How Reducing Time to Hire Can Help You Attract Top Talent

On average, it takes employers 36 days to fill an open position. A time window this long is problematic — it’s costly to businesses and can cause HR and recruitment professionals to miss out on great candidates.

As a result, reducing time to hire is crucial for employers and recruiters alike. While employers fill positions based on specific, immediate needs, recruiters would rather fill those needs as quickly as possible. In a tight employment environment, applicants will often shop around and compare their options; this makes it all the more critical for hiring professionals to follow an efficient hiring process.

Beyond just securing great applicants, recruiters should understand the importance of creating a positive candidate experience. Candidates want a transparent, seamless hiring process; it reduces the anxiety of applying and gives people a positive impression of the company at which they’re interviewing. If the process is too drawn out, they’re more likely to look elsewhere — maybe even the competition. Ultimately, a faster hiring process gives you a better chance of securing top talent.

However, 56% of respondents to HireRight’s “2019 Employment Screening Benchmark Report” said reducing time to hire was their most notable employment screening challenge. In other words, there’s still significant room for improvement when it comes to timely hiring. Fortunately, this can be done with a specific hiring tactic: remote or unproctored pre-employment skills testing.

Saving Time With Unproctored Pre-Employment Skills Testing

Remote pre-employment skills testing presents HR professionals and recruiters with knowledge of which applicants are capable of performing key duties — and they can do it from the comfort of their own homes. Unproctored testing not only shows who has the skills to perform specific tasks, but it also ensures hiring managers spend time with the right candidates who are most likely to succeed.

In addition, having a group of candidates who have already taken a skills test is a fantastic way to hire more efficiently. Consider that the average job opening gets 250 applications. It would take a hiring manager weeks to sort through those candidates, but skills testing can help expedite the process by paring down the list of applicants the only those who are truly prepared for the position.

How to Make Your Hiring Process More Efficient

Employers determining how to reduce time to hire should start by understanding a few key things. For example, how long did each stage of the hiring process take? Note the steps taken during each phase. Then, determine how much time passed between when a candidate responded to a job opening and when you reviewed his or her résumé. In each stage, set a time-to-hire metric to make the process more efficient.

With that information, you can create a structure. Without a structured hiring process, it’ll take significantly longer to make hiring decisions. Outline the candidate journey, factoring in the time skills tests might take — and the time you could save if those tests were unproctored and done remotely. On average, proctored tests can add several days to the timeline; unproctored testing might add only a short amount of time, so it’s prudent to account for that in your structure.

Another important aspect of reducing your time to hire? Your company website’s career page. Applicants will note if your site is optimized for mobile use, and they’ll notice whether it represents your brand and organization well. Having a user-friendly and accessible portal motivates prospective applicants to search for jobs directly on your website instead of spending hours on job boards — where there is far more competition.

As you work toward reducing time to hire and implementing more efficient hiring processes, consider the key role that remote pre-employment skills tests could play in making that possible. Taking steps to build an excellent career page, solidify a structure and timeline, and set time-to-hire metrics are all incredibly important tasks and can be strengthened by adding skills testing to your hiring strategy.

Contact us today, and we’ll share the candidate experience with you to show you how easy it is to use TestGenius and reduce your time to hire.