A tardy, drawn-out hiring process won’t cut it in today’s market where appropriately qualified candidates are all too frequently scarce, and in high demand. The best candidates will be evaluating prospective employer just as much as you are evaluating them.  

The best hiring managers work collaboratively with recruiters to ensure that the hiring process is as speedy and seamless as can be. It is, after all, the first experience that a prospective employee has of your company’s values.

It is important to recognise that future company performance depends on attracting people with superior skills and experience and allocate sufficient time for each stage of the recruitment process to maximise the chances of identifying and attracting talent.

Five Steps to Optimise the Recruitment Process

1. The Brief. A thorough briefing from the hiring manager about the skills and experience required in the role is a critical and essential step. Providing a Position Description is a good start but a recruiter worth his or her salt, will want to know the organisational design where the vacancy fits in it, the reporting structure, information about the skills of personnel who interact with the position and, if relevant, the degree of training and support that is available.
2. Feedback. When candidates are submitted for consideration, the best hiring managers allocate time to read reports thoroughly and provide feedback, in a timely fashion, as to why the candidate does or doesn’t warrant an interview. This feedback is vital information, which can assist the recruiter to refine the search if necessary, and should ideally be given within a day or so of receiving the candidate report.
3. Interviewing. Delay at Your Peril! In a candidate driven market, it is important to schedule interviews as soon as possible rather than waiting for more candidates. Superior candidates are commonly in dialog with other employers about alternative opportunities. Don’t risk losing them by procrastinating. Nothing is a bigger turnoff for a prospective employee than to be subject to an elongated hiring process with seemingly endless interviews. Feedback by the hiring manager should be provided to the candidate in a timely manner after each interview. 
4. Transparency. When interviewing, be transparent with candidates about the hiring process. If a second interview with a more senior manager is the next step, or if a pre-employment medical or a police check is required, tell them ahead of time. If pre-hiring approval is required from multiple managers, consider a panel interview instead of having the candidate suffer the inconvenience of returning multiple times for consecutive interviews.
5. Background checks. Reference checking is a critical final step in the hiring process, often accompanied by police checks and/or pre-employment medicals. Once a candidate has been identified as having the required skills and experience, and reference checks have been successfully completed, an offer should be made without delay.

In what is currently a difficult employment market, hiring managers who proactively facilitate the hiring process in a timely and efficient manner, improve their chances of attracting and retaining superior candidates.                

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