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Probably almost every manager often confronted the issue of how to find a talented employee quickly. Surprisingly, but we can highlight the phrase “find employees quickly” amongst the most frequent online queries. This means that some companies need to hire employees urgently, as the previous one is gone or was fired for some reason: he was dismissed, he left the position abruptly, or a new task has emerged. It is important to understand that the workplace is most likely ready, the candidate is required to perform the work tasks, but there is no one to do it, and the company has suffered losses.
It is lucky if in such a case the manager would be able to get the recommendation from his colleagues, or, for instance, an expert is leaving his position in some other company, so he or she can be invited to enter a particular company. Otherwise, you will have to go in search of a well-credentialed candidate to the labor market, and then the search will probably take several weeks. In some cases, this could prove disastrous.
What Factors Affect Fill Rate?
- The specific nature of work. How rare is your vacancy or your job profile? How many applicants are looking for a job in this profession? Obviously, if it is a rare profession, you will look for an employee for longer than usual.
- The level of the position. Searching for an ordinary employee, for example, an occupational specialty is much faster than closing the vacancy of the manager.
- Very competitive labor market. If the number of companies searching for the same candidates is significant enough, the filling of the vacancy will extend for a longer period.
- The reputation of the company. There is nothing left to say that if your company is a well-known, and what is important, a well-proven employer, the closing of all your vacancies will go much faster.
- Whether the offer meets market needs. Is everything okay with the compensation package, working conditions, and wage level for your position? If they are better than the competitors’ offer, the vacancy will be filled much more rapidly.
- HR manager’s competencies. Does your HR manager have the right experience? Does he successfully cope with the targets?
- HR load level. After all, isn’t the recruiter overloaded? Remember that the number of vacancies that one HR can successfully manage should not exceed 8-9.
- Assessment of the candidate. Is the selection and assessment procedure of candidates processing rapidly in your company? What are the number of interviews and the response time after each interview? How quickly does the manager give feedback on each interview?
It becomes obvious that the vacancy fill rate is actually affected by a significant number of factors, many of which managers often do not even think about. But what time does it usually take to find the relevant employee? There are two main metrics to measure it, namely Time to Offer (time before finding and choosing an employee) and Time to Hire (the total time to find an employee).
Time to Offer
This metric consist of the following:
- the development of a search plan for the employee;
- posting ads with the vacancy description on job websites, social networks, etc. (usually, the HR department uses from 2 to 10 search channels);
- direct search of candidates, including the processing of incoming feedback, and selection of suitable candidates by primary criteria;
- assessment procedures, which include pre-screening, testing, multistage interviews, security clearance, and other recommendations.
On average, the world practice shows that it is required to spend from 40 to 60 calendar days to implement the whole cycle of the Time to Offer technique. But sometimes these considerably vary, has reached the minimum indicator of 4-12 days, and a maximum of 3 months.
Obviously, these are generalized and averaged indicators, so it would be correct to focus on your market, region, the format of organization, and filled vacancy. For instance, the indicator Time to Offer in our company was at least 6 to a maximum of 120 days by the end of 2020, thus the average one is 35 days in this case.
Time to Hire
Once the candidate has been selected, you make an offer and he accepted it, it is often needed some time before entering your company. And with any luck, he can go back to work the next day, but most often he or she needs 2-3 weeks to finish his previous work tasks and leave the current job or the other way round – your company needs some time to prepare the workplace, organize processes, etc.
This period may carry some risks. Sometimes a candidate may decide to stay in the current position by utilizing your job offer to bargain with his managing staff, or he could accept another offer that is more profitable for the candidate. So, it turns out that even if your chosen candidate has accepted your offer, he may not yet be your future staff member. And then you have to go back to searching for other suitable candidates on the labor market. Sure, you do not need to start over, but it is about to spend your extra time.
As we mentioned above, there is another metric called Time to Hire that was designed to measure the time from the beginning of the search for an employee to he got to get to work. It shows the most complete hiring time. Referring to our 2020 end-of-year report, this period was at least 10 days, and a maximum of 135 days, thus the average one is 45 days in this case.
Lastly, coming back to our urgent vacancies, which we mentioned at the beginning of the article, we can draw a firm conclusion that it will most likely not be possible to fill the vacancy fast enough. Therefore, it is necessary to start searching for employees in advance, planning to open new vacancies, rather than doing a spontaneous search when it has become urgent. Then the employment procedure would be pleasant, comfortable, and above all, viable!