For most people, the time it takes between applying for a job and their first day seems to take an age, and it’s made to feel even longer because you are itching for that change.
Just like applicants, recruiters feel this impatience too. Usually, in a situation where they need to fill or replace a role now, the process of advertising, interviewing, selecting and negotiating can become very arduous. That is why so many employers are now cutting down the time it takes to recruit workers, in order to get the right staff through their doors more quickly.
Why are recruiters in such a hurry?
According to research, 46% of employers have admitted to slashing the timescales that would you usually apply to their recruitment process, but why? One simple reason is that competition is rising and they are eager to secure good workers when they see them. Others have confirmed that long administration times were putting prospective employees off. Of course, most applicants want to make the move as quickly as possible, dependent on notice period, so why drag it out?
Recruiting a new member of staff can take anything from one to several weeks after posting your job advertisement. However, a survey recently carried out by Totaljobs revealed a new trend. Of more than 3,000 candidates and 100 recruiters, 92% are said to have made a job offer within seven days of the initial interview. 59% took just under two weeks from the date of advertising the role to setting a date for first interviews. These figures indicate that employers are no longer dragging their heels and are actually in rather a hurry to get fresh talent in.
How are employers managing this faster process?
Needless to say, technology now plays a big role in the recruitment process and HR teams are using this to their advantage. Job advertisements can be made public much faster thanks to online job boards, and relevant connections can easily be made through social networks like LinkedIn. Another means of reducing unnecessary time lapses is to conduct interviews over the phone or Skype, an approach that many recruiters are now adopting. This method, along with psychometric testing, allows employers to narrow down their search faster.
Employees are also increasingly taking to their mobile phones to look and apply for work, meaning that they can be alerted to an advertisement at the time it has been listed and get on with applying for the role from their device. Yet only 47% of employers have optimised their job boards for mobile viewing. 59% of employers additionally, or only, advertise through generalist job boards, and 53% would approach candidates via networking sites, a surprising 84% still see their corporate website as their main advertising space for jobs. This is an attitude that needs to change if they are to evolve with the latest trends.
With unemployment currently at an 11-year low, getting hold of the right staff is quite a challenge for employers. That said, the above research shows that there are ways to make the process work. A key theme that emerges is speed, and it is clear that technology will continue to support and improve recruitment processes into the future.
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