Here’s Why You Need a Shorter Interview Process
Are you taking more than 30 days to fill positions? If so, you’re taking too long.
But you’re probably not alone: The average time it takes to fill a position is at an all-time high, according to DHI Hiring Indicators, as its Mean Vacancy Measure reached 29.2 days in May, continuing this year’s historic highs.
This record high vacancy duration is indicative of a candidate-driven market, and companies should be ready to adapt their recruitment strategies in response. This is particularly true of the IT sector because, with a tech unemployment rate of just 2.5 percent in February, you can assume that any IT candidate with whom you’re interviewing probably is doing the same with multiple companies at once.
Therefore, if your hiring process typically takes a month, we ask you to reconsider it. Take a look below for four reasons why a shorter interview process is almost always more beneficial.
You’re losing the best candidates: a longer interview process doesn’t result in better hires.
The top-tier IT pros could gone by the time you get around to a job offer: the upper 10 percent of job candidates tend to have received and accepted a job offer within just 10 days of putting their toe in the job marketplace.
Because you’ll lose the top IT professionals if you stretch out the interview process, you may then have to settle for your second, third or possibly even fourth choice. The longer you take, the greater the chance that the best candidates will disappear, leaving you a weaker pool of candidates.
A longer recruiting process results in more employee turnover.
If you’re having to hire less-qualified IT pros because your hiring process is long enough that you’re losing the top-tier candidates, you’re probably going to see increased employee turnover. In fact, as much as 80 percent of your employee turnover could be because of a poor hiring decision on your part.
This makes sense: hire a second-choice candidate and you may have to sacrifice something you need, such as certain skills or even attitude. Skills can be taught of course, but attitude is often hard to turn around. Many people – and at least one expert thinks most people – who leave a position do so because they just don’t fit in with a company’s culture (it’s usually an “attitudinal” mismatch).
Taking too long to hire could mean a downturn in service or product quality, as well as employee morale.
If you’re not filling positions quickly, your current employees will have to take up the slack. As a result, morale will suffer and you risk major employee burnout, which in turn could lead to a decline in the quality of the services or products you offer. A shorter interview process means you’re filling positions more quickly, helping keep employee morale high and burnout low.
Employee morale is a big concern in the C-suite: in a survey of 2,100 CFOs on the impact of a wrong hire, 39 percent said that they were concerned most about the impact the bad hire would have on employee morale. (To compare, only 25 percent of the CFOs said they were most worried about a negative financial impact of a poor hiring decision.)
Your reputation as an employer of choice could suffer.
Word gets around when the candidate experience consists of endless (three or more) interviews. Top IT pros want to know that your company is forward thinking and quick moving, but endless interviews can make you look as if you’re slow to make a decision. If you’re slow in hiring, candidates may wonder where else you may be behind.
Remember that candidates look at the interview process as a foreshadowing of what it will be like to work at your firm. If your process is long, they may believe that the day-to-day working environment also will be slow. This can be anathema to top talent, who want to work for companies that are innovative and at the forefront of their industry. Top-tier candidates often believe slow decision making cancels innovation.
Obviously, hiring right is a big component of any firm’s success in the marketplace. A shorter interview process can result in your firm landing the best IT talent, helping you meet and exceed the goals you’ve set and keeping that bottom line healthy.