With Thanksgiving coming up, you may be thinking about what you’re thankful for and how those things impact your life. But as a small business owner, it’s worth considering your recruiting process and how it impacts the organization’s ability to grow and succeed. In this article, we’re outlining the benefits of improving how you bring on new hires and why those are worth giving thanks for this holiday season.
Understanding the Onboarding Process
Onboarding is a term that includes all the tasks associated with bringing a new onboard into your organization. It begins when someone accepts an offer, and you start planning for their arrival on the team. Examples of onboarding activities include new-hire orientation, training, support from a mentor, and even a tour of the office or workspace.
Orientation is an important aspect of a new hire’s first day, but it differs from onboarding. When you think about orienting someone to a new role, your mind might imagine stacks of paperwork and an introduction to the company mission and values.
But onboarding goes a step further than orientation, as its purpose is to help a new employee feel comfortable and confident in their new role. This comprehensive process can take up to a year to fully complete, and it should involve many people throughout the company.
Every new hire goes through some type of onboarding process but a more robust experience can have a significant positive impact on retention and satisfaction. Gallup data shows that only 12 percent of employees felt good about their onboarding experience.
Additionally, those in that group were three times more likely to report that they have the best possible job. Less than a third of new hires surveyed felt supported and prepared to excel in a new role. These statistics indicate plenty of room for improvement.
5 Reasons to Give Thanks for Better Onboarding
Now, let’s dive into some of the reasons to give thanks for improved onboarding.
Positive employee experience
In today’s economy, it’s more important than ever to provide a positive experience for your employees. People have more options when it comes to finding work, especially in positions and industries that require fewer skills. Make sure your new hires feel supported and excited about their future with your organization by investing in a positive onboarding process.
Improved engagement
Engagement is one of the most essential aspects of managing a workforce. Engaged employees work harder, are more productive, and contribute significantly to the success of a business. But unfortunately, only 33 percent of American employees report being engaged, and 16 percent report being actively disengaged.
A new hire’s first experience with how your organization engages with them occurs during the recruiting and hiring process. But onboarding also plays a role in the overall experience, which has a direct correlation to engagement.
Enhanced retention
Retaining top talent can be a real challenge but onboarding may be the secret sauce your company is currently not using. Nearly 70 percent of employees are more likely to stick around with an organization if they had a great onboarding experience. When you compare that stat with the overall cost of bringing on a new hire, you can see just how important onboarding is in retention efforts.
Increased productivity
A successful onboarding process can reduce the learning curve for new hires, helping them to feel more confident in their roles. As a result, they can get up and running faster, which means they’re more productive. Great onboarding can also minimize how long it takes to become proficient with different tasks and responsibilities.
Supportive company culture
Regardless of the size of your business, you should recognize the value of building a supportive and positive culture. And employees need to understand the culture and what to expect from the moment they consider working for your organization.
Providing a positive and consistent onboarding process for every new hire goes hand-in-hand with the culture you want to build and cultivate. By contrast, high turnover rates contribute to a toxic culture, making it difficult to get good people to stick around.
ApplicantStack Can Take Your Efforts to the Next Level
Are you already giving thanks for these benefits of better onboarding? Or, could your company’s process still use some work? With ApplicantStack, a powerful hiring and onboarding solution built for small business, you can maximize your efforts without overspending.
This budget-friendly platform is ideal for creating consistency and providing support to new hires being brought on board. Learn more by taking a brief video-based tour.
As a small business owner, building your team probably took a lot of time and effort. Hiring the right people is vital to the growth and success of your organization, so the last thing you want to worry about is high turnover. Since employee retention rates are linked to overall satisfaction at work, it makes sense that stronger, more cohesive teams tend to have employees who stick around. Explore our seven team-building tips for small business owners, along with the benefits of building stronger teams.
The Importance of Building Strong Teams
Team-building efforts can go a long way toward creating supportive and effective teams. Some of the activities involved in building your team can boost critical functions, including collaboration, communication, productivity, and morale. Additionally, when the people on your team feel like they can trust one another, they often feel more comfortable sharing ideas and making decisions together.
6 Benefits of Stronger Teams
In addition to the benefits outlined above, team-building efforts can deliver the following advantages:
Improved collaboration
Opportunities to learn and build new skills
Enhanced workplace happiness
Reinforced loyalty and commitment to the team
Improved decision-making efforts
Better talent retention
7 Team Building Tips for Any Small Business Owner
Now that you understand the importance of a stronger team, use these seven tips to build up your workforce and reap the benefits.
Consider unique options
Most people working in the corporate world have participated in at least one team-building activity, and they may not look upon it with great fondness. Instead of opting for the same team-building activity that everyone has already done before, try something different.
Sign up for a group fitness class and grab smoothies afterward to chat. Take a tour of a local museum and share insights into what you saw. Thinking outside the box can create a more engaging experience for everyone involved.
Emphasize the interests and strengths of the team
As you consider what activities to offer to build teams, think about what each member is good at and plan accordingly. Indeed data reports that 98 percent of workers perform better when feeling confident, so give them the chance to succeed by playing to their strengths.
