So today, I wanted to share with you some guidelines on what to expect timewise when hiring new team members and give you some tips on how to cut that time in half.
It depends. If you have the right compensation, a good solid job description, and the market is good you can fill a position fairly quickly. The average hire time for a salesperson is around 45 administration hours, so even if you have all your stuff together, it’s still a substantial amount of time to find the perfect hire. But if you don’t have a clear cut idea of what you are looking for and have your compensation wrong that time estimation could double or even triple.
Cut Your Time in Half
So in order to make the most of your time, you want to do a few things during your job search.
- Be very clear on who you want to hire. Taking the time to put together a list of “must haves” is one of the most important things you can do when hiring for a position. Not only will it help you find the right people for you candidate pool, but it will also streamline your interview and hiring process by giving you concrete things to look for.
- Have a good sized candidate pool. A good sized candidate pool from which to compare is crucial to helping you cut down your time during the hiring process. Things really start getting clear when you have multiple people to interview. Candidate A seems great until you talk to Candidate D and Candidate B starts to make more sense because of what Candidate E said. So, having a group of five or six candidates to interview is ideal to helping you find the best choice.
- Be responsive. The last tip I have on how to streamline your hiring process has to do with your responsiveness. There is nothing worse than finding the perfect candidate only to have them turn down the offer because they took another position. So you want to make sure that you responding back to candidates in a timely manner. How quick are you to respond to candidate emails? How quickly are we going to get those interviews scheduled? How quick are you going to have a follow-up meeting after the interviews to be able to do the debrief with your team? All of these factors play a huge role in how long it’s going to take you to find a new hire.
If you have a good job description and focus your time and energy on getting a good candidate pool and following up in a timely manner, you should be able to cut down the time needed to find a new team member in order to get back to your high level tasks of growing your business.