A prolonged time to fill can waste resources, miss candidate opportunities, and incur unnecessary costs.
When a requisition opens for a new position, a ticking clock starts for hiring managers, with additional costs incurring on every tick. This represents time to fill: the elapsed time between the initial approval of a position to the final acceptance.
With the hiring process being time consuming and sprawling, it can be difficult to manage at times. Hiring managers need to keep the recruiting process well-focused to get the best results in a timely fashion. With the following strategies, hiring managers can reduce time to fill a position with the ideal candidate.
Collaborate on Job Definition
Hiring managers should work with everyone who has a stake in the positions success to define what the requirements and metrics of success are. By eliminating ambiguity, hiring managers can collect candidates who have a stronger job-fit alignment.
Leverage Personality Assessments in the Screening Process
By using personality assessments early in the hiring process, you can better identify candidates who have a workstyle meets the position requirements and corporate culture. The results of these assessments can be also used to drive the in-person interview.
Train Managers to be Better Interviewers
Even though manager input into the interview process is a universal requirement, they may be uncomfortable with putting people on the spot. Training managers in methods such as behavior interviewing will help them be more comfortable in making people uncomfortable.
Have Candidates Display Their Skill
Once candidates have been narrowed down and been through their first interview, provide them the opportunity to apply their skills. By assigning them with case studies or scenarios, hiring managers can develop a better idea of their ability to make judgement, which will aid in the identification of top talent.
Wrap Up Hiring ASAP
“Sleeping” on a candidate can make the hiring decision more complicated than it should be. It has the potential to have the finalists “blur” together and create ambiguity. After the conclusion of the final round of interviews, key decision makers should be gathered and briefed on the finalists, with the objective of selecting who will fill the role.
By using these simple hiring strategies, you can hire top performers with significantly less time and resources. As always when looking to reduce time to fill, the strategies used should not sacrifice job-fit in favor of speed; time-reducing strategies should be about efficiency, not cutting corners.
