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Have you ever met the perfect candidate, only to have them slip away because you were too slow in the hiring process? You’re not alone.

63% of candidates have accepted another offer because their preferred company took too long in the hiring process.

This tells us something critical. Your top choice candidates are available for a limited amount of time and in order to win the “war on talent” - your entire hiring team has to be on the same page and willing to move as quickly as possible when you meet an A+ candidate.

Here is a recent, first-hand example, that demonstrates what this entails.

One of our clients, a leader in the Cyber Security Space, was hiring for a niche, competitive, hard-to-fill Marketing role.

After 4 weeks of targeting and connecting with candidates, we met someone who fit exactly what our client was looking for. But here’s the catch – this candidate already had an offer extended to them from another company.

Let’s call this candidate Mike.

Mike had a lot of interest in this other company, and their offer exceeded his salary expectations. Mike had been given 5 DAYS to accept the offer from the other company.

We had met Mike on a Tuesday. His offer from the competing company was presented on Monday. We knew if we had any shot of hiring Mike, we would need to move as fast as possible in the interview process and the hiring managers for our client needed to be on board with this.

To make this a successful hire, we scheduled 3 rounds of interviews on consecutive days –

• 1^st Round of Interviews: Wednesday

• 2^nd Round of Interviews: Thursday

• 3^rd Round of Interviews: Friday morning

And extended a verbal offer, which he accepted, on Friday afternoon.

We pulled this off quickly, but this wasn’t easy. There were a few key things we did to make this possible.

1. Prevented Any Delays in the Process

Firstly, we ensured that the hiring managers did not create any delays in the interview process. When one of the hiring managers told us he had to push his Thursday interview to Friday or Monday, we knew this would derail the whole process, and without a doubt, we’d lose Mike. We explained the situation to the hiring manager and swayed him to rearrange his schedule so he could hold that critical interview. Bottom line: Do what’s necessary to hold interview times when the clock is ticking.

2. Built Rapport with Key Stakeholders

Next, we had to ensure that Mike and his direct manager (the VP of Marketing), built a relationship that would allow them both to feel confident in a fast hiring decision. The VP of Marketing had a good initial impression when he met Mike, but he expressed it was just that - an initial impression. We knew they needed to build more rapport. So we decided to include the VP of Marketing in the second round of interviews, which he was not initially scheduled for. This ultimately was key to the success of the hire because they both gained an understanding of what it would be like working together. Bottom line: If the parties involved need more time together, then schedule more time together.

3. Pre-Closed the Candidate Before Final Interviews

Lastly, our pre-closing process was critical. We connected with Mike on Thursday afternoon, after his 2nd round of interviews, and gathered the information we needed in order to present a competitive offer almost immediately after the final interview. We gathered his compensation details from his other offer – even down to the benefits and vacation time. We collected his references. We answered questions he had and put him in a position where he’d be able to accept an offer when it was presented. Bottom line: Gather the information you need before the final interview to make a competitive offer.

4. The Biggest Key: Be In Control of Your Candidates.

This was a big win for our client. And there are few big takeaways in how to be in control of your candidates from this story.

1. For starters, in looking at the company presenting the competing offer, the reality is that they let Mike slip away. They made a fatal mistake in giving 5 days for the offer to expire. We would advise against this unless there were extenuating circumstances.
   
   Formal offers should expire in 24-48 hours.
   
   At this point in the process – the candidate will have a sense of what they need in order to accept the position. The offer is a final step in ensuring that all needs are being met. By presenting an offer that extends beyond 5 days – you’re setting yourself up for failure.
   

2. We advised our client to be flexible in order to put Mike in a position where a hire was possible, but throughout the process, our team remained in control. For example, Mike told us he would be unavailable Friday afternoon to connect with our team. This is when the verbal offer needed to be extended to him. While it would have been easy to defer to Mike, we told him “we would appreciate some flexibility on his end as well. If we could find a few minutes to connect before the weekend that would be beneficial to the both of us.” By being in control of the process – we were able to connect with Mike Friday afternoon, answer his final questions, and ultimately lead him to accepting the offer before the weekend.
   

3. Lastly, we knew that it would take a competitive offer in order to land Mike. If we didn’t have an understanding of where Mike was in the process and presented a “low ball” offer, he would have passed. Since we gathered that info in the pre-close call, we knew what the offer needed to consist of in order for him to accept.

Remember when it comes to the “War on Talent” -- Speed Kills.

Operating with urgency is critical to the hiring process.

This is one of many examples of how Talent Retriever helps our clients win the war on talent, and help improve the speed, quality and efficiency of their hiring.

For more information on connecting with Talent Retriever, click here

40% of all hires come from employee referrals, yet just 7% of total applicants come in this way.

Let that sink in.

Referred workers have a higher retention rate - they are up to 30% less likely to leave their job in under 3 years.

And referred hires from 'average' workers produce 25% more output/profit than non-referred employees, while referrals from 'top performing' employees produce 135% more output/profit.

The benefits of employee referrals are so prevalent, but building an effective program to get employees to continuously engage with it is hard and often slips through the cracks of priorities.

Here’s a look at some creative ways to get your team excited and involved and generate employee referrals all year long.

