The Best Job Candidates Won’t Wait Long

They expect you to be decisive and confident. 

Not long ago my wife and I needed to hire a new babysitter. I posted the ad on a Friday afternoon. She applied the next day, Saturday, in the morning. I emailed her back within 10 minutes of receiving her application with a request for an interview.

Fifteen minutes later, I called her and invited her to our house for our first interview. She dropped by that afternoon (Saturday) at 3 PM. We agreed on the phone that if we liked her and her references panned out, she would stay that evening and watch our children.

She arrived promptly at 3 PM, and I found out immediately that three other families had contacted her for an interview. She chose us, she said, because of how quickly we responded. And how quickly we made a decision.

In her mind, we were the highest probability of a stable income. And, of course, I think she liked us (always a win). We were a good fit all the way around.

Yes, that’s how competitive the labor market is right now. Obviously, we did our due diligence, but we did it quickly. And so should you as you evaluate candidates for your open positions.

New World Hiring Order

In today's hiring environment, you'll miss out on the best job applicants if you move slower than lightning speed. Long gone are the days of multiple interviews and asking candidates to return for additional interviews. The days of agonizing over a hiring decision or “sleeping on the decision” are a relic of a by-gone era.

Applicant's often view a slow decision-making process negatively. An A-level candidate wants decisive management, and a team that knows what they want/need. Taking weeks to hire someone will pretty much ensure that your practice will hire an employee who simply doesn’t have better options. 

The last thing you want is to have to fire up your hiring process again in six months. 

The key to hiring quickly is your ability to gather the right information from your job candidates quickly and systematically. Does your data collection process include “best fit” for your practice? Have you identified key performance factors for your candidates?

I’m not advocating that you short-change your data-collection process on your candidates, but you might miss out on the best candidate if you dilly dally.