Recruiting & Hiring: Where is Your Sense of Urgency?

Its 4:45 on a Friday and you come to the conclusion that you will not be hearing from that hiring manager regarding your candidate that they really want to hire, but need to get a few thousand approvals first. What does this mean for you the recruiter? Yes, that’s right, you have to go back to the candidate with your tail between your legs and reiterate that although they have had three interviews, and checked references, there is still no offer. Any recruiter will tell you that this is the most frustrating part of their job: gauging the sense of urgency.

Getting to the stage when a company is ready to make an offer is easy, bringing the candidate and the company over the finish line…not so much. This part takes tact and some gentle nudging on the recruiters behalf.

Worst Case Scenario: The company loses a great candidate. Ever heard the phrase, “Time kills all deals?” Well, this applies to hiring. The longer the candidate is in process at a company the more they will start to ask questions like, “how serious are they about hiring me?”; “I went in to interview three times and they checked my references — it seems like I had to hurry up to wait”; “Is this company organized if they can’t even make a decision on one hire?”  In essence, if the interview process is not done in a timely manner, it reflects poorly on the organization.

We Cannot Keep the Candidate “Warm” Forever: Yes, part of a recruiter’s job is to make sure that the company and the candidate are on the same page. Often this entails keeping a candidate “warm” or making sure they are still interested. The facts are, though, the longer the candidate has to wait, the greater the chance they will be pursued by other companies or lose the interest in the opportunity — even if a candidate was not looking to change jobs before they were contacted about the requisition.

We are on the same team: At the end of the day, the hiring manager and recruiter have the same goal: to hire the best candidate for the position. It is important to remember this as your third reminder to give feedback pops up in your email. We want to be able to sell your company and paint it in the best light — giving timely feedback helps that! One company I work with that truly does an outstanding job of this is Kareo. Right on their application they make a commitment to all applicants that they will receive a response from the hiring manager within a two week time period- and guess what? They do! If your company is not doing this, maybe it is time you give it a try.

Nothing makes a company seem more disjointed than a candidate waiting for a couple weeks for feedback, and wondering if this position is really all that critical to the infrastructure of the organization. So how do we eliminate this? As a hiring manager, set a reasonable and attainable deadline for the search. Make sure you give the recruiter working on the search feedback within a day of when you interviewed the candidate.  There will always be candidates who are disgruntled at not getting a job, but at least you as the hiring manager will command some respect for your transparency and timeliness.