12 Strategies to Reduce Time-to-Hire

In an economic climate rife with labor shortages and low employee retention rates, an effective hiring strategy could be the buoy that keeps your company afloat. Efficient hiring strategies are those that reduce your time-to-hire without sacrificing candidate quality. Though crafting a well-planned hiring process takes some time and diligence, it’s worth it. If you’re putting effort into your strategy, it’ll show in the form of quicker hiring times, improved employee retention and performance, and a lighter workload for HR in the long run.

To help you plan the hiring strategy that best fits your company’s needs, we asked experienced hiring managers and HR leaders for their insights. From taking advantage of pre-qualification questions to pre-screening through social media, here are several recommendations that may help you reduce your time-to-hire while still attracting high-quality talent in the future.

Take Advantage of Pre-Qualification Questions

Recently, hiring platforms like Indeed, LinkedIn, and Talent.com have added features that allow applicants to answer pre-qualification questions when they apply. This helps recruiters quickly determine who should be contacted first. Questions include categories like ‘Years of Experience in This Type of Role’, ‘Years of Industry Experience’, ‘Ability to Commute’, and ‘Willingness to Relocate’.

Recruiters and hiring managers can then filter by the best fit for the hiring opportunity and quickly send auto-rejection emails to candidates that don’t meet the minimum criteria. By leveraging pre-qualification questions and the associated filtering and automation, businesses can quickly identify top candidates and save time otherwise spent sorting out unqualified applicants through calling and manual pre-screening.

Colton De Vos, Resolute Technology Solutions

Promote From Within

Promoting from within your company ensures that you fill the open position with a high-quality candidate familiar with your company culture. Additionally, it shows your dedication to career advancement, which boosts employee retention. With employee referral programs, you can trust your employees to recommend qualified candidates who integrate well into the team. You can expedite the hiring process, and you save on recruiting costs.

Bill Glaser, Outstanding Foods

Focus On Word of Mouth

As a manager who is building a large Marketing and Outreach team for an ever-expanding organization, it’s sometimes difficult to wait months before HR can catch the perfect candidate. This is why I like to rely on my extensive contacts and ex-colleagues. We help each other find perfect matches for our current organizations. Who would refuse to work with candidates whose skills and talent have been tested by the professionals you trust the most?

Natalia Brzezinska, PhotoAiD

Outsource Your Hiring for Cheaper, Faster Hires

It can be more efficient to hire a recruiter than to manage hiring internally. It takes serious bandwidth to be able to sort through hundreds of candidates and find the best match for your business. Depending on where your business is in its year and lifespan, one huge advantage of using an employment agency could be that their team is freed up for max efficiency. Recruiters are trained to focus on industry knowledge and cross-over skills, so even getting a temporary worker for your business can be a quick fix when you need the talent today. If you provide a detailed profile for the agency, they can search your prospective hire list for someone who shares your company’s values. This way, you can vet new hires at least twice with half the effort and cost.

Zach Goldstein, Public Rec

Be More Intentional with Interviewing

You can reduce time-to-hire by being more intentional with interviewing. Windows of opportunity to hire a candidate open and close without warning. Expecting top candidates to have multiple rounds of interviews with an excessive amount of people will not work. What will work is planning ahead—strategically select the people who participate in the interview process, brief your interview team before kicking off the process, and identify areas of focus for each team member. While this requires more work before the interview starts, it also allows the team to be more efficient long-term and extend offers earlier.

Mike O’Callaghan, eMoney Advisor, LLC

Maintain The Talent Pipeline

If you’re hiring for a particular position or department, always keep those who did not get chosen in mind for the next round. Try to maintain a line of communication with them. All too often, hiring managers send an email stating, “We’ve decided to go a different route,” and they do not follow up. It’s almost as though the employer wants its rejected candidates to move on. That’s usually not a good idea. Candidates should feel like they can bolster their credentials and put themselves in a better position the next time there is an opportunity. If you give them constructive feedback, keep them in the loop for upcoming openings, and give the impression that you still see value in them, they will keep coming back. You will reduce your time-to-hire and maintain interested, engaged, and qualified candidates.

Joel Jackson, Lifeforce

Leverage Online Testing

Most roles require skills that can easily be tested online. Ensuring that we eliminate candidates who lack crucial competencies such as language abilities, spreadsheet proficiency, or programming skills can save a lot of time. This process can be streamlined and managed with a testing platform, where tests can be taken at any time. Because many candidates work full time when they turn in an application, this eliminates the need to search for time to conduct multiple interviews.

Michael Sena, SENACEA

Implement an AI Chatbot

AI chatbots are the way to go. Invest in a natural language processing AI, and this will reduce your time-to-hire significantly. Unqualified candidates will be weeded out, allowing for the top candidates to be ushered in. Recruitment tasks that would have taken hours to complete will be handled in minutes, leaving you with more time for coffee and creative HR tasks.

