Great organizations have great employees, which is why you want to hire the best candidate for each position in your company. The hiring process is the most critical part of ensuring the success of a business, and it is not just the process of reviewing resumes and conducting interview rounds. If you want to go by the numbers, filling a vacant job position currently takes about 36 days (and sometimes even longer depending on skill set) and costs $4,425, says a talent acquisition benchmarking report.
Most organizations cannot wait for such a long time period to fill a job position, nor do they have the money or manpower to invest in to have a successful hire. This then makes it critical for the organization to improve the hiring process. With the right hiring and onboarding process put in place, organizations can vastly improve their quality of recruitment.
Before we proceed to the effective tips for hiring process improvements, let’s get started with the basics.
What is the hiring process?
The hiring process is defined as the step-by-step method followed by organizations, both big and small, to find and hire new employees. A well-defined process to hire individuals helps in attracting new employees who can utilize their strength to help you grow your organization.
Although the hiring process varies from one employer to another, there are some common steps involved in the process.
General steps of the hiring process
- Creating and circulating a job description that precisely defines what you are looking for
- Reviewing candidate resumes and cover letters received for an open position
- Conducting the initial screening to begin the interview of the shortlisted candidates
- Conducting in-person or video interviews
- Having the applicant perform skill assessment tests if needed
- Performing background verification
- Extending job offer.
- Hiring the new employee and then proceeding with the onboarding process
Top hiring challenges emerging out of the Covid-19 pandemic
The hiring process followed in most organizations is not the same as it once was before the pandemic. Given below are some of the most common hiring challenges faced by organizations like yours:
- Hiring the right number of employees
Certain industries have been forced to lay off or fire existing employees due to market conditions in this pandemic. It is important that the companies keep a certain number of employees to ensure the business success once demand picks up. We see a large number of companies unprepared for the sudden growth of demand as they are not able to hire fast enough.
- Adopting the remote work environment without fail
As most employees have had the opportunity to work remotely, they want to continue the same moving forward. A recent survey concluded that 1/3rd of the employees working from home would prefer quitting their jobs than returning to work full-time. Hence, companies need to evaluate what is feasible for the present and future.
- Difficulties faced in getting job applications
As per the report about the impact of the Coronavirus on the recruitment process, there has been a 47% reduction of job applications in Feb 2020 across all industries as compared to the previous year. It is because the pandemic has made many people feel reluctant to change jobs unless it is highly needed.
- Reduced budgets for recruitment
The hiring process also depends on budgets sanctioned to hire more skilled individuals for an organization. However, with reduced recruiting budgets, it has become a challenge for the HR teams to find and adopt cost-effective solutions to fill open spots and demonstrate a higher ROI.
6 tips to improve the hiring process efficiency
1. Provide an accurate overview of the job role
You can considerably improve the hiring process by providing a clear-cut overview of the job position. In other words – write better job descriptions.
With detailed job descriptions, you have a better chance of offering roles to candidates that are a good fit for your organization. Incorporate the need-supplies approach into your hiring process that highlights what the company can do for the candidate and not the other way round.
2. Include the Must-Haves in your job descriptions
Only adding the basic requirements to a job description is most likely to prolong the candidate search, which costs more and takes more time. On the other hand, tightening up the grip on job descriptions by including ‘must-haves’ will narrow down the list of applicants, thus helping you hire more individuals that best fit your needs.
Statistical Information: Men apply to jobs for which they meet 60% of the requirements, while women avoid doing the same unless they meet 100% of the given criteria.
3. Improve the interview process by asking the right questions
A Leadership IQ study found that recruitment failures are often the result of flawed interview processes. 82% of the managers surveyed in the study reported that the interviewers lack the confidence to find red flags. They mostly ask questions related to technical skills, while overlooking factors like motivation, temperament, and coachability.
Hence, it is important to prepare a list of the right questions to ask in an interview. Also, you should let the candidates ask questions to know what’s important for them.
4. Lean inwards on current employees to fill open roles
When it comes to streamlining the hiring process to fill open roles, it makes sense to turn to the existing employees to boost the recruitment efforts. For example – you can start with promoting the employees from within your organization and then opening the job position externally. Similarly, you can create an employee referral program to encourage candidate recommendations.
5. Hire a staffing agency to make things easier for yourself
Doing everything in-house is not always beneficial when you can outsource the hiring requirements to a reputable staffing agency. With the right staffing solution provider by your side, it is possible to reduce overhead costs, save time, and increase ROI. Most staffing agencies have a big database and advanced software to shorten the hiring process and provide relevant profiles quickly.
6. Technical Program Management
With the accelerated adoption of technology and the rapid churn in the use of technology in business, a need for program management professionals with technical skills arose. Technical program managers are essentially project managers with a technical spin. Technical Program managers oversee every aspect of a program or a project. From defining program goals and requirements to approving test results of the final product, a technical program manager like a project manager provides direction, schedules resources, and timelines, and works with engineering to design and establish product architecture for businesses.
This calls for knowledge of technical skills like programming, cybersecurity, IT and networking, and cloud computing. Technical Program managers also need to possess people management and project management skills.
Learn More about Hiring During A Recession.
Common hiring mistakes you should avoid
- Circulating inaccurate job description
- Waiting to hire only the perfect candidate that fits the role
- Including unnecessary layers in the interview process
- Eagerly making the hiring decisions
- Picking a list of irrelevant questions to ask in an interview
- Not using technology
- Not utilizing the power of referrals
- Continuing with the age-old interview techniques
- Excluding the prospect of internal hiring or promotions
- Talking more instead of listening to the candidate’s responses
- Believing in the lies told in the resumes
Switch to Connect Tech+Talent to hire right
Connect Tech+Talent, based out of Austin, Texas with over 27+ years of experience in the technology staffing and recruiting industry provides flexible staffing solutions such as permanent, contract, temporary, remote & project-based hiring to meet the organization’s specific needs.
Talk to a Connect Tech+Talent hiring consultant today to hire your high-performing tech team.
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