8 strategies to reduce time to hire

Nearly half of job seekers working in competitive industries say they’ve turned down a job offer due to a bad experience during the hiring process, with many put off by the sheer amount of time it takes to get an offer after they’ve applied for a job.

Furthermore, research shows that 78% of jobseekers would drop out, or consider dropping out, of a long or overly complex recruitment process, which can result in talent joining competitors instead.

Getting the right candidates in place is crucial to long-term organisational success, and with top talent in high demand, employers need a way to gain a competitive edge. One way to do that is with a speedy strategy that reduces time to hire while still attracting the right people for the role.

In this article, we’ll explore strategies you can implement to reap the benefits of reducing time to hire.

When we talk about ‘time to hire’, we mean the time it takes to fill an open position. This is typically measured from the time an organisation posts a job advert to when the candidate accepts the offer or begins the new role.

Hiring time is bound to vary across industries and for different roles, with the average time to hire in the UK sitting at around 4.9 weeks, rising to five weeks for larger businesses.

A prolonged hiring process can severely impact an organisation’s productivity, staff satisfaction levels and employee wellbeing. That’s because when critical positions remain unfilled for a prolonged period, existing employees often have to take on extra tasks and responsibilities. This situation can lead to feelings of being undervalued and overworked, resulting in elevated stress levels.

Moreover, an extended hiring timeline can derail broader business goals. Key projects may be delayed, and client or customer service levels can suffer due to understaffing.

By working to streamline the hiring process, organisations can promptly fill vital roles, maintaining productivity and engagement. A quicker hiring process can also work to give employers a competitive advantage, allowing them to secure top candidates before they drop out of the process or accept offers from elsewhere.

From efficiently screening after a candidate applies for a role to implementing a structured, speedy interview process, there are plenty of techniques employers can deploy to help them recruit the perfect candidates while also reducing time to hire.

Let’s look at some of the recruitment strategies you can utilise to reduce a time-consuming or overly complex talent acquisition process.

Treating each hiring effort as a unique project can be both inefficient and time-consuming from an employer’s perspective. Instead, mapping out a structured hiring process can create a streamlined approach, allowing you to quickly identify and secure the best candidates for each role.

To implement this strategy effectively, consider the following steps:

1. Determine required experience and qualification: Begin by clearly defining the skills, experience and qualifications needed for the ideal candidate, as this helps ensure you can attract applicants who meet the job’s core requirements.

2. Writing appealing job adverts: Craft job adverts that are both informative and enticing, highlighting the key responsibilities of the role and the unique benefits of working in your organisation.

3. Seat realistic but speedy timelines: Establish a timeline for the entire hiring process, from posting the job advert to making an offer, ensuring each stage has a defined timeline to keep the process on track and avoid unnecessary delays.

4. Identify key stakeholders: Determine who will be involved in the process and what their roles will be. This includes everyone from HR personnel to team leaders and department heads.

Building a talent pipeline is a proactive approach to workforce planning that allows organisations to reduce their time to hire. By creating a pool of pre-screened, engaged candidates, employers can quickly fill positions as they become available.

In order to effectively build a talent pipeline, you can look to:

• Align your talent pipeline with the organisation’s long-term goals and vision. By forecasting future staffing needs, you can stay ahead of the recruitment process and ensure you are prepared to fill critical roles.

• Identify periods of increased hiring demand, such as seasonal peaks, and plan accordingly. Maintaining a ready pool of candidates during these times ensures you can meet staffing needs without delay.

• Keep potential candidates interested in working for your organisation by maintaining engagement. Host social events, offer job shadowing opportunities, and keep in touch through newsletters and social media to foster positive relationships that keep your organisation front of mind for candidates.

Our research indicates that 29% of UK businesses expect skills shortages to continue to be a challenge for employers moving forward. A well-crafted job description is crucial in attracting top talent that matches the requirements of the role and saving time and costs by reducing the number of unsuitable applicants.

To create job titles that stand out in a competitive market, it’s vital to:

• Use a clear and engaging job title that reflects the role and resonates with industry professionals.

• Clearly outline the essential skills, experience and qualifications needed for the role to ensure applicants self-select based on their suitability.

• Highlight the competitive aspects of your compensation package, including salary, benefits and any other perks on offer.

• Write in a tone that is professional yet friendly and inclusive, avoiding jargon and ensuring that the language is welcoming to all potential candidates.

• Showcase your organisation’s culture and values, emphasising what makes it a great place to work.

