The Recruiting Truth...Time Is Not On Your Side

In today's marketplace things are constantly changing and so are needs of just about each and every organization. Whether your company is growing organically or inorganically, whether your company is growing domestically or internationally or for one reason or another you just have pain, your organization must be in a position to attract top talent and attract it quickly! But attracting it is only first part of equation. The bigger problem is what you do once you attract talent to your organization.

Stop for one second and think about what you have going on, how crazy your day is and what you think can be put off. More than likely you have multiple positions you are recruiting for. You may be using an outside agency to assist you or are doing it all in-house. In either case, all too often a good candidate is lost due to time it takes to get them through screening and interviewing process.

Think back and try to remember how long it took you to make your last hire and what it cost you to do so. Let's eliminate process of getting resume, which is a difficult and timely task in itself. Focus solely on amount of time it took to do an initial screening of candidate and you were in a position to make an offer. In a perfect world, process should take no longer than 30 days...45 days max. Unfortunately, it is very rarely happening in 45 days anymore and you are paying for it in a lot of ways. The biggest hit... you end up losing an A+ candidate to a competitor. Why? Don't kid yourself into believing they are not interviewing elsewhere! In recruiting business, TIME KILLS ALL DEALS!

Managing the Time You Haven't Got

Do words "time management" rub you wrong way? For many busy professionals, real problem seems to be that there isn’t any time left to manage. You can sometimes get better at managing your time by prioritizing all your tasks and scheduling carefully. But when you're already using all time you have efficiently and there's still not enough, there are four strategies you can try. Make more time. The fastest way to make time can be to buy it. You may think you don't have enough money to pay for help, but think about what your time is worth. If your salary is equivalent to earning $25 an hour, and you pay someone else $12 an hour to run errands for you, that's a bargain. And what value would you set on being able to spend an extra hour having fun with your partner or kids? You can buy time by paying to have your house cleaned, your car taken for servicing, or your laundry done. Pay a professional to prepare your taxes; have your groceries delivered; make routine purchases by phone or Internet. Another way to make time is to double up on activities. Get a hands-free mike for your cell phone so you can return calls, place orders, or give instructions to staff while driving or walking. When traveling by public transit, bring along backlogged mail or documents to review. Use your waiting time at prescription counter or dentist to balance your checkbook or plan your day. Having something to do will also make your wait more pleasant. Make less time do. If this were a perfect world, we could do everything perfectly. Many of us try to do this anyway, and it eats up an enormous amount of time. A good example is writing business or personal letters. If it takes you two hours to write perfect letter, you've lost an hour you could have used to write to someone else. Try setting a time limit on routine tasks like this, and stick to it. You may find that you can write a very satisfactory letter in half time. Embrace idea of allowing what you do to be “good enough” instead of insisting it must be flawless.