Not every candidate is just sitting at home and waiting for you to answer their job application. While you’re taking your time, developers are hunting for new opportunities and there are a lot of them. They don’t even have to apply because recruiters will come to them.
So, when you post a job ad, the hiring process should become your top priority. Would you be interested in hiring a person who responds to your email after a week? The same is with candidates – they won’t take you seriously unless you act like a professional. Developers are forming an opinion about your company during the hiring process, so you have a direct impact on the company reputation.
Also, your employees and customers are both suffering because of your decision to hire slowly. It’s time to speed up your hiring process!
How long should hiring process last?
According to Glassdoor, the average length of the interview process is 23.8 days, but it can vary widely depending on many factors. More complex jobs mean a longer time-to-hire, so there is a big difference when you want to hire Software Engineer and Data Entry. The thing is that pre-employment screening can be faster if you hire an IT recruitment agency because you won’t have to deal with the average candidates. Instead, you will receive a short list of the best candidates that you can interview and make a decision quickly.
How can Slow Hiring Damage your Company
Everybody wants to find a perfect candidate, but that’s not a reason to take an employment screening slowly. It’s the opposite. You should speed up things if you want to find the best candidate. That doesn’t mean that you should hire in a day, but you should be insightful and act quickly if you think that you have found the right person.
It’s important to be aware of the consequences of slow hiring, so let’s get to the point.
1. Top candidates will go to competitors
While you’re making a decision about contacting top candidates, they are receiving alternative offers. So, why would they decline a current offer because of a possible future one that you may give them?
- Unless you’re Google or some other company worth waiting for, candidates will probably go for the next good opportunity.
While you are still only midway through your hiring process, your competitors will use the opportunity to hire a candidate who may fit perfectly to your company and you will have to deal with average candidates. The speed of hire is the most important when you are competing against other tech companies for currently employed “in-high-demand” top talent.
2. It can significantly raise “hidden” hiring costs
Maybe the reason why your hiring takes time is that you have an excessive number of interviews. If that’s the case, you’re wasting time and money of your company, managers, or HR professionals. These costs are not so obvious because they are not included in the standard cost-per-hire calculation. Your employees have better things to do then to go through resumes and interview every candidate. They have to sit in on each interview while they can develop some great things for your customers. These “hidden” costs will go up as the time goes on, so they are unproductive cost. Are you aware of that?
- The fact is that the hiring process takes time and involves costs, but you can ease the entire selection and hiring process by using technical screening services. Technical interviews know what type of experience, knowledge, and personality the potential employee should have so they will ask them a number of questions in order to see if they’re the perfect fit for a company and a job.
3. Slow hiring will not improve the quality of those who you hire
You may be a perfectionist who wants to do things slowly and minutely, but the fact is that your hiring decision won’t be better just because you had more time to gather information. Slow hiring has the opposite effect – the longer you wait, the lower the quality will be. As mentioned, top candidates will drop out, and you will have to choose between average and week candidates. Also, candidates will have abundant time to rethink whether they want to work at your company, so they may drop out of the hiring process before your company begins interviews. If you know what kind of profile you’re searching for, go for it and contact the best candidates immediately.
4. It will cause lower productivity and higher costs
If your key programmer has left the company and you have to find somebody to replace them, it’s crucial to act quickly. The team is depending on this person, so their results will probably be lower. It can dramatically impact their productivity and motivation to work so you may lose one more employee as well. Employees who came from other faster-hiring IT companies will get frustrated because they know that these extended vacancies aren’t necessary. Don’t expect from others to work overtime just because you didn’t manage to find a new employee.
Although some mistakenly think that having position vacancies can save you money, that’s not true.
- Annual cost for an empty seat of a technical professional is 2 times’ salary. Losing the key developer mean that some critical work will actually stop during these unnecessary position vacancy days.
Each position vacancy day has a significant impact on productivity, innovation, and revenue generation. That’s one of the main reasons why you have to take pre employment screening seriously.
5. Your customers and employees will also feel the negative impacts of slow hiring
If your team is not strong enough without the employee who left your company, your customers will notice it. The quality of your services will drop down or become slower and your customers will start to question your authority in the field. They may leave you, or you may have a serious talk with them. Don’t put yourself in this situation. Bad reviews are the last thing you need. If they leave you and tell your potential customers about their experience, your problem will become bigger than it is now.
6. It will hurt your in-house brand image
In-house brand image is as important as your external reputation. HR marketing is trending and professionals from HR know how important it is to increase employees loyalty and to make them satisfied at their job. They know that a happy employee will lead you directly to happy customers. Pre-employment screening that lasts too long will make recruiters frustrated because they usually depend on other engineers. All in all, nobody is satisfied, not recruiters, not developers from a team, managers, nor customers.
7. It will influence external employer image – people will talk
IT community is strong and they talk about each other’s experiences. If developers have a negative experience with pre-employment screening in your company, they will tell their colleagues, post their experience on social media, or they won’t apply again. That can cause you to lose many top candidates, but it will also influence your brand image. For example, frustrated candidates will post negative reviews on Glassdoor about their experience which can hurt your brand image. This will discourage many of the top candidates to send their application for your company.
People may say that every kind of marketing is good marketing. In this situation that’s not true! You have to brand your company as “a place to be”.
Conclusion: Technical screening as a solution
Slow hiring can affect your employees, customers, costs, your brand image, and company in general. You’re putting your company on risk, so you better change your hiring process and start acting like a professional.
Luckily, there is a solution to this problem. Technical screening services can help you not only to hire faster but to save money and time and reduce unconscious bias. At the end of the process, you will be sure that you’re making the best decision.
Let us help you! Our interviewers are IT professionals that have several years of hands-on experience in the IT niche. Start your recruiting journey with us!
