Our Top Tip for Snagging Top Talent

It’s no secret the fight for recruiting and hiring top talent has been fierce, and no one knows if or when that might change. With remote work opportunities here to stay, the ongoing wage debates, and the recent rise of the gig economy, employers are finding it more difficult than ever to recruit and hire the top talent they need.

As a recruiting agency, we are determined and motivated to provide quality service to our clients, and are firm believers in conducting business through honesty and integrity – especially when the times are tough. And the truth of the matter is… recruiting is really tough right now! There’s no single solution or piece of advice that solves all hiring challenges (even though we wish there was!), however, we do have a tip we believe will increase your chances of snagging the top talent you’ve found and bringing them on board: simplify your process and reduce your time to hire.

We’ve had clients miss out on great candidates due to an unorganized or lengthy hiring and decision-making process. Candidates have a lot of options right now, especially those with specialized skills, so you have to be willing and able to move fast and make an offer before you lose them to a competitor who got there first.

We get it – HR professionals and hiring teams are overstretched and overworked, so it’s easy for a resume to sit unchecked in your inbox for a few days before you can review it. Managers and decision makers are incredibly busy, so getting a meeting to make a final hiring decision can take a few days. But unfortunately, this is where we’re seeing top talent slip away. Those candidates aren’t waiting around for a call to set up an interview – it’s likely they lined up a couple within a day or even a few hours of submitting their resume with different companies. Likewise, they’re not going to wait very long to see if you make a job offer or not – they probably received an offer or two immediately after interviewing with other companies.

This fast-paced hiring process is just the reality of today’s recruiting environment. If you don’t have a simple and organized interview and decision-making process in place, the likelihood of your top candidate being available for long is slim. Take some time to review your procedures and discuss how you can expedite the process with anyone involved in hiring so everyone is not only on the same page, but prepped and ready to go as soon as you start recruiting. While every company’s hiring procedures are unique to their own needs, a good starting place might be:

• Review Your Resources –
  Have an open conversation with your hiring team and decision makers about their current workloads and schedules. If they’re overstretched and can’t keep up with current demands, what can be done to alleviate that burden so they’re able to take on additional recruiting and hiring tasks, especially in consideration of expediting the process to reduce the overall time to hire?
• Resume Review –
  Know who is in charge of reviewing resumes as they are received and ensure they understand the expected timeframe for taking action on them. If you have multiple people in charge of resume review, make sure they have open and constant communication so nothing slips through the cracks.
• Interviewing –
  Discuss your interview process and determine if it’s possible to simplify or shorten it. If you require multiple in-person interviews with different people, consider doing a phone or video interview and then an in-person interview with everyone. Be sure to set expectations for timeframes too, such as scheduling an interview within one day of receiving a resume, or setting up an in-person interview at the end of a phone interview instead of calling back later.
• Making an Offer –
  Determine if it’s feasible to make an immediate job offer for the position or not. If possible, empower the interviewer to make an on-the-spot job offer at the end of the interview. If it’s not, set a timeframe for when a hiring decision has to be made. If you know a top candidate is coming in for an interview, ensure all decision makers are aware and set aside some time in everyone’s schedule to meet as soon as possible about making a decision.
• Outsourcing –
  If you’re outsourcing any part of recruiting and hiring, have a clear process in place and set expectations with the recruiting agency, as well as every member of your internal team involved in the process. We’ve had clients miss out on great candidates because there was a delay in communication and the candidate accepted a different offer in the time it took them to get back to us with a decision.

While the fight for top talent is fierce, it is possible to come out ahead of the competition. We wish there was a solution that would solve all recruiting challenges in today’s tough market, but since there isn’t, we’ve got a simple piece of advice we believe all companies can benefit from. Simplifying your hiring process and reducing your overall time to hire better ensures you don’t miss a chance at snagging that top talent. By adequately preparing your team and being ready to make a quick hiring decision, you reduce the chance a competitor knocks you out of the competition simply by making an offer first.