Aug 16 2019
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost per hire of respondents from one survey is $4,129 per position.
Hiring costs mount up really quickly and it can be very expensive for companies who need to hire for more than one position. This is the case both when using an in-house recruiting team or a temp agency.
For example, if you need to hire hourly workers, factors like paying to place adverts and diverting current employees’ time to take part in the recruitment process add to the total outlay. This is why it’s important to reduce your time to hire to save costs in running your company.
A deficient hiring practice doesn’t just eat into your company time. For example, when a new requisition for a vacancy is opened and it takes months to fill, it not only wastes time, but it can also cost your business thousands of dollars. So, prolonging the hiring process means losing out on quality candidates and results in a waste of time, money and resources.
The tips below will help you lower the average time to fill a position and save costs when running your business.
First, what is time to fill?
What is time-to-fill?
Time to fill is the time it takes between the job requisition and when a candidate accept the job offer.
Time-to-fill vs time-to-hire?
While sometimes used interchangeably, time to fill and time to hire are different. Time to fill measures the entire hiring cycle time. Whereas time to hire measures when a candidate enters the recruiting funnel.
For a full rundown on time to hire, check out the article “What is Time-to-Hire.”
Why is time to fill increasing recruiting costs?
The cost of recruiting is growing year-on-year.
Although there are more hiring platforms and options available, these come with additional costs – for example, social media recruiting.
Using social media to reduce time to fill
Previously, companies just relied on their HR personnel and hiring team to source the right candidates but, today, no serious business will say they want to recruit the best candidates without investing in social media platforms. Therefore, to build a credible brand that resonates with potential employees, companies must invest in a social media management position.
Without a Social Media Manager driving your brand on relevant platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram, potential candidates will not know enough about you to apply when vacancies come up. Social media recruiting can be done very successfully.
Have a look at how these five companies are attracting the best candidates using social media recruiting.
Reduce time to fill with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If you’re using a staffing company to source your candidates, they need to rank highly on search engines, like Google.
This means that they need to make an investment in acquiring the best SEO expertise to ensure that your job vacancy will appear at the top of the search engines. This extra cost of a staffing company will be passed on to you as a business when using their services.
The main advantages of reducing time to fill include:
Saving on costs by reducing average time to fill
Your business will save money and resources when you cut the time to fill.
When it is reduced, your hiring team and HR department will spend less time and money on sourcing, recruiting and hiring candidates. It also cuts down on the amount of time that other managers and current employees have to take from their day-to-day responsibilities to interview candidates.
There are additional costs as well. The longer the hiring cycle process, the more likely that you’ll incur additional costs. For instance, if your time to fill is lengthy, you may have to send the work to a contingent worker so it can be continued. In short, you have to pay the contingent worker a fee, which becomes an additional hiring expense.
Additionally, your products or services may be delayed with a long time to fill. For example, if you’re thinking of releasing new software or update, it will have to take a back seat until you have the right employee in place.
So, a big benefit of reducing the time to fill is that you save money and resources and all the other associated costs of having an open vacancy.
Better candidates reduce time to fill
Better candidates reduce time to fill
In this low employment market, quality candidates don’t hang around for long.
So, if your hiring process isn’t tied up and you don’t have a recruitment strategy set in stone, the best candidates could be going to your competitors. This is also the case even after you start the hiring cycle process. For example, having a long interview process with multiple steps could put candidates off even if they’re interested and they may go to a competitor where the hiring process is smoother and shorter.
Improve candidate acceptance rates
With a short and efficient hiring cycle time, it’s likely that the top candidates will believe that your company is a good place to work and they are more likely to accept an offer.
It’s also very likely that qualified candidates will be going to several interviews and considering different companies at the same time. Therefore, you need to do everything you can to show them that your company is the one worth their time when convincing them to accept an offer. A lengthy hiring process could put off candidates who would otherwise be interested in your company.
Unfortunately, not all candidates will make the grade. Candidates who are unsuitable for the position should be treated with the same courtesy and respect as successful applicants.
[Read: Candidate rejection letter templates to communicate your decision in a professional and courteous way.]
Steps to take before reducing your time to fill
Before you reduce your time to fill to save costs, you need to determine a few factors in your company.
