Time-to-hire has become one of the most unfortunate bottlenecks in the hiring process. According to The Resource, the average time to file has increased since 2023, from 36 days on average to 63 to 68 days on average, across all industries. This information comes from reports made by SHRM, LinkedIn, and other sources. When the hiring process lengths like this, companies run the risk of losing out on top talent to other organizations that work faster and hire smarter. Hiring faster doesn’t mean sacrificing quality; rather, it means owning every step of the process. Read on to learn more about how to reduce time-to-hire without sacrificing candidate quality.

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Why a Long Hiring Process Hurts Your Business

Top talent gets picked up in a matter of weeks, sometimes sooner. If your hiring process takes longer than that, you lose out on this pool of high-quality candidates.
A longer hiring process also means your positions take longer to fill. Vacant openings increase the workload on your existing team, causing all kinds of trouble. Burnout is one problem you’ll face, in addition to lower productivity and customer satisfaction.
Delayed hiring can also lead to increased overtime costs, if your team has to work longer hours to meet demand.

Why Can Hiring Take So Long?

When assessing the time-to-hire of your positions, several factors could be slowing you down. Many of them could be working in tandem.
– Too many approval steps. Getting a candidate from the interview to the job offer requires redundant signoffs at every stage.
– Unclear job descriptions. Posted job descriptions contain vague duties and unclear expectations, which confuses candidates as to what they’ll actually do in the job.
– Delays in scheduling interviews. Scheduling conflicts, busy HR staff, or inconsistent availability lead to weeks-long waits for interviews.
– Inefficient communication between internal staff. Emails or phone calls take days to respond to, resulting in delayed response times to candidates (or no response at all).
– Spending too much time reviewing unqualified candidates. These days, every job post gets lots of applicants, many of which aren’t qualified for the role.

Practical Ways to Reduce Time-to-Hire

Reducing time-to-hire doesn’t mean sacrificing important steps of the process. Instead, it means making the existing steps more efficient and tightening up areas where redundancy or pointless waiting happens.
– Write clear, well-defined job descriptions. When you put time into creating job descriptions that clearly outline role expectations, you attract better quality candidates who understand what is required.
– Establish a standardized process before hiring begins. This way, everyone who is involved knows what the next steps will be. No one’s scratching their heads, wondering which step is next. Everyone’s on the same page.
– Schedule interviews quickly and keep candidates informed. It shouldn’t take weeks for candidates to hear back from you about job interviews; most of them will already be gone by then. Make the decision to set up interviews in under a week.
– Pre-screen to identify candidates you want. You need certain skills for your open positions, as well as experience. Filtering out candidates who don’t have these ensures that those who do are brought to the forefront.

Reduce Time-to-Hire With Tempstar Staffing

Staffing agencies help keep time to hire down, maintain a constant stream of candidates, and build a smooth hiring process for your business. Working with Tempstar Staffing means you get world-class customer service in addition to all of the above, and more:
– Maintains a pipeline of pre-screened candidates.
– Fills temporary, temp-to-hire, and permanent openings.
– Handles the entire recruitment process from start to finish.
– Provides insights on market fluctuations as well as wage data and insights.
– Helps business scale their workforce through busy seasons or workload changes.

The most important thing to remember is that none of these adjustments to your recruitment strategy sacrifice candidate quality. In many ways, it strengthens recruitment outcomes. If you’d like to learn more about how Tempstar Staffing can help reduce time to hire, contact us today!