1. Create a Buy-In

You have an employee referral cash bonus? Great! But there’s more to it. You need to create buy-in beyond the dollar. Communicate to your current employees how much you value their opinion and their ability to help the company grow - beyond what they do on a day to day basis in their jobs. This is an opportunity to show you are buying into them as well. Here's some ways to communicate this:

Hold a “Recruiting Forum." This can be monthly/quarterly/bi-annually-- you set the rhythm based on your culture and goals. In these meetings review numbers, celebrate successes, and highlight wins. Discuss upcoming needs and address high impact areas.

Keep Them Involved. Send out updates and provide both overall and direct feedback to describe what is working well and what isn’t as effective. It’s human nature -- people remain engaged when they feel their efforts are appreciated. Taking time to provide effective feedback and true status will accomplish this.

Make it Brief. Give hiring managers an opportunity to present a short brief on what they are looking for, the types of people that would work well in their group and a couple of compelling points as to why someone would want to join their team. This could be incorporated into already existing meetings, at the beginning of a social event or even at a quick office team lunch.

Promote Behaviors. Continuously talk about and endorse desired behaviors and outline what a great “athlete” looks like in your organization. Don’t just say “Who knows python developers?” Paint the picture of what that python developer at your company will look like. Suggest target companies that are relevant to help prompt ideas.

2. Build the Energy!

By getting teams to “buy-in” and energize them as active participants in an initiative to continuously improve THEIR company, you empower them to feel they are part of the solution.

Host a Friday Afternoon Talent Social.

Ask your team to come prepared to tap into their networks. They bring names. You provide drinks, snacks and prizes.

Employee Networking Lunch Program.

Offer select members of your team the ability to expense lunch (how often and how much depends on your budget) so they can meet up with people in their personal business network and sing the praises of your company. To hold them accountable, ask them to bring back 2-3 takeaways from these meetings. This could be a resume, some more names of people to potentially recruit or even market data on relevant roles for which you are hiring.

Highlight Referral Successes.

Ask several employees that were referred over the past 6-18 months to speak about how glad they are that someone thought of “nominating” them for employment. Discuss some of the things they’ve achieved and make reference to the employee channels that brought them in.

Celebrate the Hires!

On the first day of work for a referred employee, build excitement around the originator! Deliver flowers, balloons, a cake, a singing telegram – whatever! Something that recognizes the contribution.

3. Work the Networks

Hold "Mapping" Sessions

The average employee will have 150 contacts on social media networks – 100 employees translates to 15,000 contacts (and possible candidates). Sit with key employees and review their LinkedIn contacts to extend the reach. When you begin digging - you both may be surprised how many great contacts you can uncover. Start with past employers and alumni networks. There will be situations where your employee will want to keep an arm’s length from actual recruitment efforts, so offer to make contact anonymously. You can still track the results back to your employee so they can collect their reward!

Sponsor a “Bring a Friend to Work Night.”

There should be value beyond tours of the office, but what those are will depend upon your demographic. Think about the target audience and create an attraction – this may be a really cool speaker, advanced demo of a new product, a night of free beer or just a chance to network. The sky really is the limit here, so get creative, but be smart about it. The goal is to have friends thinking, “I wish I worked there.”

4. Simply Make it Easy

The easier you make it, the more likely to get something implemented successfully. Rather than create work for your employees, provide them with tools to help.

Add a “We’re Hiring” link to email signatures that directs to your career page.

If you have a great video that portrays the culture at the workplace, offer that link as well.

Create “personalized” template messaging that your team can access and use as needed to post across social media channels. Be sure the messaging matches the demographic as well as the vehicle.

Create a recruiting playbook for employees that covers how to pitch the company. Quick bulleted points that are memorable and valuable are the most effective.

Provide recruiting cards. These can be handed out on the spot when an employee has a positive interaction with someone. This works great trying to recruit out of the Apple Store! These cards should have some key points that will intrigue and will drive someone else’s great employee to look at what you have to offer.

5. Get Creative

Cross refer candidates with partner companies.

Have you ever thought about pooling resources of an applicant tracking system? Perhaps creating a program to share candidates with a channel partner is viable for you. Test some ideas with one or two organizations with whom you have a trusted relationship. If it works, you can always broaden the scope. Key to success will be defining the program and process – setting the rules of the game, if you will. Agree upon these things at the beginning and then do a monthly check-in to review effectiveness. Communication and honesty are crucial for this to work.

Build a recruiting app.

It’s bold, but if you have the resources (like some spare engineers hanging around) - don’t dismiss it. Build an app for your team to easily capture names of people they interact with outside of work. Maybe you need customer service reps – and someone meets an awesome waiter when you're out to dinner. Who knows…. The app can engage and capture this info while it’s fresh. Again – just an idea, but get creative!

Rewarding Rewards.

The norm is to implement “typical” Employee Referral Bonus cash awards upon hire. But what about some interesting alternatives? Try offering rewards for things other than just the “hire”. Think about celebrating the activities that can help drive hires. For example, if your company interviews X number of referred candidates over the quarter they get rewarded. Mimosas…a laser tag outing…free breakfast for the month. Maybe try a point systems where employees can earn prizes. How about donations to favorite charities?

MUST DO

It is absolutely critical to talk to every referral, no matter what. Word travels fast, especially via social media. Your employee referral program is part of your employment brand. Timely and respectful communication to both the referrers and referrals are key to not only keeping it intact, but to the enhancement of your reputation and success.

For more information on Talent Retriever and how we can help build strategies for your company as you continue to grow. Click Here