5 Signs Your Hiring Efficiency Needs Optimizing and How to Do It

Seeing how tight and competitive the labor market is today, hiring efficiency is critical to the success of HR. If your hiring process isn’t at its best, certain metrics will give you a clue. They’ll highlight the importance of improving communication, assessing candidates better, or reducing time-to-hire to improve your hiring efficiency.     

Let’s discuss five of these metrics and how to effectively deal with them.

1. A decreasing offer acceptance rate

A shrinking offer acceptance rate is a glaring sign that you need to enhance your hiring efficiency. Candidates spend valuable time applying for jobs and preparing adequately for various assessments at your company. If more candidates keep turning down your precious job offer when it finally comes, it’s a strong indicator that something is off. 

A decline in your offer acceptance rate usually stems from a long time to offer. Most job applicants will continue their job search until they receive an official offer. According to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the average time to hire from interview to job offer is around 23.5 days. So, if your job offer doesn’t come quickly enough, candidates will accept offers from other companies and move on.

To effectively deal with this issue, it’s crucial to speed up your company’s hiring process. You can achieve this by implementing a structured hiring process with a stipulated quick time-to-hire. Leverage tools like Pre Hire Assessment solutions to streamline your talent screening process for fast and accurate hiring decisions. It’s essential to automate hiring tasks to free up recruiter time for more meaningful activities.    

These practices will help in reducing overall time-to-hire, boosting your hiring efficiency.     

2. Multiple rounds of lengthy interviews

A hiring strategy that involves many long rounds of interviews needs optimization. Unnecessary and extended interview sessions increase time-to-hire while stressing out both your candidates and the recruitment team. Consequently, they negatively impact your hiring efficiency. 

The Society for Human Resource Management states that an interview normally lasts about 30 minutes. It’s advisable to have from 1 to 3 interviews, with the maximum reserved mainly for advanced-level roles.  

To address the issue of multiple long interviews, begin with a structured interview process that defines both the number and length of interviews. It will ensure that in-depth questions are asked in the initial interview. 

Technology can also help in reducing time-to-hire and erasing any related hassle. Harness pre-hire assessment software to easily gain insight into the candidates’ capabilities. Then, follow up with automated interview scheduling and video interviews.         

3. A high candidate dropout rate

A related metric that proves your hiring efficiency could use some improvement is a high candidate dropout rate. If job applicants increasingly bail on online submissions, choose not to show up for interviews, or otherwise halt their journey as candidates for a role at your company, it signals there’s work to be done. 

Candidates abandon their job applications for a variety of reasons including:

• A slow or lengthy hiring process
• Poor communication 
• Complex hiring steps
• Role mismatch

To curb extreme candidate dropout rates, implement a faster, clearer hiring strategy. Streamline your applicants’ workflow by eliminating unnecessary steps, touchpoints, and waiting time. Craft detailed job descriptions to prevent confusion about what the job entails. Improve communication to always keep your candidates in the loop. 

These steps will retain their interest in the job and reduce your candidate dropout rate. Plus, besides reducing time-to-hire, these steps will help improve your candidate experience.     

4. Extended time-to-fill

Positions remaining open for a long time at your company is another tell-tale sign that you need to improve your hiring efficiency. 

Time-to-fill simply refers to the number of days it takes you to fill a vacant position in your company. It’s calculated from when you open up a position until a new hire accepts a job offer. This metric varies by industry. If your company records a significantly longer time-to-fill than normal for its industry, it indicates that your recruitment process is flawed. 

For a more efficient time-to-fill, consider:

• Promoting your current employees
• Using a referral system
• Developing a talent pipeline
• Investing in a trusted Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to speed up the time it takes you to find suitable candidates in talent pools 

By shortening your time-to-fill, you’ll end up reducing time-to-hire and increasing your efficiency.   

5. High employee turnover rate

Another metric that hints at low hiring efficiency is a high employee turnover rate. If employees keep leaving your organization, especially shortly after the hire, it points to a weak link in your hiring process. 

While there are various reasons for a high employee turnover rate, a notable cause is bad hires. It’s common knowledge that top-tier candidates don’t stay in the job market for long. If you delay, another organization will hire them. As a result, you’ll settle for average or even poor-performing candidates, only to find out that they lack the expertise required for their respective roles. This also leads to an increase in rehiring.

The fact that bad hires cost businesses a lot in terms of money, time, and productivity makes reducing time-to-hire imperative. 

To tackle a high employee turnover rate, prioritize skills-based hiring. With quick skill assessment tests that gauge both their hard and soft skills, you’ll get it right the first time.

You can also implement employee retention strategies such as offering flexible work arrangements, encouraging work-life balance, setting up employee recognition programs, ensuring adequate pay, and providing career development opportunities. 

These strategies will help reduce your employee turnover rate.

If you notice any of these signs, it’s time to enhance your hiring process and increase hiring efficiency. 

Check out how Cangrade can help in reducing time-to-hire and enhance your hiring efficiency today.