5 Tips to Shorten Your Hiring Cycle & Get Better Hires
In case you don’t already know, we work mostly with small- to mid-sized businesses (SMB’s). For most of the organizations who fall into this category, hiring is often something that’s done without much thought given to ways it might be improved. With limited resources, improvement initiatives are often focused more on things like product development, sales, technology, etc.
At the same time, however, the common resource virtually all organizations need to survive (let alone grow & improve) is people. So, if there are ways to get better hires in the door faster (with greater likelihood of fit & engagement), it only makes sense to pursue those. To that point, below are five quick ideas for any SMB to not only get people through the process faster, but to greatly improve the odds of getting better people the first time around:
1 – Have brief and powerful job overviews
No one wants to read a three-paragraph overview of your position. They want to be wowed. Give them an idea of what a “day in the life” will look like for the role. Share where the career path can take them. In other words, sell the sizzle…not the steak.
2 – Share what the position will pay
This shouldn’t be taboo. Putting at least a reasonable range of salary in your job overview helps you and potential applicants. They don’t waste time applying for jobs outside their desired income range, and you don’t waste time pursuing applicants who ultimately will fall by the wayside as they learn what the pay looks like for your opening. This transparency can also help to set you apart from competitors who are hiring from the same pool of applicants, but aren’t sharing what their position will pay.
3 – Make it easy for people to be considered for the position
This is the new normal. With all of the changes in the technology realm over the past three to five years, most applicants (especially those not actively looking to change positions) are no longer willing to provide a full online application to simply be considered for your opening. There are too many other companies out there who will get them through the initial application process in less than 5 minutes. Take advantage of tools available in the market to keep up with what your competitors are doing in this regard.
4 – Use technology to manage your applicants
No matter what matter what applicant tracking system provider you use, please use something. While we’re always open to new clients here at ExactHire, the real message here is to incorporate technology into your hiring process in some way! If you follow the steps above, you’ll likely see a good number of potentially qualified applicants for your positions. That’s the good news. The bad news is that all of those applicants expect to know where they stand in the process on a pretty regular basis. This is nearly impossible without using hiring software of some kind. There are lots of good ones out there that are affordable and geared to our SMB space.
5 – Consider employee assessments
Using a well-validated assessment as one of your final steps is a luxury that you can consider, once you’ve implemented the 4 steps above. Since applicants are now getting through the process faster, asking them to spend a little extra time to complete an assessment (skill-based or behavioral) near the end of the process is viewed as reasonable. The right tool here can help you and your team confirm someone’s fit for both your position and the culture of your organization.
Consider these tips to improve the speed at which you hire, as well as the results you see with those hires. To learn more about ExactHire, please visit our resources section or contact us.
