Within the last 12 months, the market has changed. It’s no longer a market flooded with experienced and quality employable individuals waiting with eager anticipation for your job offer. No – it’s now become a highly saturated market where top candidates are few and far between meaning the market is now solely driven by them and there now largely in control of what happens to the hiring process.
While the traditional concerns about salary, location and the benefits available are still fairly large factors when it comes to candidates rejecting those job offers. They’re not the biggest offer killers! Well, not in our opinion or experience. We believe the culprit is nearly always time! And what do we mean about time? We mean turning the hiring process into an unnecessarily prolonged task, where the door is wide open for your competitors to fill that time by having the opportunity to make offers that could potentially be both bigger and better than yours!
So, the question is how do you make faster job offers to ensure the window of opportunity for competitors no longer exists. The key is to strike while the iron is hot – so to speak – by following these simple tips.
Knowing what you want
Sounds simple enough, but too often we have clients come to us not really knowing what they want from and/or in their next employee. While we’re experts in recruitment it’s really only you who knows what’s right for your business at the end of the day. If you don’t know what you want, you’ll end up looking through CVs and interviewing candidates that just aren’t what you’re looking for making the whole process longer and the candidates you really want won’t be within your reach because you're looking in the wrong direction and wasting time!
Reviewing and responding to CVs
Don’t do the one thing that most hiring managers seem to fall into – putting time aside to go through all the CVs you’ve been sent - Yes, while this is a great sense of time management and is a sensible thing to do, it’s also wasting time. Why? Because those CVs that are sitting in your inbox haven’t just been sent to you. No, of course not. They've been sent on average to around 5 different people and those will include recruiters who’ll send them out to their wide client bank. Meaning while you’ve waited to view those CVs you can bet a large sum they’ve already been read, processed and maybe even on their way to interview stage with someone else.
If you receive a CV just take five minutes of your time to read it – think of it as an excuse to have a quick break – because, you could potentially be putting yourself ahead of the competition if you get in contact with the candidate first.
Good communication
“Communication is key” how many times have you heard that phrase? Well, this time we mean it. Having a good and open line of communication during the recruitment process is vital if you’re ever going to get to offer stage! If your communication is poor you could very well ruffle a few feathers. People don’t like to be left waiting and candidates are no different, especially good ones. Too often do we see clients taking the laid-back approach to communication with candidates with the phases – “I’m busy right now”, “I’ll get back to you” and “we’re making a decision next week” – used far too often. You need to remember that while you might be busy and think if the candidate wants the job, they can just wait for your competition might not have the same attitude. That attitude will only show your company in a bad light and push away good candidates who might have once accepted a job offer from yourselves.
The key is if you like a candidate don’t make them wait because the chances are, they won’t! And you’ll be the ones missing out.
Don’t hold back when making an offer
The offering game – really it shouldn’t be considered a game, however, we’ve seen time and time again clients (and sometimes candidates) believe that when it comes to the job offer stage it’s time to turn the hiring process into a game. However, as we all know games don’t normally end well because there’s always got to be a loser!
To avoid this game ever taking place – always – go in with a strong. Make an offer that’s near your top-end threshold but not quite there, that way you’re more likely to get a positive reaction that could lead to acceptance of your offer. It will also show that you're serious about them as a potential employee. On the flipside, if you don’t quite get there you still have a bit of wiggle room should you choose to use it.