WARNING: Recruiting Only Looks Easy

Hiring Delays Will Kill Your Deal  

If your hiring delays making your best candidate an offer in a timely manner, odds are they won't stick around. Your top candidate will no longer be available by the time you’re ready to make an offer — huge problem.

Whether HR, an internal recruiter, a contingency recruiter, or a retained recruiter is running the show, reasons for this problem (and suggested solutions) may include the following:

• Top talent isn’t inclined to wait months for an offer. Streamline your interview process to make it more efficient and less time-consuming. Ask yourself which steps are absolutely necessary and which aren’t.
• Too many people are involved in the hiring process. Keep your search committee small. Involve only those people who absolutely must be part of the hiring process.
• Background checks take too long. Unless you’re conducting some Jason Bourne–style background check, like for the FBI or CIA, it should take no longer than a few days (or even a few hours). If background checks consistently take longer, your vendor may be at fault. In that case, find a new vendor. If the fault lies with your HR department, fix the problem behind the holdup. Regardless of the cause for the delay, don’t leave the candidate hanging. Inform him of the delay.

Hiring Delays could Be Due to Communications

If you’ve contracted with an external recruiter — contingency or retained — the problem may simply be a lack of communication. If the hiring authority or HR fails to provide the external recruiter with status updates in a timely manner, candidates who are still in play may lose interest due to a lack of communication. In other words, by the time these candidates do hear from you, they’ve checked out.

To fix this, make sure the hiring authority or HR updates the external recruiter on at least a weekly basis. (It may work best to ask the recruiter to start this exchange each week. That way, it won’t fall through the cracks.) Then have the recruiter pass those updates along to any candidates under consideration.

About the Author: David Perry

Nicknamed the 'Rogue Recruiter' by The Wall Street Journal, David teaches companies not only how to hire the right executives (and keep them), but also candidates, on how to make business decisions that will shape their careers. This plurality of headhunter, author, and coach delivers, a balanced perspective which leads to longer tenure because of better fit. Download the Inside-Out Approach? and learn how to turn the executive search and recruitment process into an engine for building competitive advantage. https://bit.ly/2ihgItK

David is also the author of several books on hiring including the two below, Executive Recruiting for Dummies and Hiring Greatness: How to Recruit Your Dream Team and Crush the Competition.