9 Proven Ways to Speed Up Your Hiring Process

Hiring is the base layer for your organisation, and the process by which everything in your company gets done. Yet, recruiting is usually very under-invested - whether that is through financial investment, time, or effort. Recruitment decisions can directly affect the success or failure of the company.

In times of the pandemic and the great resignation, competing for talent is making companies more conscious of the speed of the hiring process. The best candidates are not only in high demand, but there are now more job opportunities available than ever, so it is important that the company’s hiring process doesn’t put you behind your competitors.

Making use of these tips will help you with the process:

1. Build relationships with specialist recruiters

Running a successful business may be incredibly hard and time-consuming, consequently not putting enough time for recruiting and slowing the whole process down. This is where external or internal recruiters step in. Recruiters take care of references, screening resumes, shortlisting candidates, and scheduling interviews. Similarly, they have access to the market knowledge, so will therefore know what your competitors do, hire, and pay.

They understand the ins and outs of different roles. This is especially useful for crafting job descriptions with specific verbiage related to required skills. Knowing what you’re looking for in a candidate, and being able to effectively articulate it, can greatly increase your odds of hiring the right person for the job and doing so quickly.

Recruiters also have a pool of suitable candidates, and they take time to understand your needs, and thus find the perfect candidate. They will be able to understand the skill sets and nuances that differentiate between the two, being able to introduce and secure vetted talent much faster.

Decide whether core recruitment or embedded recruitment is right for your company and the benefits it will provide. If you're not sure - read more here.

2. Invest in a HR functions to elevate admin from other departments

Companies need to be intentional about how they build their company, and people are exactly what builds the foundations. When growing a business there will be several departures that need talent. This often means the individuals within this department are given the responsibility of hiring, and spending hours of their week focused on recruiting and the admin involved. Our recommendation is to bring someone in-house who can help filter applicants before each department spends their time interviewing. The in-house team can also use their team to do follow-ups, schedule next stages, provide feedback etc. All vital tasks but having someone dedicated to this will provide other teams members valuable hours back to focus on their own specialism.

When looking for this person, a great background would be someone who joined high-growth companies early and built out people processes. People like this can focus on recruiting, but also help shape other areas like HR, people operations and office management.

3. Treat your own internal hiring the same as you would treat one of your clients

Whether you’re a SaaS company, a recruitment company or anything in between, you know the level of service you have to provide to your clients, and the service you pride yourself on, and would make a priority. Your own internal hiring plans need to be treated the same.

When hiring for your own team, it needs the same level of focus, dedication and resources provided. The average startup will spend 990 hours hiring 12 software engineers. That’s 19 hours a week, every week, for a year. If you want your business to stay competitive then you need to be applying this level of dedication to your hiring needs.

4. Invest in technology to automate when possible

When possible, companies should opt to use technology to speed up the hiring process and reduce the amount of tasks that they can dedicate the time used for elsewhere. There are many options for different reasons like resume readers, recruitment softwares, and screening platforms that will increase efficiency. Implementing an effective CRM/ATS such as Greenhouse, Lever, or TeamTailor can dramatically streamline your pipeline and ensure nothing slips by.

Choosing the right job platform to promote your company’s job is also important. Depending on what the company is hiring for, it is important to choose the most appropriate platform that suits what you’re looking for. Posting on any site will bring a lot of random applications that won’t be right for the role, and will take time to process. In the long run, wasting time. Instead, think about choosing a niche platform specialising specifically on your needs.

5. Build your social media presence

Employer brand is highly significant when it comes to hiring, especially since social media became the perfect platform to share and promote job opportunities. The potential candidates can gain a clear insight into the company including the way the company operates, the culture, and its work. It’s a proven fact that portraying a company's business personality through your social media channels can help you reach more candidates and in a quicker time.

Companies should post pictures and updates from company events, celebrations, and holidays. Sharing company achievements is a perfect way to show not only the personality of the company, but the work ethic, consequently attracting candidates in a much quicker time frame.

6. Combine interview stages where possible

For interview processes which take too long, companies run the risk of losing talent to competition. It becomes more difficult for people to find time to constantly book more stages within a busy calendar. UMATR research shows that a 2-3 stages process is both the most efficient and effective. Anything shorter runs the risk of not evaluating a candidate in enough depth, but on the other hand, a longer interview process runs the risk of losing the candidate completely.

Companies should consider having flexible interviews when considering the speed of the hiring process. Often candidates may be unavailable for a long time to come in for a physical interview or unavailable for specific dates - that’s where the accessible method of phone or video meetings becomes useful. By using this method, it allows companies to cut days from the interview stage. Hiring managers are also able to save time by having several interviews one by one from the comfort of their own desk.

The assignments should not be too long too, should they be given. A perfect assignment is the one that is short but examines people well enough to see if they are suited for the role. A long procedure would only prevent candidates from stopping during the process, but it would also take up more of the hiring manager's time.

7. Turn around offers quickly, no more than 24 hours

Gone are the days of back and forth negotiations - people have more options than ever. When joining a new company, people want to feel valued so it’s critical to put the best foot forward in both the ‘offer amount’ and ‘turnaround times’. Any more than 24 hours, and the company risks losing the ideal candidate to competitors who move quicker.

8. Hire for potential, not perfection

Companies holding a place for the perfect candidate are making a big mistake. People with potential can be nurtured into highly talented and valuable employees quicker than the time it takes to find that ‘perfect’ person who may not exist. Companies need to evaluate whether time is better spent training someone and filling the role is more productive than the role not being filled at all.

9. Internal Referral programme

An employee referral programme is a perfect method to speed up the hiring process - it offers a large pool of candidates in a lesser amount of time than anything else. It helps companies to connect with a large mass of skilled people who are a perfect fit for the job. Employees are aware of the potential candidates’ attributes, making it easier to recommend people for the vacancies available. Not only will it quicken the hiring process, but it will connect all employees in assisting the organisation in building up a powerful team and encouraging better performance.

To speed up the process, companies should take the benefit of recruiters, internal referral programmes, combining interview stages where possible, turning around offers quickly, combining interview stages where possible, building your social media presence, investing in tech, and many more.