Timing can have a big influence on the recruiting process. If your hiring processes are slow, you may see qualified candidates drop out of your applicant pipeline. It happens all the time, actually, as candidates accept offers from other, faster moving, hiring teams. Which is why it’s so important to measure your time of hiring processes.
The amount of time candidates spend in each step of your hiring process. By tracking how long it takes for candidates to move through the steps, hiring teams can address congestion in the applicant pipeline.
What it’s not
Time of hiring processes resembles two other, more-often-discussed recruiting metrics: time to fill and time to hire. In fact, these are three distinct metrics, although people often conflate two of them.
The most common misconception is that time to fill and time to hire are the same metric. They’re not. Time to fill measures (or should measure) the period your job posting is live on an online job board. This measurement provides a window into how well your job postings are working.
Time to hire, meanwhile, covers the time from first contact with an applicant until offer acceptance. This metric gives an overview of how long a candidate spends in your pipeline overall.
Measuring time of hiring processes
But while time to fill and time to hire are more familiar metrics, time of hiring processes is just as important. It’s the metric that helps you address bottlenecks in your recruiting efforts.
Let’s say candidates are getting hung up in the period after the initial phone interview and the next steps. If you know they’re getting hung up, you can formalize follow-up communications (manual or automated). That way, candidates aren’t left totally in the dark. (And your recruiters aren’t getting emails from applicants wondering if there’s a next step and when it may come.)
Or let’s say your hiring managers are so busy putting out fires elsewhere that reviewing applications falls by the wayside. Maybe there’s a way other members of the hiring team can pick up the slack to keep things moving along.
Measuring time of hiring processes enables your team to drill down into specifics. You can quickly identify areas of congestion and take appropriate measures to address them. Not only does that ensure fewer dropouts from your pipeline, it also helps you provide a better candidate experience overall. So that applicants, whether or not they get an offer, come away with positive feelings about your organization.
