Why longer isn’t always sexier….when it comes to interview processes!

Recently I’ve had the privilege of moonlighting in permanent recruitment whilst covering for my colleagues’ payroll jobs. Having come from the interim world of start no interview or even 1-2 stages max for an interview process, I was surprised to find some clients conducting interview stages in excess of five different meetings in an effort to make a hire.

I can appreciate the level of stakeholder sign off is different in various organisations and based on the level of the hire. However, I too often have seen strong candidates get lost in the process; either because they get offered other positions or lose the will to interview as the processes get more and more demanding and they are trying to juggle such interview requirements, all the while still having to conduct their BAU workload.

I encourage clients, particularly those using agencies, to maximise the skillset of the agent they are dealing with. For example, there is no need for in-house recruitment teams to do a phone screen interview when the agency has already competed this in the first instance in registering a candidate. If there are particular questions that need to be asked, the agency can ask these on behalf of the client and even provide a video recording of such interaction. I also encourage clients with any kind of testing required, to do this during the initial stages of the process. Particularly if such results are heavily weighted, there is nothing to be gained in progressing a candidate who everyone “likes” only to then find out the technical skill is not what is required. Equally such testing again could be given by the agency and presented on presentation of the CV.

It has never been tougher to entice and engage talent, and a long winded recruitment process is a sure way to over complicate and delay a process from even getting near completion.

I encourage businesses to consider how they can still get the information they need as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The candidate engagement starts from the first conversation and as I think we can agree longer doesn’t always mean better.

Skip to content