Reduce Your Time-to-Hire

How to Reduce Your Time-to-Hire

The average hiring process in the UK takes nearly a month, according to recent studies. However, 54% of businesses have previously lost out on a qualified candidate because their hiring process was too long.

Reducing your time to hire should be a priority; not only can a lengthy recruitment process put candidates off but an open vacancy can also increase your spend and put extra strain on your existing resources.

The beginning of a new year is a great time to focus on reducing your time to hire. Try following Webrecruit’s top tips to shorten your hiring process.

 

1. Identify what’s holding up your recruitment

Take a step back and look at your hiring process; what’s causing any delays?

Hold-ups can be caused by a number of factors, including:

– A poor response to your job adverts
– Taking too long to follow-up on applications
– Too much internal administration

To find out what’s holding up your recruitment, try noting the length of time between each stage of your hiring process.

This includes the time between:
– Your job advert going live and your first batch of applications received
– Applications received and the telephone screening process
– The telephone screen and the face-to-face interview
– The interview and the offer being made

By looking at each area individually, you should be able to notice if a particular part of your process is taking longer than it should be.

 

2. Be clear what you want to achieve

Once you’ve pinpointed an area (or multiple areas) of your recruitment process that you need to focus on, you should set yourself a realistic goal to achieve.

For example, if you notice that it takes you, on average, a week to follow up on an application, try setting an internal KPI of four days or lower, depending on how ambitious your goals are.

Re-visit your goals every three months to check that they’re attainable and realistic. If you find that your goals are actually too easy to achieve, you can try reassessing them.

 

3. Think of new ways to streamline your processes

Outdated processes and slow, manual systems can be a common cause of a lengthy recruitment process.

As such, it’s important to make tasks as easy as possible for you and your team; using an applicant tracking system (ATS) is a great way of centralising and streamlining your recruitment.

An ATS can help to take away the annoying administrative aspects of your recruitment that drain your resources, leaving you with much more time to spend following up on applications and talking to candidates.

With all HR users working from the same system, it also ensures consistency throughout the hiring process and greater efficiency.

 

4. Measure and report on your progress

It’s important to monitor your progress; after all, how else will you measure the effect of your efforts?

Your time to hire is a metric, which means that it’s easy to monitor if you use the right tools. Many types of recruitment software, such as Webrecruit ATS, contain inbuilt time-to-hire reports, allowing you to easily check your progress.

Regularly checking up on your progress means that you can see the results of your hard work. If you’re not seeing the results that you need, you can readjust your recruitment strategy accordingly.

 

Want to find out more about how our software, Webrecruit ATS can help to reduce your time to hire?

 

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