Blog > Talent strategy > Sourcing

Top 5 barriers
to achieving a
more efficient
hiring process
(and how to
fix it!)
LAST UPDATED: FEBRUARY 17, 2022

BRENDAN MCCONNELL

When it comes to hiring top talent, speed

and quality are two important factors that
recruiters should not compromise on.
Finding, contacting, and pushing high
caliber candidates through the funnel
quickly can often be the difference between
finding the perfect hire, or settling for one
:
 who isn’t quite as qualified. To accomplish
this delicate balance between speed and
quality, it’s important to ensure that you
have an efficient hiring process in place
across your organization.

Unfortunately, the average time to hire is

somewhere around 43 days from job
opening to final handshake. Sometimes,
that may not be quite fast enough. To
speed up this process, it’s important to
reduce the costly delays and inefficient
processes that may be leading to poor hires
and, ultimately, lost revenue.

Before we get into how to create a more

efficient hiring process, let’s look at some of
the reasons it might be inefficient in the
first place.

What goes into the hiring

process?
The first step in creating an efficient hiring
process is to understand how it works. That
means analyzing each stage of the hiring
process, and finding ways to make it better.

If you’re like most recruitment teams, your

hiring process will likely look something
like this:

1. Identify the need, and make the

decision to hire a new employee.
2. Decide on job requirements, and write
:
 the job description.
3. Post recruitment ads to attract new
candidates.
4. Screen candidates – look at resumes,
shortlist candidates, interview.
5. Select the best candidate.
6. Onboard and train the new hire.
Once you have your process mapped out in
front of you, it’s easier to identify the steps
that might be causing delays. To help get
you thinking about what could be holding
you back from an efficient hiring process,
let’s take a look at some common issues
that lead to poor results.

Issues that lead to an

inefficient hiring process
Like most issues in business, inefficient
hiring processes often boil down to poor
planning, communication, and the improper
use of tools.

Here are the five most common causes of

inefficient hiring processes.

1. Lack of planning
Effective recruitment is all about planning.
Planning for what your current and future
needs are, planning for how you’re going to
fill those needs, and planning the execution
of a process to find the ideal candidate. At
every stage of the hiring process, it’s
important to take the time to plan out how
:
 you’re going to execute on a goal.

Recruiters who fail to plan properly set

themselves up for failure down the road.
Without planning, an efficient hiring
process is not possible.

2. Lack of clarity
Likewise, it’s critical that recruiters clearly
explain what they expect from all
candidates to be successful on the job. That
means creating unique job requirements
and descriptions for every vacant position,
and clearly stating what is expected in the
recruitment ad. This helps candidates pre-
screen themselves, saving recruiters time
and energy otherwise spent screening
unqualified candidates.

Relevant: The ultimate guide to intake

meetings

3. Roadblocks, delays, and lost

productivity
Unsurprisingly, one way to ensure that you
don’t have an efficient hiring process is to
failing to alleviate any roadblock and
delays that lead to lost productivity. This
could be as simple as automating certain
tasks that hold up the hiring process or
removing unneeded red tape that leads to
Categories  productivity
Resources backlogs.
 Customer stories Recruitee Insider
:
 Table of 4. Lack of communication
contents
This issue relates specifically to internal
What goes into communication. If your recruitment team is
the hiring not regularly meeting with one another,
process? hiring managers, and strategic leaders in
Issues that lead the company, then you’re likely missing
to an inefficient opportunities to make your hiring process
hiring process more efficient.
1. Lack of
planning Regular dialogue with your co-workers will
2. Lack of enable you to continuously identify and
clarity remove roadblocks, while also ensuring
3. Roadblocks, that you are planning properly and
delays, and lost providing clear and accurate requirements
productivity to candidates.
4. Lack of
communication
5. Using the wrong technology
5. Using the
wrong Last but not least, using the wrong tool or
technology technology for the job can also cause
5 ways to ensure unnecessary delays and complexity in your
hiring process. It’s important to ensure that
whatever technology you use is well-suited
to the size of your company and your hiring
volume. Overly complicated technologies
can cause delays due to needless
complexity, while outdated or insufficient
technologies might not be able to keep up
with your team.

Whether you’re using an ATS, CRM, video

interviewing software, or any other
recruitment tool, it’s important to ensure
that it’s helping, not hindering, your hiring
process.
:
 Now that we’ve looked at what might be
holding you back from an efficient hiring
process, let’s look at some ways to make it
a reality.

Relevant: Why UX is the most important

feature in a recruitment software

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5 ways to ensure an
efficient hiring process
There are many ways to make your hiring
process more efficient, all of which will
depend on the variables unique to your
:
 recruitment team. To help get you thinking,
here are some common ways to streamline
recruitment.

1. Fill your talent pipeline

Looking back at the common hiring process
stages outlined earlier in this article, you
can see that the vast majority of time is
spent finding and screening candidates.
What if you could jump straight from Step
1 (identifying the need) to Step 5 (select
the best candidate)? That would make your
hiring process quite a bit more efficient.

Talent pipelines let you do just that. This

tactic calls for recruiters to spend a chunk
of time creating relationships with high-
caliber candidates on a regular basis, even
if there isn’t a specific job available for
them at the time. By doing so, recruiters
create a backlog of pre-screened, qualified
candidates that can be called upon
whenever an opening arises.