Jennifer Pieniazek, Resume Now

Run Quick Employee Background Checks

Employee background checks paint a broader picture of the applicant that reaches far beyond the resume. With labor shortages and employee retention at an all-time high, every minute counts when you’re hoping to acquire the best talent.

A common mistake is to simply hire fast and build resource volume without a clear strategy or plan in place for execution. We’ve found in our organizational building experiences that hiring smart is often far more effective than hiring fast—and background checks can help you do that to find the quality candidates you need. Choosing the right vendor is crucial to receiving quick and thorough background checks. With over three decades of experience in the industry, InfoMart offers high quality, customizable background screening solutions that fit your company’s unique needs.

Carter Reum, M13

Write Specific Job Postings

If you want suitable candidates who show they are willing to take extra steps to stand out, write a detailed job advertisement that requires an applicant to do more than just email a resume. Ask for a cover letter and some thoughtful answers to a series of relevant questions. You want more than just a pool of candidates; you want relevant candidates. That will eliminate the fly-by applicants who are sending their resumes out to dozens of potential employers. It’s the first step an employer can take to filter out undesirable job seekers.

Alan Ahdoot, Adamson Ahdoot Law

Streamline Your Hiring Process

It’s important to have a robust recruitment process. However, a robust recruitment process can take time. A candidate typically needs to meet many different stakeholders, so coordinating schedules can be hectic. Consider a strategy of efficiency. If you want to move a candidate forward after an initial screening, assemble a sixty-to-ninety-minute panel interview where the candidate and multiple stakeholders meet as a group. This also alleviates the candidate from repeatedly answering the same questions. Of course, a larger interview panel takes organization but, if done well, it can certainly reduce time-to-hire without sacrificing candidate quality.

Kate Walker, Kate Walker Executive Coaching

Pre-Screen Through Social Media

What candidates, employees, and customers say online can easily be amplified to millions of connected social media users within minutes. Social media is here to stay, and the increase in remote workers has contributed to an increase in social media use. According to a study by Kepios.com, there were 400 million more social media users last year alone than in 2020, reflecting a 10% growth rate. In essence, 70% of the eligible population currently uses at least one social media platform. Organizations are quickly realizing that they must assess the character of their new hires to protect their brand’s reputation. Beyond extensive and time-consuming interviews, using a consumer reporting agency, like InfoMart, to conduct your social media screening currently represents the best method to triage an organization’s candidates. And unlike criminal background checks and credi checks, an organization can leverage social media screening before a conditional offer is made – providing a crucial data point for risk assessment.

Jaime Frankos, Ferretly International, LLC

Future Innovation

InfoMart’s upcoming innovation, CareerWallet, will not only speed the time-to-hire but will also reduce the expense of screening.  Candidates can apply with a QR code, which will share the data required for a background check but only be visible to the company if the candidate receives an offer.  This, among many paradigm shifts to come, will improve the candidate and recruiter experience.

We hope these tips help you to implement the best possible hiring strategy for your company. At InfoMart, we care about making the hiring process as seamless as possible for our clients. We also understand the importance of hiring the most qualified talent in the most efficient way. That’s why our background checks have quick turnaround times while maintaining thoroughness, compliance, and a customer-service driven approach. Learn more about how the InfoMart Advantage could be an asset for your company as you tailor your hiring practices to fit your business’s leads.

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About Tammy Cohen

Tammy Cohen, an industry pioneer and expert in identity and employment screening, founded InfoMart 30 years ago. Deemed the “Queen of Screen,” she’s been a force behind industry-leading innovations. She was most recently the first-to-market with a fully compliant sanctions search, as well as a suite of identity services that modernizes talent onboarding. Tammy revolutionized the screening industry when she stepped into the field, developing the first client-facing application and a due diligence criminal search that has since become standard for all background screening companies. Cohen has received national awards and honors for her business and civic involvement, including Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Top 25 Women-Owned Firms in Atlanta, Enterprising Women Magazine’s Enterprising Women of the Year award, the YWCA of Northwest Georgia’s Kathryn Woods Racial Justice Award, and a commendation in the 152nd Congressional Record. To learn more about Tammy, visit www.tammycohen.com.

About InfoMart

InfoMart has been revolutionizing the global background and identity screening industry for 30 years, providing businesses the information they need to make informed hiring decisions. They develop innovative technology that modernizes talent onboarding, including a first-to-market biometric identity authentication application and a verified sanctions search. The WBENC-certified company is a founding member of the Professional Background Screening Association, and they have achieved PBSA accreditation in recognition of their consistent business practices and commitment to compliance with the FCRA. The company is dedicated to customer service, speed, and accuracy, and it has been recognized for its success, workplace culture, and corporate citizenship with over 45 industry awards. To Get the Whole Story on InfoMart, please visit www.InfoMart-USA.com, follow @InfoMartUSA, or call (770) 984-2727.