Are you having problems with your hiring process? Taking too long? Candidates dropping out? Trouble choosing the right person? If this sounds like your company, here are a few tips to improve things.

1. Make a timely response to candidates who submit applications.

You may have recruiters combing through online sources and elsewhere to find candidates that match your requirements. Your company may put a lot of time and effort into advertising openings. Candidates respond, and applications start coming in.
But your company does not respond to the applicants, giving no acknowledgment of their application or any indication of when they will be notified of a decision.

Then, when hiring managers contact people to come for an interview, they find that candidates have accepted positions elsewhere. The moral of the story here is that companies need to notify candidates when the companies receive their resumes and give them some kind of timeline.

2. Hiring managers need to prepare for interviews

Generally, interviewing is only one among many responsibilities of a manager’s job. Few are trained in how to do it effectively. The key is preparation – hiring managers should have questions drawn up in advance, know exactly what kind of skills and knowledge they want, and come up with questions that specifically help them determine if candidates have the desired skills.

3. Ask all applicants the same questions and record the answers.

This gives interviewers a good basis of comparison among candidates and helps to counteract any bias or preconceptions the hiring manager may have.

4. Allowing too much time to elapse between interviews

Before beginning the hiring process, you should draw up a schedule for the amount of time you expect to take sorting through applications and interviewing. Then you need to stick to the schedule. One big reason companies lose candidates is that the process takes too long. You also need to communicate with candidates to let them know how things stand – what the next steps are and how long it they will take.

5. Indecision

Sometimes, after conducting a round of interviews, hiring managers are dissatisfied with the applicants they have reviewed and decide that they need to talk to more people, dragging out the process. This happens often because managers are not clear about exactly what they are looking for. Or they are reluctant to hire someone because they believe that the perfect candidate is out there somewhere if they just keep looking.

6. Putting candidates through multiple interviews

Multiple interviews may be necessary for senior leadership positions, but for most jobs, one, or at most two, interviews should do it. If it takes more than that, it’s a sign of disorganization and murky objectives, which the candidate will notice.

Winston Resources is here to provide your company with the talent you need to make your business the best it can be. We have the knowledge and experience to help your business with the people you need. Give us a call today.