Talent pipelines require an ongoing and

concerted effort by your recruitment team
to be effective. They involve a combination
of networking, candidate relationship
management, social media outreach, and
referrals management.

Here are some common ways you can fill a

talent pipeline:
:
 Interact with qualified workers in your
industry on social media.
Participate in industry groups and
networking events.
Establish and maintain a referral
program.
Look to past candidates and keep the
lines of communication open.
Source passive candidates who may
not be looking right now.

Of course, it’s important to always ensure

that you know what is required as new
roles pop up. This will help you quickly
identify pipeline candidates who fit the bill.
And, the better and more efficient your
talent pipeline becomes, the more time
your recruitment team will have to
continuously improve your efficient hiring
process.

2. Automate tasks
To ensure that your recruiters are focussing
most of their energy on the jobs that make
the biggest impact (like filling your talent
pipeline), it’s important to remove time-
consuming tasks from their plate.

Luckily, recruitment technology has

improved dramatically in recent years,
allowing companies to automate menial
tasks like screening resumes, scheduling
interviews, answering simple questions, or
sending out rejection emails.
:
 Like talent pipelines, task automation is a
self-fulfilling prophecy of efficiency. The
more you can free your recruiters from
time-consuming tasks, the more they can
focus on improving the overall speed and
quality of your hiring process.

3. Hire collaboratively
As mentioned earlier, one of the major
contributing factors to an inefficient hiring
process is poor communication. If recruiters
or hiring managers are making decisions
about candidates in a bubble, then it’s
highly likely that they will make the wrong
one. Instead, it’s important to get as much
input as possible from other stakeholders
to help ensure the best possible decision.

Collaborative hiring is one way to ensure

that effective communication is maintained
throughout the hiring process. Many
collaborative hiring softwares, like
Recruitee, allow specific team members to
review interview answers and candidate
profiles and record their opinions. This
gives recruiters a hiring manager a more
objective, 360-degree view of not only
which candidate is most qualified, but who
the team would prefer to work with.

Combined with talent pipelines,

collaborative hiring can even lead to a
situation where the perfect hire is flagged
and contacted before any recruitment ad is
:
 created. In these cases, the company will
save money, time, and effort that would
otherwise have been spent gathering net
new candidates.

4. Speed up your screening

Creating a more efficient hiring process
starts with speeding up the most time-
consuming stages while maintaining
quality. Unsurprisingly, the most time-
consuming recruitment phase is usually
screening candidates. That’s because it
involves scanning resumes, shortlisting,
scheduling and conducting interviews,
shortlisting again, and then making a final
decision and job offer. That’s more touch
points than any other stage of the hiring
process.

Finding ways to make screening more

streamlined will lead to a much more
efficient hiring process overall. Some
common techniques for speeding up the
screening process include:

Using video interviews instead of in-

person interviews early in the
recruitment process.
Using structured interviews to ensure
consistent and efficient screening
criteria.
Using pre-screen tests and
questionnaires to weed out unqualified
applicants immediately.
:
 Automating tasks like scheduling and
resume keyword searches.

Together, these tactics can drastically

reduce the amount of time spent screening
candidates, while also ensuring that it’s
always done effectively.

5. Enhance the candidate

experience
Lastly, improving the overall candidate
experience will help to ensure that you
always have an efficient hiring process.
That’s because some of the most common
ways to improve candidate experience also
contribute to faster and more efficient
hiring.

Shortening the application process, for

example, makes the overall experience
much less tedious for the candidate. It also
reduces the number of touchpoints and
handoffs that recruiters have to stickhandle
for every new hire.

Maintaining a vibrant careers page and

employer brand will help candidates
determine whether or not they will be a
good cultural fit at your company. This
helps them to pre-screen themselves for
the position, reducing the number of
applicants who won’t make a good fit. This
also creates a better candidate experience
by helping candidates feel more informed
:
 and excited about the position that they’re
applying for.

Finally, by always maintaining clear

communication with candidates, you
improve their overall experience, while also
ensuring that you avoid roadblocks and
delays caused by poor communication.

As you can see, with a combination of

talent pipelines, the proper recruitment
software, efficient and collaborative hiring,
and an exceptional candidate experience,
you can achieve the efficient hiring process
that your team has always dreamed about.

Frequently Asked
Questions
- What is the first step in the hiring
process?

The first step of the hiring process is to

identify the need for a new employee and
decide to hire. This will be followed by
writing a job description and posting the
recruitment ad on multiple job boards.

- How can the recruitment selection

process be more efficient?

There are multiple ways to make the

process more efficient, such as filling your
talent pipeline, automating tasks, hiring
collaboratively, and enhancing the
:
 candidate experience.

- How long should the recruitment

process be?

The hiring process can change according to

company and position to be filled. Ideally,
the process should take between 2 to 4
weeks.

- What are the issues with an inefficient

hiring process?

An inefficient hiring process can lead to bad

candidate experience, negatively impacting
employer branding and losing talent. It can
also negatively affect the hiring manager
and recruiter, as they will have less
capacity and possibly lead to long-term
burnout.

Written by

BRENDAN MCCONNELL

Brendan is an established writer, content

marketer and SEO manager with extensive
experience writing about HR tech,
information visualization, mind mapping,
and all things B2B and SaaS. As a former
journalist, he's always looking for new
topics and industries to write about and
explore.
:
 Learn more about Talent strategy
JULY 3, 2023 JUNE 21, 2023

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