Often used to measure recruiting efficiency, time to hire is the number of days between first contact with a candidate to the day the candidate accepts the offer.
Workable’s data finds the average time to hire in the US is 24 days (compared to 41 days for time to fill), ranging from 17 days for healthcare roles to 32 days for product management roles.
Although some experts argue reducing time to hire isn’t always beneficial, a recent survey found 52% of recruiters believe a lengthy hiring process is the biggest obstacle to adding headcount.
In today’s competitive talent market, hiring success will depend on intelligently automating and streamlining the recruiting process.
Here are 3 painless ways to reduce time to hire to help you compete for the best candidates.
Tip 1: Use sourcing automation tools
SHRM reports that it takes an average of 9 days when the job is opened to start screening candidates. When the best candidates are estimated to be on the market for only 10 days, this delay represents a big bottleneck.
If you’re getting hundreds of applications for a job posting, then sourcing is probably not going to be a problem for you. For roles that don’t receive enough resumes, the right sourcing tools are critical for finding good candidates.
Many ATSs have features that allows you to automatically post your job to job boards, job aggregators, and on social media.
More recent innovations in sourcing automation use AI to learn the requirements of the job and finding qualified candidates for you using external resume databases such as Indeed.
Another sourcing automation tool allows you to mine your existing resume database to find previous candidates that are the best matches for your current opening.
Automating your candidate sourcing allows you to skip the time it takes to manually search for candidates in external databases or through your own ATS.
Potential reduction in time to source: 9 days
Tip 2: Use screening automation tools
According to iCIMS, a resume spends 23% of its time in the screening phase.
Screening resumes can be one of the most time-consuming parts of recruiting because of the sheer volume of resumes a typical recruiter needs to go through. Even if you’re using an ATS, screening can be a bottleneck if the ATS doesn’t allow you to easily rank resumes.
The new generation of screening automation tools integrates and works within your ATS. Using AI, this recruiting software learns what successful hires look like based on historical recruiting decisions and then applies that knowledge to new candidates to automatically screen, grade, and rank them (e.g., from A to D).
Potential reduction in time to screen: 6 days
Tip 3: Use outreach and interviewing automation tools
Interviewing takes up 23% of hiring time (again, based on iCIMS’ data).
You can speed up this process by using outreach automation tools that allow you to send interview requests to candidates your screening automation tools identify as good matches (e.g., candidates graded as an A).
These outreach automation tools integrates with major email and calendar providers and auto-email or auto-text candidates, which greatly speeds up the interview scheduling process.
You can further reduce your interviewing time by using online interviewing software to conduct interviews any time, anywhere.
Potential reduction in time to interview: 6 days
A summary of 3 ways to reduce your time to hire
Tip 1: Use sourcing automation tools that search through external candidate databases as well as mine your own ATS for previous applicants.
- Potential time saved: 9 days
Tip 2: Use screening automation tools that learn the qualifications of successful hires and then screen, rank, and grade candidates for you.
- Potential time saved: 6 days
Tip 3: Use outreach automation tools that auto-schedule interviews with qualified candidates and reduce interviewing time by using online interviewing software.
- Potential time saved: 6 days