Work out your average time to fill
You need to figure out how long it takes candidates to move through the application process from the time you create the job requisition, to sourcing candidates, and to the time you extend a job offer.
Work out your hiring velocity
When you’ve figured out your time to fill, break each part down stage by stage to get your hiring velocity or the amount of time it takes candidates to move from one stage of the hiring cycle to the next.
After you determine your hiring velocity, you’ll find out which stages of the hiring process have bottlenecks. You can then put a plan of action together to address the departments, teams or individuals that are causing the delays in the hiring cycle time.
Work out your interviews per hire
You need to discover how many interviews your team must carry out before an applicant is hired. Looking at this information will help you see where the bottlenecks are so you can address them.
To get the most accurate information about your time to fill, you should use modern hiring software that can easily pull the analytics, giving you a real-time and true picture of your hiring process. With Fountain, our analytics dashboard enables you to have a high-level view of your hiring process, which can also be turned into more detailed information if needed.
Here are some ways to cut costs in your business by reducing the time to fill:
Reduce time to fill with a better application process
A big obstacle in reducing the time to fill is how job applications are compiled.
When designing your job applications, ensure they’re to the point. If they’re too long, they will turn off potential applicants. To find out how to get the optimal performance from your application form, click here to download our free guide on how to improve the application process.
This guide gives you five practical, easy-to-implement tips to ensure a higher engagement rate with your application forms.
Use social media recruiting to reduce time to fill
A study by Jobvite found that 94% of companies in the US are making an effort to recruit using social media.
Social media is a great way to expand your brand to your target audience. You can either use free techniques, like posting about your employees and culture on social media, or you can use paid ads on Facebook or LinkedIn.
When using social media recruiting, you’re likely to attract the attention of candidates already interested in your brand since they are already following your company.
Use one-way video interviewing to shorten hiring cycle time
The fewer candidates you have to interview on a face-to-face basis, the better.
One-way video interviews are a great cost-effective way to pre-screen candidates. This type of interviewing doesn’t have to be complicated if you use the right hiring platform.
With Fountain, one-way video interviewing is easy and simple. The candidate simply has to record answers to pre-populated interviews asked by you and they send their answers in the app. This enables you to review and assess the answers with your team, looking out for factors like how they communicate and whether their answers are consistent with what was asked and what they put on their application form or resume.
Create a recruitment strategy to reduce time to fill
Without a clear recruitment strategy that defines your process, confusion and chaos could ensue and you could lose time and money as well as applicants.
You should have a set process to follow for every single role in your company. Following a set process will reduce your time to fill. The hiring process should include the tools you use, including modern hiring software, which is pivotal for reducing time.
Use recruiting tools to reduce time to fill
If you don’t have the right tools to reduce your time to fill and save costs, then having a strategy in place will only take you so far.
Fountain is a modern hiring software that helps you hire faster, even if you’re a franchise, small business or you are looking for gig workers. A host of features helps you to start hiring quickly because candidates can apply in under a minute. Our platform is fully mobile-optimized, so applicants can fill out and submit an application on-the-go. It also provides metrics, so you can continually make improvements in your hiring process.
Click here for a list of Fountain’s features.
Use better candidate assessments to decrease time to fill
To ensure that a candidate is qualified for the job, you need to find ways to assess his or her skills efficiently.
With Fountain’s integrations, you can do this quickly as we integrate with online assessment platforms, like Traitify. Not only do we integrate with assessment platforms, but we also provide a wide variety of integrations with background check vendors, electronic signature vendors and job boards. These integrations help streamline all the third-party vendors you need to significantly reduce your time to hire and cut costs.
Fountain is trusted by the best companies and has a five-star rating on Capterra. Here is just one of the five-star reviews received.
“It makes our delivery driver hiring a breeze. Before we used Fountain, it took us almost four weeks to get a driver hired; and with Fountain, it now takes five days. The SMS and email automation saves my team a ton of time.”
As you can see, this business has significantly reduced their time to hire, thereby cutting business costs.
Click here for another case study of a company that drastically reduced their time to hire from two weeks to three days when using Fountain.
If you’re looking for an efficient, proven and quick way to reduce your time to hire and, at the same time, cut costs in your business, get started today with a free trial of Fountain (no credit card required) to see how we’ll make you significant savings in your business.
