How to reduce your time to hire: Simple and not-so-obvious tips

Reducing the average time to hire is every recruiter’s dream. Neither team managers nor recruiters want to wait a month or more to bring a qualified talent on board. But the reality is that it takes an average of 33 days to find a specialist for an administrative job and 44 days to find someone in engineering.

In this post, we share workable ways to reduce your time to hire. Let’s see what we’ve found.

HR is becoming marketing-driven. A modern vacancy description is like an advertisement that must stir the interest of potential candidates and make them send their CVs. On the other hand, you must keep your vacancy descriptions informative and clear so you don’t get an influx of irrelevant candidates.

Here are a few tips to consider when crafting your vacancy copy to get on the fast recruit track:

• Create a persona to target the right audience. Consider your persona’s lifestyle (Do they prefer remote or office work?), motivations (What else makes them want to apply except for your benefits package?), and demographics (Are they married with kids?).
• Specify responsibilities in the name of the vacancy. Compare these two vacancies: “Marketing manager” and “Marketing manager for a fast-food restaurant chain.” The latter reveals more information and, thus, should attract more relevant
• Don’t hide the truth. Filter candidates with an accurate and honest vacancy description. It doesn’t make sense to promise creative tasks and a spacious office with coffee and cookies if you’re hiring a factory worker to work on a conveyor.

Recruiters often underestimate their internal candidate pool. In fact, it can be a lifesaver when it comes to hiring candidates for complex jobs, especially if you want someone to fit your corporate culture.

Internal recruitment is more cost-efficient than external recruitment because you don’t need to post vacancies on job boards, invest in paid promotions, and pay in-house recruiters or recruitment agencies.

Moreover, internal recruitment is fast because your candidates are already at hand. They’ve been working with you for some time, they know the internal rules and policies, and they share your values.

Learn more about internal recruitment best practices in our blog post.

Don’t forget about the candidates that don’t get hired. Instead, keep a database with details such as , seniority level, and reason for not getting the job. Imagine how exhausting the hiring process would be if you had to start from scratch every time. If this is your situation right now, it’s time to change it. Every time you hire new staff, save your candidates’ details. Then the next time you need to fill a job, you’ll already have a network of potential candidates. Building a talent base is your long-term solution. It can significantly reduce the time needed for the more important part of the job — finding the right people.

If you’re hiring line staff or simply working with a massive recruitment volume, you need a steady influx of people interested in working at your company.

Without a sustainable and attractive employer brand, this task becomes almost impossible. Surely, building your employer brand is a long-term strategy, not a quick fix. However, a developed employer brand eventually pays off with a steady flow of candidates and quality hires.

As you can see, there’s no one answer as to why it can take so long to hire an employee. The reasons are different depending on the company and position, along with a variety of other factors.

However, there are steps you can take to minimize the time to hire a new employee. By following some of the simple tips outlined in this article, you can ensure that your recruiting team is set up for success.

When it’s time for you to scale up your business, transform your workforce, or ensure it’s future readiness, contact the HRForecast team. We’ll work out the ways to recruit smarter and more cost-efficiently.