In today’s competitive market, quick and efficient recruitment is essential to hire the best talent available and a long, drawn out recruitment process can harm your business. In the current job market where candidates have their choice of jobs, it’s crucial that your recruitment process is streamlined, professional and transparent. If you don’t recruit fast enough, you will see your ideal candidate working for a competitor.
The 7 Key Negative impacts of an over-long Recruitment Process:
- Loss of revenue & productivity
You could end up losing a significant amount of revenue and productivity because posts remain vacant for too long. Some companies may think that this might save money on wages but in fact, if the position is in sales or marketing then extensive revenue could be lost.
This is also the case for mission-critical roles such as administration, accounts, project management, operations, legal, customer services or HR. Productivity and therefore revenue will also suffer if management positions remain vacant and staff are not managed effectively.
- Loss of the best talent in the
When top performers enter the job market they are often snapped up within days so you cannot afford to have a lengthy recruitment process if you want to employ the best talent.
The longer the recruitment process, the lower the quality of candidates. Often the best candidates in the market are quick and accurate decision makers and if they view your recruitment process as lengthy, they may withdraw from the process altogether and engages in other, more positive hiring experiences.
Candidates may view your long, drawn out hiring process as an indication of your company culture and an idea of what it would be like to work for your company. Your recruitment process is one of the first interactions you will have with top talent so you need to make sure first impressions count.
- You may have to pay a higher salary
If you have a lengthy recruitment process then other companies may become interested in the candidate you are considering and you may have to increase your salary offer to retain interest.
The longer the recruitment process, the greater chance either the candidates’ current employer or other potential employers may produce a counter-offer or a new offer that the candidates just cannot turn down.
- You could damage your company brand
In the world of social media, people are quick to complain if they have had a poor experience and this applies to hiring processes and interviews. In fact, it is more likely that negative experiences will be reported rather than positive.
Remember, it is a candidate driven job market and you should do all you can to attract the best employees. Do not treat potential employees as if you are doing them a favour by granting them an interview. The best talent will choose the best job and the best company for them.
- Services levels may be reduced
If you have a customer service role vacant for a length of time, this could lead to poorer service during this time. This can therefore impact on sales, revenue and company image.
The same can be said for administration, sales, project management, operations or accounts departments and retaining high levels of service is paramount.
- Employee morale may suffer
Whilst jobs remain unfilled, remaining workers and/or managers may have to take on additional work which could lead to negative feelings. This may be acceptable for short periods, but over time, this could affect morale and productivity. In extreme cases it may lead to burnout or increased sickness days leading to lower productivity and increased expenses.
If a role in HR remains unfilled for some time then this may impact negatively on employees too.
- Hidden costs of hiring goes up
If you have a lengthy recruitment process, it is likely that you will have more interviews and therefore managers or HR employees are spending more time on this function rather than their own specific duties.
If your hiring process is too long, you may also have more administrative steps. Often, this extra administration is unproductive and by reducing your recruitment process, you can reduce costs, save time, energy and potential candidate “black holes”.
If you would like further information about how you can improve your hiring process, contact Diane Southwick directly: diane@dsaexecutive.com
We have helped 100’s of companies not only find talent, but firmly secure the best talent in a highly competitive and challenging market.
Contact us to find out how we can help you:
01675 464060
Adapted: J Jamieson 2023