The math is simple: If you find the perfect candidate on your first try, you will cut the costs associated with time to hire. You will save on wasted training and the pain of hiring the wrong person. This saves time and increases the productivity of your hiring team. Why would you even waste time on a second-choice candidate? We have some tips for finding the right candidate and not settling for second-best.
Finding Your Top Candidate
Finding the best candidate doesn’t rely on resumes coming into your advertisement; instead, a proactive effort to first define the best talent and then seek them out is what separates companies that settle over firms that go after exactly what they want. Why does this matter?
When you make the right hire on your first attempt, your company benefits from:
- Reduced costs. You will spend less on advertising as well as the time-consuming interview process.
- Increased productivity. If you leave a seat on your bus unfilled, it puts pressure on your existing teams to shift workloads to cover that empty seat. It reduces the productivity of everyone on the team as well as the overall output.
- Time savings. Finding the wrong candidate means you will lose money on training but you’ll also lose time, which cuts productivity.
- Improved focus. Hiring the right person quickly means everyone can get back to work and focus on other key business strategies.
- Better morale. A second-choice candidate can create ripples in an organization that affect morale. Hiring top talent means you up the ante on high-quality work for your entire team.
Finding your top candidate on the first try requires a focused approach to hiring that starts with a high-quality job description, an understanding of the cultural fit, and a rigorous behavioral interview process that many teams simply don’t have the skills to carry out. But when you find the right candidate, that’s just the first part of the process—you need to find a way to keep them.
Keeping Your Top Candidate
Creating the perfect candidate profile and nurturing what may be a passive candidate through the interview process requires constant contact. Communicating with the candidate, earning their trust by doing what you promise, and then negotiating the best possible deal are important best practices that your hiring teams should be familiar with. Recruiting teams should be able to balance the candidate’s needs with the hiring budget, too. But don’t wait until the offer letter goes out—keeping your top candidate, once you’ve found them, requires the ability to verbally close the deal even before the offer leaves your inbox.
A.C.Coy is standing by to show you how we can help you find the perfect candidate on the first try. Don’t settle for the second-best. With A.C.Coy, you won’t have to.
