This can leave you with a smaller talent pool to choose from. With this in mind, CV-Library have put together some quick tips to help streamline and decrease the length of your recruitment process toensure you get the perfect hire.
Get your job description right
One sure fire way to increase the length of your recruitment processis putting out a poor job description. If you send out a muddled, unclear, job spec one of two things is going to happen:
1) You?ll be inundated with a wave of CVs that aren?t relevant for your position, meaning you?ll have a backlog of unnecessary CVs you need to go through.
2) Next to no one will apply for the job, meaning you need to wait even longer just to garner the interest of candidates.
Neither of these situations are ideal. But either way the length of your recruitment process will be negatively affected by this forcing a longer lead time between posting the job and starting the interviews. Instead, before you put the job posting up, really look through it.
Is it clear exactly what you’re looking for” Have you detailed the job title in full” Have you listed out all the key skills and education levels required Have you included the location of the position?
If the answer to any of these is “no” then go back through and add in the missing details. Getting it right straight from the off is going to improve the quality of candidates coming through to you, and cut down the amount of time you have to wade through irrelevant CVs.
Giving guidance will decrease the length of your recruitment process
Research from CV-Library has found that 72.1?per cent of interviewees get nervous prior to an interview. This can result in them not performing to their potential and, in some cases, not even turning up. Overall, this is going to result in a longer recruitment process, as you try to source more candidates, when the perfect person may have already been interviewed.
While nerves will always come part and parcel with interviews, there’s a few simple and quick things you can do to help cut this down and bring out the best in your interviewees.
Look to provide as much as assistance as possible prior to the interview, this includes sending directions and parking locations around the office. Doing so will ensure the candidate is able to find you without any problems, meaning they can get down to the business of the interview. Alongside this, contact them the day before the interview to ensure that the date and time are still ok for the candidate.
Furthermore, make sure the interviewee is crystal clear on the structure of the interview they are taking part in. If they need to come with a portfolio prepared, or have a task they need to carry out, make sure they understand this fully. By providing as much guidance and information as possible, the candidate is going to feel more comfortable and prepared for the situation.
This will allow them to show you exactly what kind of employee they would be, meaning you will be able to pick out the perfect fit without having to go back to the start of the interview process.
Communication is key
Hand-in-hand with guidance is communication. How you act post-interview is just as important as pre-interview. Setting out clear dates for when the candidate should hear back is extremely important.
With 27.5?per cent of UK workers expecting to hear back with one to two?days of an interview, making sure you lay out the next steps of the recruitment process is extremely important regardless of whether this will be a job offer, next stage interview, or just an update, keeping the candidate well-informed should be your number one priority.
Even if you contact them just to tell them the decision is still to be made, making the extra effort to keep them in the loop will mean the candidate is more likely to stay involved, rather than accepting a job offer elsewhere.
Don?t lose out
While each of these will inevitably mean more time has to be put in to each job posting, candidate and interview, you?ll very quickly be able to reap the rewards. With clearer job descriptions, guidance and communication, you?ll be able to not only bring the top talent into your recruitment process, they will also persevere with the cycle. This will ensure that, when it comes to making your new hire choice, you?ll have the widest possible candidate pool to pick from.
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