I’m going to be straight with you — your hiring process is probably letting you down. According to 2023 research from the British Chambers of Commerce, 73% of UK businesses are struggling to recruit. Alongside this, 71% have reported that they are struggling with labour shortages, and because of these issues, 38% of companies have found themselves unable to pursue new business opportunities. So how can you improve the hiring process?
The talent is out there. We’re in the midst of a challenging economy, which has seen multiple large-scale redundancies, significant levels of job insecurity and instability, and as a result a very active candidate pool available for most positions.
The reason these issues are occurring is that most companies (and this probably includes yours) are just plain bad at hiring.
There are three common challenges you’ll face when you’re recruiting:
1. You’re not attracting enough of the right people.
2. You aren’t selecting the right people, due to either a lack of training or an unsuitable approach to candidate assessment.
3. Your hiring process isn’t engaging enough, doesn’t build interest, and therefore leads to offers being declined.
I’ve covered the first point, attracting the right people, in a series of previous posts (see “Your Job Adverts Are Terrible”, “Why Should They Work for You?” and “Make It About Them, Not Just You”), and I’ll be addressing the second, candidate assessment, elsewhere. Here, I’ll walk you through the third, most common problem.
What do the statistics tell us?
The reality is that most hiring processes are painful, impersonal experiences for the candidates going through them. Research suggests that 60% of candidates reported abandoning a job application due to its length or complexity, 54% walked away due to poor communication during the hiring process, and 39% found themselves being ghosted by employers — all in the last year.
It’s not just the candidates you lose directly that you need to worry about, either. 55% of job seekers will not apply to a company if they read negative reviews on sites like Glassdoor (which includes reviews of the hiring process), 72% of candidates who have a bad experience will share it with friends, colleagues and online, and 50% of candidates won’t purchase goods or services from a company after a bad job application experience. Virgin Media have estimated that this last point has cost them £4.4m per year in cancelled subscriptions!
On the other side of the equation, candidates are 38% more likely to accept a job offer following a positive candidate experience, and 87% reported that a positive experience can attract them to a role or company they once had doubts about.
How to improve the hiring process
So, the stakes are high, in terms of time and direct cost as well as employer brand and overall company reputation. And the bar is low, with most companies providing a poor candidate experience — so it’s easy to stand out.
To do so, you’ll need to get a grip on three key things: speed and momentum, making the process a two-way conversation, and clear & consistent communication.
1. Speed and momentum
Speed is crucial. It’s a universal truth in sales that time kills deals, and that’s as true in hiring as any other area. Every day that your hiring process takes is a day that your position remains vacant, and it’s also a day that something can go wrong — your favourite candidate could be offered another job, given a promotion, or just plain change their mind. Minimising the chances of those things happening is essential, and moving quickly is the way to do that.
It’s not just about raw pace, though. Harnessing momentum is key. Your hiring process should serve to increase the level of engagement and interest a candidate has in joining you at each stage. Before they apply, they likely have a very low level of engagement (especially if you’re a small company), and by the time you make them an offer, your chances of success are much greater if they’re at a very high level of engagement. The longer the gap between each stage of the recruitment journey, the more that engagement first plateaus, then drops and needs to be reinvigorated. In other words, the longer your process, the harder you’ll have to sell to secure the candidates you want to hire.
2. Making the process a two-way conversation
The second area you’ll need to master to create a truly effective hiring process is making it a two-way conversation. Far too many companies are focused only on what they want from an interview, with little thought given to what a candidate might need to know. Bear in mind when you design your interviews that you’re asking someone to give up the vast majority of their waking hours to come and help you achieve what you’re trying to achieve. You’ll pay them to do so, of course, but especially in highly skilled professions, people want to do rewarding work in environments that value them, and they have options.
Making sure that they have the information and insight they need to make an informed decision about whether to join your company is just as important as making sure that they’re able to do the job you’re hiring them to do. Give lots of opportunities to ask questions, meet team members (formally and informally), understand your Culture and Values, tour your offices — whatever you can do to help them understand what working with your company will really be like.
3. Clear and consistent communication
Finally, most importantly, communicate with your candidates. Tell them up front what the hiring process will look like and stick to that process as much as possible. If there are changes, explain those changes. If there are delays, communicate those delays promptly and give reasons. Or, if there’s no update, perhaps because you’re still interviewing before making a decision, update them anyway.
And if you’ve decided not to progress their application, let them know, give them as much feedback as you can, and let them ask questions. Yes, that can lead to awkward conversations. But wouldn’t you want to know if you’d been rejected from a position, and why? Most people won’t get the job — that’s just the nature of recruiting. You’ll be amazed how grateful candidates are just to get some closure, and this alone will set you apart from almost every other company that competes with you for talent.
I stand by what I said at the start of this post — your hiring process is probably letting you down. But it’s not that difficult to fix. No one expects perfection, so take your first steps to improve the hiring process today, and enjoy the results.
