Simple Yet Effective Ways to Build a Robust Candidate Pool and Mitigate Time-to-Hire

One of the most critical performance factors for hiring teams is time to hire. Only 30% of organizations can fill a position within 30 days. The remaining candidates take anything from one to four months to get hired.

Why should you try to shorten the hiring process?

Taking too long to fill a position increases the risk of losing fast-moving (high-quality) prospects. It’s not easy to measure the time to hire, but once you have the data, you can see where you can improve. 

With the cost per hire and time to hire rising, it’s essential to establish a solid foundation before launching a comprehensive recruitment campaign. It’s also a good idea to have a safety net if one of your employees leaves unexpectedly.

In this scenario, that safety net is your large applicant pool. We’ve listed five ways to get you started.

How Do You Build and Maintain a Talent Pool?

1. Add the Candidates You’ve Found

This is arguably the simplest way to fill your skill pool with candidates. When you come across interesting people that don’t fit your current available roles during your sourcing process, add them to your talent pool.

Keep in mind, though, that if you want to keep people interested, you must engage with them frequently. You can, for example, keep them up to date on industry news and your company’s latest technological breakthroughs or invite them to events you’re hosting.

2. Re-Engage Inactive Candidates

Re-engaging with applicants who previously applied but were not selected is another simple strategy to expand your talent pool. You can consider the following:

• Candidates should be kept informed about the recruitment process and the following actions
• Maintain the timeline you specified
• As promptly as possible, respond to applicant queries
• Give folks comments on how they did (and explain why they didn’t get the job)
• Be open and honest with candidates about the position and the organization

There’s no reason why rejected candidates wouldn’t want to stay in touch and be part of your talent pool if you follow these guidelines. Unless, of course, they felt the company wasn’t the proper fit for them after all.

3. Don’t Forget About Previous Employees

When creating and sustaining your talent pool, just as you shouldn’t forget about your current employees, you shouldn’t ignore your previous ones.

Yes, they left your organization, but that doesn’t imply they aren’t looking for new chances or that they won’t come back. Especially if the primary reason for their departure had nothing to do with how much they enjoyed working with you.

Include questions such as “Would you consider returning if the perfect chance presented itself?: in your farewell interview. Or “What would be your deciding factor in returning to work for us?”

You’ll be able to categorize former employees into a particular area of your talent pool based on their responses and keep them updated.

4. Involve Students and Future Graduates

It’s all about foresight when it comes to talent pooling. What better way to do so than to engage with the future workforce, which includes students and graduates-to-be?

While most students aren’t searching for full-time employment, most want to work part-time. Either for the money, to start thinking about what they want to do when they graduate, or both. Graduates are in the same boat, though in a slightly different way.

While some graduates already have a job when they receive their diploma, many others will still be hunting for that perfect career opportunity once they complete their education.

Social media is an excellent way to demonstrate to students and grads what it’s like to work for your firm and what you have in store for them. 

According to Mediabistro, 14.4 million job searchers in the United States utilize social media in their job search. Social media is the essential technique used by 29% of their survey respondents in their search. Jessica Palmeri, an online communications specialist, said, “If you haven’t already used social media in your recruiting process, this indicates it could be a new way to extend your talent pool.”

Consider (summer) internships, graduate programs, part-time contracts, work shadowing, and meetings with your CEO, among other options.

An internship or graduate program is a terrific way to spot potential and see who would be a good fit for your firm later on; getting your student and graduate “offering” right dramatically benefits you as an employer.

Until then, you may recruit and keep them interested with material tailored to individuals just starting in their professions.

5. Make Use of Marketing for Recruitment

Recruitment marketing refers to how a firm develops and communicates its employer branding and employee value proposition as a critical step in talent acquisition.

Your company may attract and develop elite talent by publicly marketing and encouraging them to join your talent pool. A company blog, social media advertising, or attending a career fair are all examples of inbound recruiting.

However, building a robust candidate pool isn’t just enough. If you do not fill your open positions faster, all the effort of creating this talent pool goes in vain. It is equally important to focus on time to hire and indulge in practices that help you employ fast and make your recruitment process more streamlined.

Most recruiting speed study has focused on time to fill rather than time to hire. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average time to fill a position is 36 days.

Another issue is that the time it takes to hire depends on labor shortages in the country, industry, and specific roles. This makes determining the best time to employ impossible. 

According to the same survey, the average time between screening candidates and accepting a job offer is 24 days. This means that the average time to hire is similar.

You need to strategize and map out a proper plan to reduce your hiring time to be in the business. Let’s find out how.

6 Effective Ways To Reduce Time To Hire

Here are seven practical techniques to minimize hiring time to help you step up and enhance your recruitment process (and discover the appropriate individual for your job the fastest).

1. Shorten the Hiring Process by Gathering the Necessary Information

According to research, shortening the application process to five minutes or less can increase conversion rates (the percentage of people who read a job description on a job board and then apply) by up to 365%.

The majority of applicants abandon long application processes. More people will apply if they can finish the application in less than five minutes. Candidates should be requested to upload their resume and cover letter and answer a few questions.

