How long does it take to hire an employee?
Without using a staffing agency, the average time frame from search to start date for a new hire is 10-12 weeks according to an article on monster.com. Including companies using staffing agencies, LinkedIn’s 2017 Global Survey says the average is 6-8 weeks. To be clear, that’s the nationwide average across all industries. The reality is less concrete than survey statistics. Each industry, job requirement, company culture/reputation, etc affects the length of time it takes to bring on a new hire.
Let’s say you own a private practice and you speak to a friend in the restaurant industry that easily hires multiple wait staff every week. Let’s say they exaggerate and it’s multiple hires every month. Many of the candidates apply simply by seeing the “now hiring” sign on the door. Sounds easy, right?
If you’ve been in the industry for any amount of time you know how very incorrect that assumption is, especially for the healthcare industry. So how can you get that many candidates in that fast?
The right candidate is worth multiple convenient hires even for positions that do not require specialized skills. In most cases it takes time to find the right candidate. In a past blog I wrote about how it takes a few weeks to go through resumes, a few weeks to conduct interviews, and if your candidate is otherwise employed it takes an additional two weeks notice in most cases. Six weeks of waiting to fill an empty position.
That six weeks is based on the search starting immediately. You didn’t try to save money and make it work with one person down. That’s also assuming you don’t hold a company meeting to discuss the need to bring another person on board, or find a time to meet with the busiest person in the office prior to coming on board.
So how can business owners speed up this process?
- Spend time thinking about where your ideal candidate searches for a position. Then focus your efforts in that area. This will require some research on job seekers in your industry.
- Branding. Know your reputation on and off social media. Do you know what your company’s social media footprint looks like? It’s common practice for HR to review potential candidate social media pages. So it only makes sense that candidates would also review companies. If you’re maintaining your social media pages well, leverage them all to get the word out that you’re hiring. I’m sure you know or have at least heard about the importance of branding. Example: I’ve heard Disney World is a great place to work. However, logically I know providing service to a mass of excited/exhausted children and parents waiting in lines for hours can not possibly be as great of an experience as the rumors.
- Figure out what you really need out of the candidate. Often our idea of the perfect candidate and the actual perfect candidate are different. Here at Optimum RTS we talk to our clients about their job, their company, the entire picture in order to make a job description. Often, our clients send us a job descriptions that include many concrete tasks but the description still lacks the actual position. We make it our job to understand your job so we can find the perfect candidate for it.
- Keep an open mind. When deciding on the position requirements, consider similar/complimentary skills to leave room for pleasantly unexpected candidates. We often see clients choose these unexpected candidates even over candidates that seem to meet their checklist of requirements. Aside from positions that require credentials, many times candidates have most but not all of the items listed on the job description.
- Be willing to train. Many times the difference between an immediate fill candidate and months of searching for the right candidate is the willingness to train. Often clients come to us having searched for weeks for the perfect candidate, unwilling to train quality candidates because they don’t have time. However, when a position sits empty for months, how much time and productivity is lost? I would argue you don’t have time to waste on an unfilled position.
- Referrals from current employees. I will caution that current employees do not always make good referral sources. There are times we have seen a cliquish environment form from this practice, or personal life drama spilling into and poisoning an otherwise harmonious office environment. It can work, but still do your due diligence on all potential candidates. (Did I mention we do background checks?)
- Use a Staffing Company. This is definitely a fast and easy way to fill a position with a professional. I wrote an entire blog about this a few months ago if you have questions. (https://optimumrts.com/hr-corner-by-suzanne-february-2019/)
As always if you want more information on any HR/Training/Sales/Recruiting (and more!) topics, contact us!
Suzanne is the glue that holds Team Optimum RTS together. She wears many hats in our office and her organizational skills are OUTSTANDING!
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