One of the most hotly debated questions in recruiting and talent acquisition (TA) today is, can your best hires be fast hires, or does quick hiring have to come at the expense of quality?
Recruiters and HR leaders generally argue that finding the right talent takes time.
Even after addressing internal processes affecting hiring times, such as setting exact job requirements, determining resources at a hiring manager’s disposal, and clearing salary and benefits packages, there’s still the matter of sourcing excellent candidates.
While potential obstacles such as interview scheduling and other time to accept (TTA) metrics can be overcome, finding and interviewing a number of qualified candidates can be time-consuming.
Even for experienced recruiters, sifting through a great number of resumes and LinkedIn profiles just takes time.
Most experts in the industry agree on various ways to cut time to fill (TTF) metrics, such as addressing internal issues, building a constant pipeline of candidates, and involving current employees in hiring.
But disagreement still abounds regarding whether it’s possible to decrease sourcing metrics without compromising on quality.
When you add recruiting costs into the mix, as well as the costs involved in leaving key positions empty, you find that the majority of recruiters are under great pressure to decrease TTF–which sometimes results in accepting less qualified candidates.
Hiring nowadays favors the job candidate, because they can seek jobs passively by searching employment opportunities on their own and make decisions about a company without ever speaking with anyone there.
This means that qualified candidates might be dismissing great job opportunities completely under the radar, and companies are having a more difficult time reaching them.
Experienced HR talent pros such as Tim Sackett argue that attempts to decrease TTF will inevitably result in compromising on quality, and therefore this metric should not even be considered: “TTF as an overall metric is not a good measure of TA effectiveness… Reducing TTF doesn’t mean you’re actually better at recruiting, just faster.
What if I have certain positions I’m hiring too fast for, and missing out on quality? I don’t like it.”
Experts such as Lou Adler argue for redefining definitions of qualified candidates, or zeroing in on a smaller number of supremely qualified candidates, but this tactic probably won’t work for all companies and all positions.
However, a new school of thought is developing regarding this burning question.
While it’s true that if hiring managers are expending time and energy sifting through large numbers of irrelevant LinkedIn profiles, they may be likely to end up taking the first halfway-qualified candidate in a time crunch.
But new machine learning technologies have been developed to address today’s changing hiring market, which use better ways to find qualified, interested job seekers.
By using new technologies correctly, great candidates can be sourced and hired speedily without lowering standards.
The hiring process can take place very quickly when all of the applicants at your door are qualified and receptive. With traditional recruiting methods, a company has to be active and creative, and use many different channels to reach talent.
But with Woo.io’s technology and other machine learning tools, much of the guesswork and lost time can be removed from the equation. Woo.io’s technology seeks qualified and engaged passive job seekers, and only notifies a recruiter when a qualified candidate has expressed interest in the position.
This means that hiring managers and recruiters are not wasting valuable resources trying to convince someone to come aboard who’s not actually prepared to accept, or casting too wide a net when seeking applicants.
In this way, they can spend precious interview time getting to know a candidate better, check that there will be a good culture fit, and ensure that the candidate has (or can learn) the precise skills needed to succeed.
Embracing the right technology for today’s world means that it’s really not impossible to hire great candidates quickly anymore, and no one has to compromise on quality.
