Recruitment timing is key to hiring.
Timing your recruitment well is essential
Your recruitment timing is just as important as that of meeting the right person in life. You could be looking for that person when they aren’t looking for anyone at all. But if they are, then when the time comes and you get in touch, you’d best know that this is the person you want, before time takes them away again. While this sounds very hypothetical, it is a key part of making the right hires. When I worked in recruitment consulting, placing candidates every week, I noticed very easily when a company was not able to make decisions timeously and lost out on valuable skills which could have taken their business to new heights.
While you receive the applications by reaching the right candidates, don’t delay in getting the process going as soon as the first “correct” one hits your inbox or ATS. A recruitment process is not to be done in a regimental manner.
After all, why would you need to meet anyone else if you’ve found the right person?
Keeping momentum going
Red tape in recruitment is like stopping the heart of the company for long enough to render limbs useless. If your HR or recruitment division is stuck with things like getting feedback from line managers or approving salaries and offers, you’re going to watch hot talent slip out of your hands.
It’s always best to start with a telephonic screening call. Treat it as a mini-interview and end off with a promise to let them know if they make it to interview stage. After that, you’ll know more than enough to make a decision to call them in. If they look like they could be that candidate you want, make the interview special. As you find out more and more about them that shows you that they’re the person you could be hiring, up the tempo and get momentum going. Then you keep this up as the show goes on. Just bear in mind that if you need to reverse at any stage, that you have a means to slow things down and stop.
As a recruiter, if I got this feeling that they candidate was right, I’d make it emotional and ask them what their husband or wife would say if they got the job or how they would celebrate, and so on.
Timing the offer
Making an offer to a job seeker, even if they are keen on your vacancy, must not be done too quickly or delayed for too long. Depending on factors such as the seniority of the candidate, offers should usually be made sooner rather than later, with a deadline on acceptance put in place to check whether the applicant is serious or not.
To hire someone is to court someone – you don’t know at first if they are what you want, you might miss them completely. But if you do, make sure you court them properly and get them on your side. And thus a final note here to recruiters – it is often up to you to educate the company (who is your client, after all) that they may lose the candidate if they do not make a certain move.