As a first step toward working on your time to hire, strive to learn:

• How long does it take you to fill a position right now?
• The time it takes for applicants to go through the stages (for example, from the application stage to the phone interview stage, from the phone interview stage to the in-person interview stage, and so on).
• How is your time to hire compared to the average time to engage in your industry?
• The time it takes from final selection to issuing a job offer in calendar days.
• The average ratio of good to bad applications received (this will help you diagnose if the slowdown is happening in the sourcing phase).

Pick the most alarming numbers and seek ways to improve them once you’ve acquired all of the data.

Here’s an example in action. Suppose prospects supply their information and send you their résumé in two days on average, but your recruiting or hiring manager takes a week to respond. In that case, you could try to automate some of the manual steps to relieve your managers’ workload.

Screening diverse candidates, assessing their CVs, reviewing the results of pre-employment tests, advancing them to the next level, and scheduling interviews with the chosen prospects can all be automated.

This will assist both candidates (who will progress through the process more quickly and hence find a job sooner) and recruiters or HR managers (who will have more time to focus on other tasks).

2. Use Software for Pre-employment Screening

According to a study, while the evaluation process includes talent tests, personality surveys, and cognitive ability assessments to help you find the perfect candidate, they also take time away from your hiring process:

• On average, a cognitive ability evaluation adds 2.6 to 4.4 days to your schedule.
• A job skills test adds between 0.6 and 1.5 days to your schedule.
• A personality questionnaire average adds 0.9 to 1.3 days to your schedule.

Since top talent is only available for ten days, reducing the screening time is critical.

A good screening solution can significantly reduce your hiring time without sacrificing quality. For example, you can screen candidates for the necessary abilities, personality, and cultural fit without having to build and implement lengthy assessments.

You can also rely less on the CV and more on individuals with intelligent screening.

3. Automate Scheduling and Make the Interview Process Quick

Interview schedule delays add time to your hiring process. With most firms doing at least three rounds of interviews, there is always a lot of potential for improvement regarding interviewing schedules.

An automatic interview scheduling solution will save you time and avoid delays in the process, minimizing applicant irritation and providing a better candidate experience.

There are tools in the employment market wherein you can fully automate this process in less than 72 hours and guarantee applicants job security. The entire application process takes less than ten minutes from when prospects click the apply button to the interview, and they can choose to interview with one of your available managers immediately.

4. Hire Faster by Accelerating Sourcing

You can detect a slowdown in the sourcing phase if you know the ratio of good to poor applications you regularly receive. After all, sifting through low-quality applications will waste time and effort with no return on investment.

For example, you can look at the applicant-to-interview ratio to get an idea of your ratios. The average is around 12%. You’re most likely attracting many qualified individuals if your ratio is higher.

If you have a low ratio, there are a few things you can do to improve your sourcing methods:

• Programmatic advertising entails executing paid ad campaigns to specific target groups to promote your job openings. If you have the resources, programmatic advertising can help you generate awareness about your positions, strengthen your employer’s brand, and attract qualified candidates.
• Use social media networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to find people in your sector who would be a good fit for your organization. You can also meet your potential candidates offline at industry conventions and meetups.
• Auditing internal talent may help keep track of what’s going on with your inner talent. You might be able to fill some roles only through internal promotions.
• Referrals are the most common way for job seekers to learn about openings. Create successful referral programs that reward employees who bring you top talent.
• Look through talent databases. Use these resources and the platforms’ extensive search capabilities to find applicants who would make great employees for your organization.

Once you have a sufficient number of excellent applications, you will be able to find the best prospects sooner, reducing your time to recruit.

5. Purchase an Application Tracking System (ATS)

A solid applicant tracking system can assist you at every stage of the hiring process. An ATS can help you boost efficiency in large sections of your hiring process, from placing your job ad on several job sites to notifying you in real time as people apply.

An ATS is a vital tool for structuring your hiring process and reducing your average hiring time, with features including interview scheduling, application streamlining and sorting, talent pipeline creation, compliance checking, and automation.

Don’t rush into selecting an ATS; consider your needs thoroughly and try the tool before committing.

6. Create a Well-Organized Hiring Procedure

When you don’t have a structured hiring process, it takes longer to hire since you have to start over every time you need to fill a new position.

Even if you already have a procedure, consider the candidate’s journey from beginning to end. What are the steps, and how long do they take?

If you have a low ratio, you can do a few things to improve your sourcing methods. A structured hiring process also prevents you from being slowed down and dramatically reduces the time required to hire because you know exactly what to do at each stage.

Adam Robinson (CEO and Co-founder of Hireology) advocates for a documented hiring process, saying, “A structured hiring process is cost-effective and will streamline how you locate and qualify applicants.” It can also assist your company in achieving measurable, tangible results by preventing damage from bad recruits.”

If you want to reduce the time to hire for your firm, you can reach out to Recruiter.com  to streamline your recruitment needs and expand your applicant pool.

We create a new solution for our clients. We map out the entire recruitment process from both the recruiter’s and the candidate’s viewpoints. 

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