Quick and efficient recruitment is essential to hire the best talent available. We outline the top ways a long recruitment process can harm your business. In the current job market where candidates can have their pick of jobs, it’s even more important that your recruitment process is as good as it can be.
Top 7 ways a long recruitment process can harm your business
1. 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 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 will not be managed effectively.
2. Lose your chance to snap-up top talent
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 talent are quick and accurate decision makers so if they view your recruitment process as lengthy, they may drop out altogether from your recruitment process.
Also, candidates could see 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 the one of the first interactions you will have with top talent so you need to make sure first impressions count.
3. Have to pay a higher salary
The salary you pay for top talent also comes into play. If you have a lengthy recruitment process then other recruiters may become interested in this candidate and you may have to increase your salary offer to take that employee off the market.
The longer the recruitment process, the greater chance their current employer has to offer a counter-offer.
4. You could damage your company brand
In the world of social media, people are quick to complain if they have had a poor experience. Similarly on websites such as Glassdoor, workers can rate their interview experience of a dealing with a company.
Currently it is a candidate driven job market and you should do all you can to attract the best employees.
5. Customer service may be reduced
If you have a customer service role vacant for a length of time, this could lead to poorer customer service during this time. This can therefore impact on sales, revenue and company image.
The same can be said if a client is dealing with your administration, sales, project management, operations or accounts departments and not getting a good level of service.
6. Employee morale may suffer
Whilst jobs remain unfilled, remaining workers and/or managers may have to pick up the slack which could lead to them having to do overtime. This may work for a short period of time but for any length of time, this could affect their morale and productivity. In extreme cases this could lead to burnout or increased sickness days leading to lower productivity and increased expenses.
If a role in HR remains unfilled for sometime then this may impact negatively on employees too.
7. Hidden costs of hiring goes up
If you have a lengthy recruitment process, you will likely have more interviews and therefore managers or HR employees are spending more time on this function rather than their other duties.
Also if your hiring process is long you may have more administrative steps in the recruitment of staff. Often this extra administration is unproductive and you will find reducing your recruitment process will reduce costs as well as all the other benefits mentioned.
After reading about the ways a long recruitment process can harm your business, you realise that your recruitment process could be improved by using a recruitment company, please read our blog on why you should consider using 2i Recruit.
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