Many employers haven't figured this out yet, though. They still believe that it's 2008, and long lines of desperate applicants will form when they announce an opening. Especially in the case of skilled workers, they are finding that they have only a handful of candidates to pick from -- at best. This is after months of searching, bringing in recruiters, placing online listings, calling around to their 'network', and offering 'referral bonuses'. Often the people that do apply want a wage that is out of their range. Hardly anyone is accepting 'trial for hire' (i.e. temporary) arrangements. If they did, you'd have to wonder why. Everyone willing to work is already working. And everyone that's working is looking for a better position.
In short, every employer is trying to hire workers from someone else. A lot of employers have figured this out by now, but their actual hiring practises don't reflect this. The hiring process moves at a glacial speed, and these slow employers often lose out on qualified candidates simply because other employers are more 'nimble'.
I start at a new job in a few days. The hiring process was relatively fast: three weeks. It could have done in half that time, however. My current (soon to be former) employer took over six weeks to hire me. The only reason I stuck it out was because they were located very close to my home. Another former employer took an ungodly nine weeks to actually make an offer.
What are the common delays?
- Waiting for 'better' (i.e. cheaper) applicants. While they wait, the qualified applicant gets hired by someone familiar with the state of the local labour market. The slow employer usually ends up paying more or ending up with someone far less qualified. This also includes the ever-popular "internal posting policy", which means somebody might want to move into the job for less money...so we have to let them have first crack at the position, right?
- Multiple interviews. You might interview with a manager and a supervisor. Then, the employer decides that 'Steve' needs to talk to you, because he has a tangential role in your job. Now you have to wait for Steve's calendar to be clear, and the first two will want to sit in on the interview...so three people now need to be available on the same day and time. Then there's the HR interview, which can never be done on the same day. Every scheduling conflict moves the date back an entire week, for some unknown reason. And every interview requires the applicant to take time off his current job. Meanwhile, someone else has hired them.
- HR reps are sloooow. By the time you get to the HR rep, weeks have been used up -- if not an entire month. But the biggest delay is yet to come. HR reps seem to always be on vacation, out of the office, in meetings, or at seminars. And they always want a three hour window in their schedule to handle a 30 minute interview. Pretty much all of it could be done over the phone. The benefits sheet could be emailed, but they really want to read it out loud to you in your presence. Then they need to schedule the drug screen and background check. This process might take 15 minutes, but they somehow need to wait for the stars to align just right or wait until they have a couple of hours free. This whole process can easily take three weeks.
- Wanting to see if the replacement solution "works out". In virtually every case, the previous employee has left before the employer really even starts "looking". Someone has been assigned the previous employee's workload. They are the next person who will be leaving, usually. Maybe they can handle two jobs. Who knows? There might be a nickel raise in it for them, after all. Or there might not. Let's give them time to settle in to their 60-hour week, with unrealistic expectations and constant failure to live up to those expectations. They're a "team player", right? We told them it would only be for two weeks, and it's been two months. Let's wait another month before we even begin the months-long hiring process. We'll tell them we're "looking" hard. Really hard.
- "Corporate approval". This is the best delay. The employer is taking resumes, has listed the job as open, even talked to promising candidates. But the department or manager now needs "approval from corporate" to actually hire a person. Golly gee, it's out of their hands. Word could come down any day now. The qualified candidate just got hired by someone else, though.
All of these delays are premised on a delusional notion that people really, really want to work for their company, and will put up with anything to get a shot. I mean, we have benefits (everybody does). We pay a competitive wage (everybody does). We have a "great team" (everybody does). There's opportunities for advancement (meaning more work for the same money). Everybody has those, too.
These slow employers also compound the damage of their hiring practises. Candidates who give up on the glacial pace are frequently black-balled from future consideration. This causes negative word-of-mouth to spread about the practises of the slow-hiring company. This means even fewer applicants for positions going forward. Often, the lesson learned by their glacially slow hiring is that the employer wasn't careful enough. They should have been even slower, in order to determine if the applicants are really and truly serious about working for them.
What ends up happening to these slow companies is pretty simple. They hire a less-experienced person for a low wage and tell that person copious lies. Big raises are a certainty...if they "work out", for example. This person leaves after a short while, because they now have the requisite experience to get a much higher wage from another company eager to hire them away. The replacement person has left...which means more "opportunities" for the new hire (sure)...so they are even worse off than before.
Meanwhile, the nimble company has hired all of the best people around, leaving the slow company with inferior candidates and even poorer options. If the nimble company has any future openings, word-of-mouth will go a long way to ensuring that they have the best selection. The slow company will literally have their people hired out from under them before they even have a glimpse of a clue.
As I said, it shouldn't take more than two weeks too hire a qualified person.
