Businesses are facing a shortage of skilled workers. It’s an especially competitive market out there for CNAs, housekeepers and auto technicians. With many more opportunities than candidates, you have to move quickly and be responsive to get the best candidates. Hiring, however, is just one task that managers are taking on in a workday and it can be very easy to let the applicants flow in and forget to review and follow up.
Research shows that the average business takes around 10 days to review and respond to job applications. In the meantime, Hireology surveys show that healthcare, automotive and hospitality applicants are expecting to be interviewed in a week. When they don’t hear back quickly, they move on to other employers.
To attract and retain top talent, companies must streamline their hiring processes and respond to applicants quickly. Monitoring time to review, one of Hireology’s Top 9 Recruiting Metrics to Manage Your Hiring Effectively, is a way to keep track of which locations or hiring managers are struggling with reviewing applicants in a timely manner. It measures the duration from when a candidate submits an application to when the application is initially reviewed by the hiring team.
The Impact of Delayed Reviews
So why does it matter? When a company lets a role stay open without actively looking at applicants, it hurts the company’s reputation as an employer. The assumption is that it’s not taking hiring seriously. It’s also really discouraging and may stop an applicant from applying to other positions, as they assume they won’t be contacted. It makes it seem like applying for your company is a waste of time.
It can make it more difficult to recruit in a competitive hiring environment.
“Time to review applicants is the most important part of the process if we want to be the first company to contact a qualified applicant for our open job opportunities,” Hireology customer Victoria Muzyka, HR Development and Recruitment Marketing Manager, Crown Automotive Group, said. “Applicants want to find work quickly. If hiring managers take their time in reviewing applicants, they most often will find that those who are qualified have accepted another opportunity elsewhere.”
It also means that the role, which might be critical to your organization, remains open longer. Additionally, sometimes delayed time for review can point to the opposite: the role was actually filled, but no one told the central recruiting or human resources team, leading to a hiring and onboarding experience that isn’t compliant with your company’s standards.
Reducing time to review can be a game changer. As Hireology customer Scott Williams, VP of Talent, Interim Healthcare, put it, “Reducing the time it takes to review candidates ensures we can engage with top talent faster, which is essential in today’s competitive hiring landscape. The quicker we can evaluate and connect with candidates, the better our chances of retaining their interest.”
Spot and Manage The Problem with Hireology
Because time to review is so significant to hiring quickly, Hireology recently added a tab to its new Action Center to filter to a list of jobs with delayed review time, which you can set to a time period that makes sense for your business.
This has helped Muzyka manage hiring.
“My primary use of the Action Center is for the Delayed Review Time by Job Title which allows me to follow up with our Hiring Managers more efficiently to ensure we are reviewing our candidates in the most optimal time possible,” Muzyka said. “Our goal as a company for applicant review is two business days. This feature also helps me to address the visibility status of job postings that might need to be closed as a result of my communication with each hiring manager.”
Companies that used Hireology’s Action Center to monitor delayed review time were able to shorten time to review by 25% because their central HR and recruiting teams followed up with hiring managers and fixed hiring bottlenecks by providing extra support or closing unnecessary roles.
Additionally, Hireology offers a way to get a longer term view into the problem. Hireology Insights offers a way to compare performance on Time To Review across your locations in the Hiring Velocity report, showing performance across locations over the past seven days, 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. You can use this to spot which locations are consistently having issues and compare your company’s overall performance against industry benchmarks.
Help Overwhelmed Hiring Managers Filter Through Applicants
One effective way to expedite the hiring process is by implementing Prescreen Surveys. These surveys can quickly filter out applicants who don’t meet the basic requirements of the job, allowing hiring teams to focus their attention on the most promising candidates.
By including Prescreen Surveys in your hiring process, job seekers who don’t meet the basic requirements of the role can be automatically eliminated before your team has to waste time reviewing their applications. While you’re saving this time, your hiring managers can focus more on qualified applicants and their other responsibilities.
Keeping Candidates Warm When Your Team is Too Busy
While you are chasing the hiring managers to find out why they aren’t reviewing the applicants that are coming in, you can improve the applicant experience by setting up automated text or email messages to keep the applicant warm. You can acknowledge their application and let them know that your team will be looking at it soon.
Conclusion
In today’s competitive hiring landscape, time is of the essence. By prioritizing timely review of applications, businesses can significantly improve their chances of attracting top talent. Hireology’s Action Center empowers organizations to monitor and address delayed reviews, streamlining the hiring process and ensuring a positive candidate experience. By implementing strategies like Prescreen Surveys and automated communication, you can optimize your hiring efforts and ultimately achieve your talent acquisition goals.
Ready to see how Hireology can help you improve your hiring process? Schedule a demo today.
