Hiring cycles have the potential to be the stuff of nightmares, but only if you let them. If you play your cards right, you can find and hire a great candidate in about a week. Starting strong and acting fast will give you the advantage when you’re looking to fill a company seat.
Get to the Point with Your Job Description
If you’re looking to draw in a large pool of applicants to select from, you may choose to keep your job description vague and general. The main problem with this approach is that you’re wasting everyone’s time. A vague description leads candidates to believe they’re a good fit for a position that doesn’t actually entail what they believe it does. You’ll get all kinds of applications from people who actually aren’t looking to work in your environment. Check ads for similar positions on Gumtree, and make sure you aren’t echoing hollow statements. Be upfront with your job description.
Use the Internet to Investigate Candidates
Accepting electronic applications affords you with a lot of benefits, and you’d be a fool not to take advantage of them. Since your candidates are obviously using the internet in their job search, it’s very likely that they have professional social networking profiles. Check out frontrunners online and read their posts. You’ll get a better idea of who they are in a professional context. You’ll also be able to use the internet to check their references before you even schedule an interview.
Develop a Time Limit
Don’t spend too much time deliberating. Give your HR team three days to respond to the applications they’ve received. Deliberating for too long only gives your competitors a chance to snag the most promising applicants, and losing them so early in the game will only extend your hiring process as you wait for new applicants to contact you. You may be familiar with the expression ”you snooze, you lose.” Don’t snooze on the good ones – nobody else will.
The same goes for post interview interactions. Only wait a maximum of three days before informing the candidate of your final decision. If you take too long, they may start to wander elsewhere. Let them know the timeframe in which they should expect to hear from you in the event that you’d like to schedule a second interview or offer them the position.
Take Interviews Whenever You’ll Have Time
Trying to move things around to free up an entire day for interviews can cause some serious scheduling issues. There’s no reason deciding what to cram and what to procrastinate when you can fill up loose ends with interviews. Plan sit-downs with your top choices whenever you can. If you know you’ll have an hour free after a meeting, schedule an interview for that time period. It’s easier to take an hour out of one day than it is to take six consecutive hours out of a week.
Grab Your First Choice First
If you know you’ve found the right candidate, there’s no use in wasting time. Cut right to the chase when you believe you’ve found a perfect fit. If it looks like things are going to work out, offer the position on the spot. Keep your second best on standby in the event that things don’t work out with the first candidate. Getting greedy and holding out will almost always lead to missed opportunities.
It’s crucial that during a hiring cycle, you utilize your expertise. Think about how previous hiring cycles went, and have a clear understanding of what you’re looking for from the start. If you don’t enter the process with a picture of the ideal candidate already in your mind, you’ll find that it takes much longer to decide on a perfect fit.
Amelia Knott is a team member at AuBiz.net – a free online ABN lookup tool. She is passionate about new marketing trends and branding strategies. She shares her insights through blogging.