The most talented players in every industry spend far less time on the job market their their lower-performing peers. While many hiring departments operate under that assumption, few realize just how narrow their window of opportunity is if they hope to hire these a-players.
According to Dr. John Sullivan of ERE Media, the top candidates are usually off the job market after just 10 days, a number that can be even smaller in certain, more specialized industries. With such a small slice of time in which to recruit these A-players, Sullivan suggests companies assign top talent a "hire by date" and make an effort to significantly reduce their time to hire.
To do this, organizations must proactively identify the very best candidates as early as possible, then put them through a pre-designed, expedited recruiting and hiring process. While definitely a change from the norm, preparing your hiring department for quick turnaround actually does not cost much time or effort – the biggest hurdle is simply identifying the need.
Here's how Dr. Sullivan says your company could benefit from speeding up the hiring process for potentially game-changing talent:
- Make better quality hires: Simply put, your company will have more success onboarding top performers if they marked as fast hires, bringing up your organization's total average job performance.
- Stop missing A-players: If your time to fill is significantly longer than the 10-day period most top candidates are on the market, you have practically no chance to hire one of them before they sign on with a company that was ready to give them an offer sooner, no matter how strong your employer brand or compelling the offer you eventually would have made.
- Cost savings: Being able to make an offer right away may help you avoid a costly bidding war for the salary of your best candidate.
One way to extend the amount of time you have to recruit top candidates is to identify them before they are actively looking for a new role. Working with a retained executive search firm like YES Partners can help your company connect with a-players before they formally enter the job market, giving your the head start you might need to bring top talent to your team.
To see some of the roles we have already successfully filled, click here!
Finding people is easy, but finding the RIGHT people is not. YES Partners helps companies FIND the right people for all company functions, across many industries and globally.
