It’s no secret that we’re in a candidate-centered employment market. The unemployment rate has been steadily dropping since 2010 and the current National unemployment rate is less than 4 percent.
While low unemployment can be beneficial for candidates and employees, it presents new challenges for employers who are recruiting top candidates to fill growth and leadership opportunities.
If you’re like many employers, you need new talent, and you need them yesterday. Most top candidates are happily employed and the ones who are on the market, are only there for a short period of time before accepting a new role.
When there is a lack of quality talent in the market, you need to adjust your evaluation process. Specifically, you need to speed up your evaluation process, keep an open mind, and don’t put backup candidates on ice.
Below, we will explain how to make these changes to your evaluation process and increase your chances of hiring top talent in today’s candidate drought.
MOVE QUICKLY
Time kills all deals is an old expression primarily used in sales. It means that once an opportunity is identified, you should make the sale in the shortest time possible or risk losing the deal. The same expression can all be applied to hiring new employees today.
If you stall the evaluation process, then candidates have the chance to change their mind or accept other offers.
Let’s explore a few options that will help you speed up your own evaluation process:
DEVELOP A RESOURCE PLAN
Develop a resource plan to move candidates quickly through the interview and evaluation process. If you don’t know where to start or what to include in your plan, take a look at your current process to see which aspects take the longest. What is slowing you down or where do you need extra help? Then you can plan your adjustments from there.
For example, are you spending a lot of time interviewing candidates who are clearly not a fit? Use a preliminary screening process before interviewing candidates to weed out candidates who are clearly not a fit.
This process can be performed during an initial phone screening with candidates or in the form of questionnaires to help narrow down the candidate pool without taking too much of your time.
Or maybe you’re not speaking to enough candidates at one time. Can you devote a resource to finding and screening top candidates while you perform the phone interviews? During this candidate drought, it’s important to cast a wide net and move many candidates through the process at once to increase your chances of hiring a top employee.
ORGANIZE YOUR INTERVIEW TEAM
One of the best ways to keep your evaluation process moving quickly is to decide ahead of time who is going to be on your interview team. Ideally, you should have at least three people from your organization interviewing and evaluating candidates. Each interviewer should focus on a specific hiring metric and ask interview questions based on their assigned metric.
Once your interview team is decided, you need to block out interview dates early in the process. If someone is going to be out on vacation during the interviews, then you either need to adjust your interview dates or find someone else to interview the candidate. Pushing your interviews back by even a few days can be the difference between hiring your perfect candidate and losing out on them to a competitor.
POST-INTERVIEW EVALUATION
Before you start interviewing candidates, you should have a plan in place to review and assess candidates after your screening process is complete. Ideally, your post-interview evaluation meeting should be completed right after the interviews so your comments and thoughts are still fresh.
Facilitate an interview recap meeting with your interview team where each interviewer can reveal their thoughts and comments about each candidate. These comments should come from an evaluation sheet that each team member uses during the interview. Once everyone’s comments are heard, you can work on making final decisions about each candidate.
If you can’t make a final decision right away, then create a timeline for when a decision will be made and communicate this to the candidates so they have clear expectations. Just by having these things lined up before you begin the evaluations process will save you a lot of coordinating time later.
KEEP AN OPEN MIND
When there is a lack of talent in the market, it’s extremely difficult to quickly find a candidate whose background and experience perfectly match up with your opening. Instead, you need to keep an open mind about which requirements are essential to the position and which requirements you can open up.
If you’re unwilling to expand your evaluation criteria, then you risk losing out on productivity and potential revenue while your position sits unfilled.
Find out which evaluation areas you should consider expanding below.
EXPERIENCE
Many job descriptions will include a long list of requirements and preferred qualifications. While it would be nice to find a candidate who meets all your expectations, this is also an area where you can be flexible, depending on the position.
Instead of being stringent on certain requirements or experience, focus on the overall candidate evaluation.
For example, many job descriptions require that only candidates with a higher education can apply. However, this requirement severely limits your candidate pool. Instead, open up your education requirements and consider substituting education for years of experience.
Also, many employers like to see a cohesive candidate background that clearly shows one job transition to another. However, that’s not the case for every candidate. Consider interviewing candidates who have been off the market for a long time or who took an extended sabbatical.
Being off-the-market for an extended period of time doesn’t always mean a candidate isn’t a strong or talented worker. They could have been off-the-market for an extended period for family reasons, but they have good experience that is relatable. Also, the world of work is changing so quickly now that many jobs and skills are becoming outdated and leaves many candidates unemployed and needing a career change. Many of these candidates could have skills that transfer to a new position and they will be eager to work hard for your company.
LOCATION
The National unemployment rate is just under four percent, but in bigger cities and states, the unemployment rate is even less. This lack of talent can make it even more difficult to fill positions if you’re located in one of these areas.
On the other hand, in more rural areas the unemployment rate is higher than four percent and there’s a bigger candidate pool.
If possible, considering recruiting from a neighboring rural county to find top talent. There may be some restrictions if your company is in a large city, however, you could also provide flexibility for when employees need to be in the office.
Another alternative is to make your position remote. Then you can have access to top talent around the nation and you can make sure the candidate you’re hiring is really the best of the best.
DON’T PUT BACKUP CANDIDATES ON ICE
In the past, it was normal to only interview your top candidate while keeping other candidates on the backburner in case your top choice didn’t accept your offer.
However, in today’s candidate market, you don’t have the luxury to take your time and be overly selective. Candidates aren’t going to wait around while you take your time interviewing and evaluating other job seekers either.
Use the tips below to adjust your evaluation process so that the candidate experience is at the forefront.
INTERVIEW MULTIPLE CANDIDATES AT ONCE
If you put all your eggs in one basket and only interview one candidate throughout your evaluation process then you’re going to end up back at square one if they decline your offer.
Instead, you need to move the process forward with all potential candidates. Try to interview as many top candidates as possible and make your first cut. You can then move the remaining candidates forward for final interviews.
Inevitably, some candidates are going to decide the position is not right for them or accept another offer. You need to be ready with other top candidates you can hire.
FOCUS ON THE CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE
If you keep candidates on ice, they will fall out of your the process – either by accepting another offer or because they don’t feel appreciated.
Take a hard look at your evaluation process from a candidate’s perspective. Do you go days or weeks without talking to your candidates? Or do you treat them as a means to an end? If you do, candidates will pick up on it immediately and will lose interest.
Instead, the candidate experience needs to be at the forefront of your evaluation process. Make your candidates feel appreciated and keep them updated on what’s going on during the process. Don’t leave them hanging while you interview other candidates either – communication is key. You never know who they will be telling about your interview process and you don’t want your company to earn a bad reputation.
IN REVIEW
You won’t be successful hiring top candidates today if you keep your evaluation process like it was ten years ago. If you change nothing else, just focus on these three key areas – move quickly, keep an open mind, and don’t put back-up candidates on ice.
These aren’t huge changes you need to make. Rather, they’re small tweaks you can make to your process and your way of thinking.
And remember, the longer you have a position open, the more potential productivity and revenue you’re missing. Instead, make these adjustments and quickly find the right candidates for your openings.
Where do candidates fall off in your evaluation process?
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