine learning & AI to prescreen candidates. Ai & ML can even check other factors that a recruiter may bypass e.g. what’s the likelihood that this candidate will leave the organisation in a short time based on their history? What is their social footprint like?
As most job databases use very outdated CVs, this will also ensure you only see current candidate information. The reviews section will also help reduce time spent on reference checks.
3. Get back to candidates in good time
It takes on average three interviews and three to six weeks to get an offer. The excruciating process of waiting to hear back is one most of us have experienced. Think of it as walking into a coffee shop & the attendant takes over an hour to deliver your coffee. Sucks right? But we put candidates through this feeling every time they apply to jobs and hear 52 days later if they are lucky but the truth is most of us will never send regrets at all or even inform them why they were not selected.
Every second spent not persuading your buyer(candidate) to purchase your product(job) and why they should choose you over someone else, is a time you’re giving to the candidate to think, “Mmmm. Maybe I don’t need this pizza after all or I bet they are a bad pizza place if they take forever to confirm my order or deliver my pizza’.
Check out more at https://medium.com/jobonics/6-habits-of-highly-ineffective-recruiters-12eca29f1e51 or https://medium.com/jobonics/hr-trends-part-1-hiring-trends-report-2018-by-linkedin-10ecab6d3159