While recruitment can be both costly and time-consuming, an employee referral scheme allows you to encourage your employees to refer suitable candidates. Since your employees understand the role and the company culture, they can act as effective ambassadors for your next hire. When incentivised to refer successful candidates, they are likely to recommend individuals who are a good fit for the organisation.

A referral scheme can expand your talent pool and encourage employees to present high-quality candidates, ultimately reducing time to hire and providing access to a network of potential talent through your existing employees. Here are six steps to building an effective referral scheme:

• Offer attractive incentives to motivate employees to participate, such as monetary bonuses or extra days of annual leave.

• Design a referral process that is simple and easy for employees to use.

• Communicate the details of the referral rewards to employees to ensure they understand how they can benefit from referring suitable candidates.

• Track and measure the effectiveness of the referral programme, assessing recruiting metrics like the number of referrals, quality of candidates and time to hire.

• Promote the scheme across your organisation using internal communication channels like email, newsletters and meetings.

Efficiently screening candidates is crucial for reducing time to hire. There are numerous ways employers can quickly filter out candidates and save themselves valuable time and resources in the process. This includes best practices like:

1. Utilising phone screening and video interviews: Conduct initial assessments through phone screenings and video interviews. This approach eliminates the need for candidates to travel, making the process quicker and more convenient for both parties. These methods can efficiently identify candidates who meet the basic requirements before moving them to the next stage.

2. Involving multiple team members: Include multiple team members in the screening process to gain diverse perspectives and ensure thorough evaluations. Collaborative screening can help identify the best candidates more accurately and quickly by leveraging different viewpoints and expertise.

3. Implementing pre-employment assessments: Use cognitive, personality, and technical tests to evaluate candidates’ suitability for the role before conducting interviews. These assessments can provide valuable insights into a candidate’s abilities and fit for the position, helping to narrow down the pool of applicants to those who are most qualified.

By implementing these and other strategies, employers can significantly reduce the time they spend screening candidates, ensuring that only the most suitable applicants proceed to the next stage of the hiring process.

The interview process gives employers the chance to meet candidates and assess their capabilities and suitability for the role they’ve applied for. However, by adding more structure to the process, employers can not only ensure they hire top candidates but also speed up the decision-making process.

That’s because a structured interview format, for example, competency-based interviewing, makes it easier to evaluate candidates against one another. Candidates will be asked similar or identical questions, thereby making it easier for hiring managers and other decision-makers to determine which one is most suited to the role.

This in turn helps speed up the decision-making process. When candidates are judged on the same, pre-defined criteria, and provide answers to the same questions, interviewers can make quicker decisions and make offers to their preferred candidates much quicker.

Effective communication is crucial in the recruitment process, with as many as 41% of jobseekers saying that not hearing back from employers significantly impacts confidence in their job search. While AI tools and digital platforms can help to streamline outreach and assessments, direct human communication can significantly impact candidate decision-making.

Personalised communication, such as tailored emails and phone calls, can increase candidate interest and engagement, making them more likely to apply. As a result, timely and transparent communication at every stage helps maintain candidate interest and confidence, thereby speeding up the decision-making process and helping employers onboard the talent they need quickly.

Gathering feedback from candidates is a great way to improve your approach to talent acquisition. That’s because feedback from candidates – whether they have been successful or not – gives you no-holds-barred insights into the hiring process and can show you how to speed it up.

When looking to collect useful and actionable feedback from candidates, it’s crucial to consider:

• The specific aspects of the hiring process you want to evaluate. What do you want to learn about? Is there a particular stage of the hiring process you want to focus on?

• The most effective methods for collecting feedback. This could be through personalised emails or anonymous surveys, for example, depending on what will yield the most candid responses.

Once collected, carefully analyse the feedback to pinpoint opportunities for speeding up the hiring process. Identifying recurring themes or issues can help streamline procedures, reduce delays and improve the candidate experience.

Creating a positive candidate experience through a streamlined and efficient hiring process is crucial for reducing the time it takes to make a successful hire. By implementing strategies like those outlined in this article, you can attract high-quality candidates, ensure your current employees do not become overburdened, and enhance your overall employer brand.

A well-structured hiring process not only speeds up recruitment but also fosters a more engaging and efficient experience for candidates and hiring teams alike. This approach helps position your organisation as a desirable place to work, ultimately leading to quicker, more effective hiring decisions and a stronger, more resilient workforce.