This may be a problem that is plaguing your recruiting efforts. If you are experiencing an influx of candidates that begin your interview process but then drop out mid-way or toward the end, this is an extremely frustrating thing to happen. Spending time with people up front to have them only drop out later down the road can seem like a major waste of time and can put a huge drain on any recruiter or hiring manager’s energy when it comes to hiring talent.
A COMPETITIVE MARKET
The market is extremely competitive right now and there is a lot of competition for really solid candidates in the market. The best candidates in the market are also currently working, so this adds another level of competition. Most of the candidates that we are representing are currently working and entertaining multiple offers, as well as counter offers from their current employer. This landscape is making it extremely difficult for companies to hire the right talent and often times results in a lot of time spent upfront that doesn’t turn into anything. This can seem like a waste of time, but it’s also part of how things are right now. The good news is that there are steps that you can take with your hiring process to hedge your bets and to improve this fall off rate.
FIND THE INEFFICIENCIES IN YOUR PROCESS
First and foremost, if you are experiencing a high volume of candidates dropping out of your hiring process, it’s likely there are several inefficiencies built into your process that are turning candidates off. And if you’re not turning candidates off, then you’re just not doing a good job of turning them on. It’s even more important in this market to turn a candidate on than to simply not turn them off. Unfortunately, most companies’ hiring processes turns candidates off, some leave candidates neutral, and very few are turning candidates on. Those who are able to excite candidates about their company and get them really engaged in the opportunity and have the process be smooth and effective are the ones who are getting the best talent.
INCREASING YOUR ACQUISITION RATE
So what are some of the things that you can do to increase your acquisition rate here? The first place to start is to look at what some of the common mistakes are. First and foremost, if you’re having candidates dropping out of your hiring process, it’s likely one major culprit is that you are unorganized when it comes to scheduling interviews and providing feedback. You are either unorganized or you are too slow here, or a combination of both. Candidates are getting communication and are likely being headhunted by multiple companies, so you’ve got to have an organized process and you’ve got to move fast. Remember that your interview process is the first experience that a candidate has with your company and is going to give them a lot of insight into how your company works. You want human resources and recruiting to be acting consistent with your core values and your company’s employer brand. So it’s critical that this process is extremely organized, detail oriented and provides a concierge service.
WINING AND DINING YOUR CANDIDATES
You want candidates to experience being truly valued and taken care of as they go through your interview process. It’s critical that they feel important and even feel special. This type of “wining and dining” goes a long way. That’s not to say you need to take candidates out to eat or anything like that, but providing a level of detail that gives them a concierge service is going to go a very long way and much of your competition is not doing that.
HAVING A FAST MOVING PROCESS
The other thing is that your process needs to move quickly. Often times human resources has a hard time getting feedback from hiring managers or other people involved in the hiring process. If this is an issue within your company, you need to call a meeting right away and get all the hiring managers on the same page when it comes to feedback. Many of our clients have issues when it comes to getting feedback from hiring managers and this is something that we see a lot of human resources professionals tolerate. The toleration of lazy or slow hiring managers who are too busy to get back to you is going to be one of the biggest issues you will have when it comes to acquiring talent. You need to get hiring managers on the same page, and you need to whip them into shape, so that they are on your team and they are clear about the importance of detailed feedback. Along those lines, hiring managers need to be trained on how to interview and how to represent the company to potential candidates. Oftentimes, human resources does a good job of keeping things organized, but then the hiring managers, who are not trained in interviewing and have never been trained in interviewing, blow it when it comes to doing the interviews and turn candidates off. You’ve got to have your hiring managers and your leadership team trained to be effective interviewers who represent your company effectively.
INTERVIEWS GO BOTH WAYS
Dealing with what we’ve talked about so far in this blog is going to go an extremely long way to you stopping the bleeding of having candidates dropping out of your hiring process. It’s important that your hiring process also communicates things about the culture and about the company itself. You can’t have an interview be all one-sided about you asking candidates about their experience and whatnot. In a competitive market, candidates are feeling different companies out and so the interview truly is going both ways. You’ve got to give your candidates an opportunity to learn about you and learn about what you do. You want them to really get a sense for your culture and what it’s like to work for you, what makes you different, etc. This is critical and is the best opportunity for you to really turn a candidate on to your company and your organization and the position. Again, hiring managers need to be up to speed when it comes to this part of the hiring process, and it needs to be a structured part of your interview process.
KEEPING A PULSE ALONG THE WAY
It’s important along the way in your interview process as well, to be checking in with candidates about where they are in the hiring process with any other companies. This will also allow you to gauge how much effort and speed needs to go into an individual person, depending on your level of interest in them. Keeping a pulse on this is going to be critical and also goes a long way to you building a relationship with that candidate, which is also going to keep them in your process.
CONCLUSION
These are a few tips that will go a long way to keeping candidates in your hiring process. There are many other things that you can do and there are a lot of ways that this blog could be broken down to go into detail on how to implement some of these things. If you’re interested in more of that, you should contact us about some of our coaching workshops.
Best of luck!
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