The average length of the interview process has doubled in five years, from 12.6 days to 22.9 days, according to Glassdoor.com research featured in Forbes. If you’re one of the prime candidates who snags the job at the end of the process, then well done. If you’ve spent three-and-a-half weeks on tenterhooks researching and waiting to progress through incremental stages… bad luck.
Giants such as Google and other tech behemoths spend millions of dollars finding the best candidates in the world; any company that receives more than three million applications a year needs some form of filtering out the very best, down to 0.2% of those who apply.
The search engine giant has the room and time to do it, but for smaller companies a lengthy process is an inconvenient and restrictive slog that will put off many potential candidates, and is it really necessary? Here are five reasons why short can be sweet when it comes to recruiting.
1)Less expensive
Research from Oxford Economics found last year that the average cost of replacing a member of staff costs more than £30,000, comprised of the cost of lost output while a replacement employee gets up to speed, and logistical costs. The conclusion is simple; the faster the whole process, the less money will drain away from the company during the flux.
2)Less time-consuming for employers
That interview panel has a day job away from interviewing you know… it’s called running a company. So a series of several talks, across several days, will push other jobs backwards, which can only be detrimental. It might mean little, or it might mean that a CEO or senior manager misses out on networking or overseeing a project or some other crucial mechanism in the company, which could have wide-ranging implications.
3)Better response rates
Many companies list the stages in their recruitment process on their website, which means that the full timespan from start to finish will be apparent to anyone tempted to apply. A process of several gruelling stages over the space of nearly a month will either encourage jobseekers to take on the challenge, or shrug and move on.
4)Less chance of them changing their mind
High-calibre candidates will probably be in great demand and might fancy their chances of gaining acceptance into several roles at interesting companies. They want to be making money now and getting their teeth into the working world, and an elongated, stretched recruitment process will only put them off and look elsewhere while the decision is still being made.
5)More enjoyable
Few candidates really savour the whole job-hunting process; most see it as a challenge that has to be tackled to get on in life. However, if you can make your process slightly less horrible than others then you may get more people reply from a more varied background. What’s more, even if they’re not offered the job on this occasion they might apply again if another role comes up in the future – which might not be said for those punished over multiple weeks of tests and talks.