Candidates:
From a candidate perspective, your time is extremely valuable when it comes to getting a job or not. Too much time spent deliberating or ‘umming and ahhing’ can massively detract from your ability to acquire a placement. From the outset, if you are taking more than necessary time getting back to recruiters or being unclear on your decision about a position it can sometimes come across as a lack of interest. This can have a knock-on affect as potential employers may read this as a bad sign and choose another candidate that has appeared to be more committed to the process.
Similarly, taking too much time to accept an offer can be another placement killer. If an employer has gone through the hiring process and ultimately made a reasonable offer to the candidate, if their response takes too long to receive, the potential offer could be withdrawn.
These points are not to say that candidates should not take time to think about their decisions on where they work. These are, of course, important career decisions and should not be taken lightly but an over drawn-out decision process can negatively affect your chances of being hired.
Clients:
Now from an employers’ perspective, time can also be a killer. Competition with other employers is at a high, and that means that the person making the decision might be working somewhere else and the person you want to join your company is not short for choice elsewhere.
The clock is ticking right from the beginning. If your business has a policy of three interviews before a decision, how long does that take?
Let’s say you put out your adverts and you allow three to four weeks for applications. You make your decision and make your initial phone calls to arrange interviews. This will take a couple of days, and it can be a week or more before a candidate is free for interviews; your first set of interviews will be about two weeks after you start contacting applicants.
It'll take another 1-2 weeks to complete the first set of interviews, discuss them, and invite applicants back for the second set. Another week after that to complete the second set and put out feelers for the third.
If lucky, third stage interviews might only be a couple of days, but another week is possible.
Even if we assume you get candidates immediately, and even if we assume you make your offer the day the final interview is complete, that’s anywhere from eight to ten weeks. Two and a half months.
The time taken in this drawn-out selection process is enough for any candidate to start looking elsewhere. In fact, it’s long enough for them to look for another job, get hired, quit their job and still not be accepted for the role you’re offering.
What I’m trying to say here is that the time taken by employers to go through a lengthy interview process can be unnecessary. An effective solution to a drawn out hiring process can be beneficial not only to prospective candidates but also to employers (by saving on time, money and resources)! One of the reasons why our IT Works Health Recruitment Consultants are so success is because of we simplify recruitment processes. What do we do? We ensure the industry professional we speak are pre-qualified, before their CVs ever reach our clients. Therefore, our clients can be confident that if someone comes for interview through us, they’re the best person for the job!
IT Works Health
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