Here at Broadreach Staffing we work hard to build close client relationships that include tight feedback loops when recruiting for them. In today’s job market it is not unheard of for a strong candidate to be to be “on the market” for less than a week, which means unless you are prepared to move quickly, top talent will go to the company that is out to “win”. This article is meant to help you “win”!
If you think about the evolution of recruitment for a moment, we start up conversations with potential candidates that up until this point may or may not have been looking for a new job. Once that happens, the candidates’ ears are typically open to other recruiters and opportunities and boy can things change in a hurry. Phone interviews are scheduled, feedback is sought, live interviews scheduled, feedback sought, second round of interviews and yet again more feedback sought. What happens next depends on the pipeline of qualified candidates a company is fielding. This process can take many weeks to complete before offers are in the works.
In today’s job market, which is very competitive in the software engineering world for example, I’ve seen top talent swooped up after a single interview. Meanwhile, I am waiting on and prompting for feedback from my client after the initial phone screen a couple days ago. Many times, I get extremely positive feedback and they want to move the candidate forward through their process, but due to scheduling and other delays, it might be a week or more for that next step. Unfortunately, it’s often Goodbye Jack, our highly qualified candidate has already accepted another offer. Painful for all of us.
Our jobs as recruiters are to understand where candidates are in their job search, what’s most important to them, timelines they are looking to move and assess how in demand the candidate is in so we can inform and advise our client appropriately. When we have done our jobs effectively, we will have presented a highly qualified candidate that is ready for the hiring manager to interview. We will also have established an open channel of communication to ensure feedback is complete and timely so we can manage the candidate accordingly and advise our client in the event our candidate is looking at imminent multiple offers. When feedback is slow or incomplete candidates will lose interest and focus on companies that show a strong interest in them. If you have a healthy pipeline of highly qualified candidates you might be ok, but in the long run the companies that implement a close working relationship with their recruiting teams (internally and externally) and ensure timely and complete feedback will significantly improve their overall hiring process and close the gap in the time to hire for critical openings.
At Broadreach Staffing, we understand the value of time in the search for talent. That’s why everything we do revolves around this fundamental question, “will this save our clients’ valuable time?”
Please contact me at my email as I would love to work with you on all your critical recruitment needs.