For any organization, irrespective of its size, role, or the industry it serves, time to fill is a vital recruiting metric. It stands for the number of calendar days needed to find and hire a new candidate. This is usually measured by the number of days between a job requisition being approved and the candidate accepting your job offer. To ensure your organisation’s operations continue unhindered, time to fill needs to be short.
Time to fill provides you with a realistic view of the period it will take to replace an employee who has left. This will let you plan your hiring efforts better. If the time to fill is excessively long, it’s a warning signal that indicates your hiring process needs some fine-tuning. For instance, if your company has been unable to fill the vacant post of a marketing manager for a particular region, other managers will need to take on the added responsibility, which could trigger frustration and stress. Being able to fill the post quickly will have an overall positive effect on everyone’s time, as it will mean greater stability and lower overtime, stress, and frustration.
In a 2018 Growth Hiring Trends Report that surveyed 500 US-based talent acquisition professionals, it was found that for 49% of the survey respondents, 7 to 14 days from an application’s receipt to an offer letter was the norm. Another older study by SHRM found the average time taken by companies in 2016 to hire talent was 36 working days. However, studies have shown that 23% of job applicants lose interest in an employer if they fail to hear back within a week. An additional 46% become disinterested in case they fail to hear anything within 1-2 weeks. These figures indicate why it’s crucial to reduce the time to fill. But can you do it without compromising your recruiting process’s integrity? The answer is YES.
Given below are four ways to help reduce your time to fill.
1. Focus on Compliance
Job posts often overlook compliance. If you too are guilty of doing the same, you need to make amends. It’s recommended you make available specific compliance postings to job applicants. For instance, job posts regarding an inclusive workplace, equal employment opportunities, immigration, family/medical leaves, polygraph protection act, etc., will help prospective employees assess if they will be a good fit and apply. This, in turn, will deepen your talent pool and give you more choices when finding the best fit.
Your job posts should also meet the various requirements applicable under national, state, and local laws.
2. Create an Easy and Effective Hiring Process
Your hiring process should be easy for prospective employees to apply, appear for an interview, and get the job. This way, you can attract and retain high-quality employees. Ideally, you should leverage modern technology, on-point job descriptions, and reputation management to make your hiring process easy, fast, and effective. However, it doesn’t mean you should compromise on your hiring standards. You just need to review your hiring process critically and ensure it’s not too tough or lengthy, which would otherwise scare away the eligible candidates.
3. Ensure an Easier Interview Scheduling Experience
48% of job seekers are less likely to engage with or recommend an employer in the future if they face an exasperating interview scheduling experience. With more senior roles, this percentage climbs up to stand at 64%. Thus, you need to understand what annoys job seekers and take steps to mitigate those factors that trigger irritation in your applicants.
It’s obvious that a job seeker who feels frustrated with an organization won’t be inclined to work for it.
4. Train Your Managers in Charge of the Recruitment Process
In today’s extremely competitive business landscape, you can’t afford to have an incompetent recruitment strategy. If you do, your competition will snatch away the best talent. The way forward is to give your managers and others involved in the recruitment process adequate training and a refresher.
This will help them have clarity of the role they are recruiting for. It will also help them conduct a thorough job interview of the applicants, along with running appropriate background and reference checks, to choose the most apt person for the post. Such structured recruitment will help your organization reap the benefits of having the best talents in its ranks.
Wrapping Up
To avoid wasting precious time, you should reduce time to fill with an effective hiring process. To do this, your job posts need to comply with the land’s applicable rules and requirements. Additionally, your recruitment process should be applicant-friendly, allow for easy and fast interview scheduling or rescheduling, and engage trained managers and other personnel to conduct thorough interviews and background and reference checks to hire the fittest candidates. What other points will you add to this list?
This article was written by InHunt World