Is it Possible to Fill Jobs in Only One Day?

Companies are filling jobs in a day.

How about you? How long is it taking you to fill positions in your organization?

Here’s how to dramatically reduce your time to hire.  

Use Your Network—case in point. The daughter of a client of mine applied for a part-time job with a concert hall, only to learn they had no openings. But that didn’t stop their recruiter from helping out a colleague. There is a new venue opening across the street that the same company owns. The recruiter sent her a note telling her this venue was holding onsite interviews all week.

You probably have people in your network that would gladly refer their overflow of applicants to you. However, here’s the thing about networks. You have to stay in touch with people in your network and ask for help when needed. You must also be willing to reciprocate.

Who in your network have you ignored? Send them a note today and ask them how they’re doing. Send someone in your network an article that you thought might be of interest to them. Yes, it’s that simple.

Make it Easy for People to Speak with the Hiring Manager. My client's daughter arrived at the venue during the designated time and was quickly escorted to the hiring manager’s office. The hiring manager spent considerable time with her and, on the spot, offered her the job.

He didn’t play the “We’ve got a bunch of other candidates. We’ll get back to you game.” He knew he had found a great hire and wasn’t about to lose her.

Compare this to the process another organization is using.

My client's daughter applied online for a job with a major retailer. Miraculously she received a response, but it wasn’t quite what she expected. She was asked one simple question.

Are you looking for a summer job or longer-term employment? She immediately replied, saying she was looking for longer-term work. That was well over a week ago. Likely, she’ll be called in for an interview, which she’ll decline since she now has a job.

When it comes to hiring, minutes matter.

Things could have gone very differently had the hiring manager of the retail shop picked up the phone, asked my daughter her question, and, depending on her answer, scheduled an interview right away.

Be Decisive. The hiring manager knew what he was looking for in terms of experience and traits, so he was prepared to seal the deal quickly.  

How about you? Have you thought about the traits you’re seeking for the position(s) you’re trying to fill? Are you prepared to hire someone on the spot, or do you have to jump over additional roadblocks to get to the next step? Are there steps in your hiring process that you can purge that won’t impact the quality of your hires? If so, why haven’t you eliminated them already?

Improve Your Careers Page and Offer Applicants a Better Experience. 

You have a career page on your website that you frequently update, right?

Candidates generally visit your careers page when they learn about your job opening. If they don’t find your career page relatable, they’ll move on and look for a job elsewhere.

So, how do you know if your career page attracts or repels talent? Start with some informal market research.

Have your employees share your company career page with their friends and suggest they ask the following questions:

• Once entering our site, how long did it take you to find our career page? (Note: You’ve got a problem if they say more than 15 seconds.)
• How likely would you be to refer someone to our company after reading our career page? Why is this so? 
• What information, if any, did you wish we had covered on our career page?

Give Hiring Managers the Authority to Hire. It may surprise you that the only person who interviewed my daughter was the VP of Operations. No one was running interference and slowing things down. The VP was empowered to make an offer on the spot.

Companies seem to have forgotten that there’s a reason people are called “Hiring Managers.” Those who hold this title are (or should be) responsible for hiring. If you’ve trained your hiring managers on selecting for success, they ought to be able to make sound hiring decisions without people looking over their shoulders. If you haven’t trained people on employee selection, then do so today. Schedule a call with me if you need help with this.

As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter titled, Ready to Lose 67% of Your Staff in the Next 180 Days, the hiring challenges you’re experiencing aren’t going to go away on their own.

If what you’re currently doing isn’t getting you the results you are seeking, then it’s time for a new plan. Let’s call this plan Operation Hire and share our successes so we can all learn from one another.

Write me at [email protected] and tell me what steps you’ve taken that have reduced the time it’s taking you to hire good people, or comment below. I’ll roll up everyone’s advice and share these practices in next week’s newsletter.