Time to fill is an essential recruiting metric and remains one of the key performance indicators for hiring teams. Taking a long time to fill a role often increases the cost per hire. It can also result in the loss of high-quality candidates as a lengthy hiring process can often dissuade candidates from continuing with your organization. While the average time to fill varies across industries, your goal should be to make yours as fast as possible.
This post will look at four actionable tips your high growth business can implement today to reduce your time to fill.
Four Actionable Tips to Reduce Time to Fill
Make Communication More Accessible to Candidates
With various communication channels available today, you can’t assume that every candidate uses your preferred means of communication. For example, Jobvite reported that 73% of job seekers preferred to get information about jobs over a text message. If your primary means of communication is via email, but your potential candidates rarely use that service, essential information and responses may be delayed or never received, extending your time to fill. For this reason, you must utilize as many communication channels as possible to reach each candidate to drive engagement and create more touchpoints.
Build a Talent Pipeline
Building a talent pipeline —a group of pre-screened candidates that align with your company’s needs, both now and in the future—is one of the most effective methods to reduce your average time to fill. Having a detailed database of qualified candidates at your disposal means you won’t have to advertise the open position, wait for applications, and vet candidates. All you need to do is search through the database, find those most qualified for the available job, and reach out.
Use a Recruiting Chatbot to Automate Tasks
Using a recruiting chatbot enables teams to automate and streamline processes previously performed manually. This includes scheduling interviews, screening resumes, answering FAQs, and even gathering candidate information for your talent pipeline. For recruiters, spending less time on these tedious tasks means they’ll have more time to focus their attention on candidates further down the funnel who are ready to be hired, speeding up time to fill.
Optimize Your Careers Page
Your careers page is the optimal platform to sell your organization. If it doesn’t sell your candidates on applying for open positions, they’ll either drop off immediately or end up rejecting your offer. Both of these situations negatively impact your time to hire as drop-offs result in fewer applications, and offer rejections mean starting over by making an offer to the second most eligible candidate. To avoid this, ensure your career page utilizes SEO best practices, includes engaging content, and lists benefits and perks.
Final Takeaways
Ultimately, reducing time to fill comes down to how efficient your hiring process is. Finding ways to automate tasks, give candidates a better experience, and build a talent pipeline, ensuring your time to fill is as short as possible.