If you manage a team or are responsible for hiring, then you know how much interviewing candidates takes away from your primary job. Even just scheduling interviews with your team can feel like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Availability conflicts slow down the hiring process, keeping your opening unfilled and you further from your company’s goals.
When you depend on headhunters or HR to find candidates, you’re bound to their level of urgency and have to wait for résumés to show up in your inbox. After seeing a candidate you like, you request an interview and the calendar dance starts to see when you can get her in the door. Sound familiar? There’s so much unnecessary work involved and you haven’t even vetted the candidate yet.
Take control of interviewing from the start by committing to specific times to see candidates. Let HR and/or your recruiters know up front when you can prioritize interviews. This will eliminate the back and forth and put a fire under them to fill those time slots for you. We had a recent client give us two times during the week and we just plugged in candidates to interview. They agreed to interviewing candidates at 8:30am on Tuesdays or 4:00pm on Thursdays. Not only did this fast forward the process, it got my team to prioritize the search for them.
Just remember that often the top candidates are working and need to be attracted to what you’re offering. So the more you can accommodate, the easier it will be to lure them in. Consider blocking off time either first thing in the morning or end of day. Lunch time works too for initial phone interviews.
Scheduling interviews is one of the most mundane and difficult parts of hiring talent so by committing to specific interview times up front, you’ll skip the first few steps in the process, create a level of urgency for your recruiters and show your candidates how organized you are.
Comments