Since more and more people have moved toward working remotely, it has made hiring even more difficult, longer, and an overall arduous process. Between the fear of being scammed and the worry that you’ll miss out on great candidates to competitors, there’s some validity to these fears. But there are other measures you can take to hire quickly and ensure you’re hiring a great candidate in the process. Let’s review some ways in which you can improve the speed of your hiring process…
- Start with your immediate talent pool
Most companies have a talent pool of candidates who have already been screened for previous positions. They also have full teams of great employees with valuable networks of potential candidates. Begin your search by leveraging these two groups of people. It would also be a great idea to hire recruiters (like us!) with pre-screened candidates, all looking for jobs. Recruiters will help you narrow your talent pool, too, allowing you to interview the right candidates faster.
- Make the application process focused and easy
For anyone outside your talent pool, include questions about specific must-have skills from the beginning of your application process. This helps ensure that the most qualified candidates are moving forward. Also, make the application as easy as possible. Don’t make your applicants re-write their resumes (instead of uploading them) or send them to a glitchy server built in the 2010s. Work with your developers and designers to improve this process, if and wherever needed.
- Have your top candidates complete a test
You will likely have a bunch of great candidates ready to interview, but a quick assessment test that takes a few days to a week will provide you greater insight into how well a person works in the role. If you can pay people for their time, please do. And, it should go without saying, but any stellar work belongs to the candidates and should never be used outside of this assessment.
- Conduct Interviews all within a short timeframe
Once you have qualified, vetted candidates to interview, allow your recruiter or HR department to schedule interviews within the same week. Batch interviews, where multiple candidates come in on the same day (or stay in a virtual room) for round-robin interviews, may be effective, depending on schedules. Otherwise, it’s more likely that you’ll need to embrace remote interviews or in-person interviews all within the same few days.
- Shorten the feedback loop
If you’re looking to hire quicker, an easy problem to avoid is too many cooks in the kitchen. Realistically only a few people will make the final decision—those who work closest to the person in this position! Gather your feedback from all interviewers, have crucial decision-makers meet once, and choose your first and second choices.
- Have Your Offer Ready to Go
Templatize your process for accepting an applicant and make sure your paperwork can be sent to any new hire, regardless of the position. Of course, you should expect a little negotiation during this stage. But you can still anticipate the final negotiation by having all of your paperwork finished and waiting on only a salary revision and signatures.
TLDR; There are truly effortless ways to shorten your hiring period by starting with a trusted, pre-screened talent pool, having an easy application process, preparing qualifications tests or questions, conducting interviews within a short timeframe, limiting feedback, and templatizing your paperwork. Of course, the best way to achieve a quicker hiring process is to hire the best to help you! Shameless plug, but Artisan has been in the business for decades and we’re ready to help your company hire the best—quickly!