The recruitment process is lengthy: reasons and solutions

Losing a potential candidate to a competitor

Top candidates can quickly get dozens of job offers. They will be forced to make a decision on whether to accept a “current job offer” that is about to expire, rather than waiting for a “possible future offer” from your company.

By acting quickly, you not only increase your chances of getting top candidates, but also keep that talent away from your competition.

Lower candidate quality

You might think that taking more time to gather information, feedback, and brood will make for better hiring. But the longer you work, the quality of candidates will be difficult to guarantee. The main reason is that with the lengthy recruitment process, all the top candidates are likely to leave, leaving only those with lower qualifications, skills and experience.

Loss of revenue and productivity

The lengthy recruitment process means positions will remain vacant for weeks. Without a manager or team leader, productivity and output will suffer. In the quality-related position, the error rate will increase and the output quality will decrease significantly.

Impact on recruitment brand

Many candidates take their first and only interaction with a company as an indication of the work environment there. If negative reviews like the slow hiring process are shared on social media, your company will receive few high-quality applications and hardly attract individuals in urgent need.

Increase hidden costs

If the lengthy hiring process is the result of asking for too many interviews (more than four sessions), then hiring costs will go up because you'll be spending more time interviewing, rather than doing daily tasks.

Pressured colleagues

The members have to work harder to fill in the vacant positions. Stress and overexertion can lead to more errors, causing them to lose morale and motivation. In the worst case, this can lead to high turnover rates.

“Hiring is one of the most important decisions any business makes, but lengthening the hiring process can cost you the best candidates.”

So what makes the hiring process slow and how do you get through it?

The reason why the recruitment process takes so long and how to fix it

In addition to the common causes such as writing ineffective posts, not understanding the role, a huge number of candidates, etc., there are also some outstanding issues such as:

Lack of interviewing skills

The interview is often the most important stage of the hiring process and the final hiring decision depends on the success of the interview. But many busy recruiters can use a generic list of questions to which smart candidates already have well-prepared answers. As a result, they do not have the necessary amount of information to make a decision.

The problem can become more complicated when many people interview the same candidate but they do not coordinate with each other. For example, candidates must answer the same question four different times. This action is pointless as it only wastes time and annoys the candidate.

To prevent this from happening, interview questions and procedures must be well planned, coordinated and executed. Knowing specifically what you need from a candidate will help you quickly start the "race".

Thinking that not making the best offer at first might test a candidate's negotiation skills

At the end of the staffing process, you will likely decide to make an offer to the person you consider to be the company's best asset. At this point, make the best offer from the start. There is no worse feeling than receiving an offer that is not commensurate with the efforts you put in during your job search.

You can think of it as a way to test the candidate's negotiation skills, but at this point, it's no longer about testing anything but giving the candidate what they deserve.

Back-and-forth feedback can cause a candidate to withdraw quickly. So make an offer that's fair to both of you and aligns with the candidate's values.

Do not rely on external recruitment services

The main role of recruitment agencies like Vietnam Manpower is to reduce workload by solving human resource headaches, not to compete with your in-house staff.

With a vast pool of candidates and a wealth of experience, they help accelerate the hiring process and ensure candidates are the right people with the right skills and experience. As a result, your team can use valuable energy to focus on other important HR tasks, rather than just looking for candidates.