How To Make Time for the Hiring Process

When you're hiring a new person, it's usually because you have more work than you can shake a stick at. So much so, that you're often left wondering how to make time for the hiring process. You're in the catch 22 position of needing someone but not being able to find the time to find someone.

How to make time for the hiring process: time management 101

Not having enough time to find a new team member can be alleviated by managing your time around the process and being clear about what is achievable. When you are hiring, you need to have a clear understanding about needs doing and in what way.

The most important part of the recruitment process is understanding what you need and what type of person you need to do it. If you cannot articulate this to someone else, how do you expect a person interviewing for the role to show their competency? This needs to be your focus and Cranberry Panda can help and guide you. Block time out to get this done.

When you have this, it may allow you to clearly share work amongst the team you already have in sections so that it can be covered a little before you find the right person. If that is not possible, it at least gives you a list that you can prioritise so that the work that needs to be done, gets done.

Recruitment timelines and expectations

Whoever does your recruitment can help you with some of the timelines and expectations, depending on the type of role that you are advertising and what their pipeline looks like. Being clear on some hard dates allows you to come to quick decisions and manage your workload as you go through the process.

Once you have a decent job brief, if you are passing the task to a recruiter, you can stop (momentarily) and take a little breather. They will post the job and give you an idea about how long it may take to get a decent set of applicants. This is where expectation setting is really important. Set aside time each week to go through the applicants your recruiter shortlists for you. Know which questions or feedback you need to be passing on before they call you chasing for it. It is good practice to have regular time set aside for this, for both the recruiter and you. If the CVs don't suit, you can explain why and the person collating can make adjustments without affecting the search - and everyone's time - too much.

Why Waiting for the 'Perfect' Candidate can Harm the Hiring Process

Have a clear deadline for the job role closing. If you wait too long for the 'perfect' candidate, it may encourage indecision. Once the deadline is closed, you can shortlist the full list of relevant candidates that you have identified with your regular calls. This is where things can start to ramp up again. When the number of applications are overwhelming and time is short, phone interviews can help you generate a smaller list and it will give you a better idea of the amount of people that you may well want to take to the next stage. This is the time that you inform your interviewing panel that they will be needed soon.

I am a big proponent of time chunking, so I favour trying to do all the face to face interviews on the same day. You are likely to be able to get everyone focussing on the task in hand and you know you are done at the end of the day. It gives you a chance to compare the candidates against each other with similar questions.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you remain hydrated and well-fed during the day, take regular breaks. It has been found that when you have low sugar, you are less likely to make sensible decisions.

Make time for interview feedback and reflection At the end of an interview day, wrap up with all the interviewers and get their feedback. It is important to make a decision on this day and to make note of all interview feedback so that it can be passed on to your recruiter and they will contact the 'no' candidates with feedback. If there are candidates that you're not sure about, you need to get to a yes or no answer; there is no space for maybe. If you don't have any in the 'Yes' pile, better to go back to the beginning of the process than to try and get someone forced into it. It is not good for them or you. Review your hiring criteria and make sure that what you need and are looking for is described well in the initial brief that you shared with your recruiters.

Timelines: the key to hiring success

The key to a successful hiring process is keeping the timelines reasonable on all affected sides so that you can get through everything as quickly as possible. Carve out specific times for each element of the process and agree on it with your recruiter and interview panel. If anything changes, let them all know. It means that you can set clear expectations with the candidate; they know when they will get a decision either way. It also means that you, your recruiter and your interview panel can set the right amount of time aside to achieve the best results possible from the hiring process.

Doing things this way might not free up lots of time to get through the hiring process, but it will make the process more effective overall (for everyone involved). And it will stop you from getting bombarded and side-lined at an incredibly busy time.

Find out more about our guest blogger Ghilaine Chan

Ghilaine is passionate about allowing people to do their best work and delight others Ghilaine helps people to operate fast growing businesses in a productive and streamlined way, keeping an eye on time and money, whilst increasing motivation and improving customer relationships in a fast paced, changing environment. She brings order to chaos and creates scalable processes around the business, empowering them to delight their customers. She works with tech based or enabled companies who are looking to disrupt their industries, but know that people are at the centre of their success and helping them manage their teams to:

Do their best work and delighting others Create some boundaries, but not cages Know they are acting for a purpose Determine which part they play, that what they receive enables them and what they produce is useful Have autonomy over how and when they produce She has over 15 years' experience in scaling international business functions for technology companies, within their support and consultancy organisations. Ghilaine is a graduate of London College of Fashion (now part of University of the Arts: London) with a degree in Product Development.

She is a Mentor with Microsoft Ventures,UpRising and Outbox Incubator as well as an Approved Business Coach with Growth Accelerator, now part of Business Growth Services. Want to know more? Connect with Ghilaine on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter and visit her website, Ghilaine & Co.