If you’re not sure where people thrive, take the time to get to know them and their unique abilities. Assign tasks based on stronger skills and provide coaching and development opportunities in areas where team members may feel they struggle. These efforts will pay off significantly in the long run, making them worthwhile investments into employee retention.
Be a better leader
When you want your team to collaborate and work together as a strong, unified unit, you have to lead by example. If the workforce sees you pitching in when needed or giving feedback on a project, they’re more likely to follow suit. By contrast, if you aren’t leading by acting the way you want employees to act, you may encounter struggles or even experience higher turnover rates.
Address conflicts head-on
Of course, not all teams will function smoothly at all times. Conflicts happen – they’re par for the course when dealing with differing opinions and roles. Do your best to address these issues head-on, rather than waiting for them to fester and become worse.
Scheduling regular team-building activities can strengthen bonds and encourage members to share their feedback in a more positive and constructive way. Keeping up with the needs of every member of the team can also make a big difference, particularly if you can encourage collaboration between individuals who you feel will work well together.
Ask for feedback
No one wants to feel ignored at work (or anywhere else). Make sure your employees know you’re open to their feedback, and ask for it regularly when considering how to improve morale and boost the strength of teams. When people are willing to speak up, acknowledge their comments and speak to how you plan to address their opinions. If you’re having trouble getting feedback, consider implementing anonymous surveys so team members can speak their minds freely without fear of pushback.
Incorporate opportunities for professional development
When you have individuals on your team who aim to climb the corporate ladder, opportunities for professional development are always appealing. After all, these workers tend to look for ways to get ahead and learn new things. By investing in regular development for your teams, you can demonstrate support while building cohesion. Plus, employees get access to the tools they need to succeed, which benefits the entire organization.
Implement continuous opportunities to work together
Team building isn’t a one-and-done situation. Rather, it’s an ongoing process that requires constant check-ins. Look for ways to encourage teams to work together, both in and out of the office. If you don’t feel like things are going well, be open to change. Try new activities and offer opportunities for members of your workforce to collaborate and build trust.
These tips can help you build a foundation for ongoing team-building efforts within your organization. You may find that employee retention rates go up as people feel supported, valued, and needed within the company. Taking advantage of all the tools at your disposal is also valuable.
Bringing a new hire onboard? It’s an exciting time, although it can also create a lot of extra work for all involved. Communication is one of the keys to ensuring a smooth and consistent process, and that often includes some digital messaging. Check out our guide to welcome emails for new hires with helpful templates you can incorporate into your own process.
What is a New Hire Welcome Email?
A new hire welcome email is a digital communication that prepares a new employee for their first day at work and future responsibilities. It serves as a virtual handshake, ensuring that a new hire feels welcome and excited about their new role. This message can also reduce some of the first-day jitters that often come with starting a new job.
The Purpose of a Welcome Email for a New Employee
A new hire welcome email can serve multiple purposes. In most cases, it exists to provide important information to a newcomer to the team, such as logistics around the first day of work and what to expect. A welcome email for a new employee can also support the onboarding process, maintaining a consistent line of communication.
It will set the tone for the overall experience of the new hire and may include introductions to team members and others who will be involved with the employee. Additionally, your welcome email can let others in the company know that the new person will be starting, their role, and expectations.
What to Include in a Welcome Email
Make sure your email includes the following items:
Position title and department
Start date
Shift times or working hours (if applicable)
Schedule for first day or week
Contact details for manager, HR rep, other relevant team members
Information about physical location, like parking space, what to wear/bring, etc. (if applicable)
9 Employee Welcome Email Templates
Need some inspiration? Here are nine templates to use for different situations, including remote vs. in-person new hires, casual vs. buttoned-up cultures, etc.
Welcome to the team template (in-person)
Dear team,
I’m excited to announce that [new hire’s name] will be joining our department as [title]. [Name] will start with us in the office on [first day] and report to [supervisor name]. [His/her] workstation will be located [outline location], so please stop by and say hi during the first week.
In this role, [name] will handle [list responsibilities]. This individual joins us with [number of years] of experience in our industry, including several years with [name of last company]. Please extend a heartfelt welcome to [name] in this new role and help [him/her] feel like part of the team!
Thank you, [Your name]
Welcome to the team template (remote)
Dear team,
I’m excited to announce that [new hire’s name] will be joining our department as [title]. [Name] will start with us on [first day] and report to [supervisor name]. As a fully remote employee, [name] will be online during our normal business hours: [list hours and time zone].
In this role, [name] will handle [list responsibilities]. This individual joins us with [number of years] of experience in our industry, including several years with [name of last company]. Please send a quick note to extend a heartfelt welcome to [name] in this new role and help [him/her] feel like part of the team!
Thank you, [Your name]
Introducing new hire to organization (in-person)
Hi everyone,
We’re pleased to announce the recent hiring of [new hire’s name], who will be joining our [department name] department as a [job title]. [Name]’s first day will be [date], and [he/she] will be working in the office alongside many members of the team.
Please take a few moments to stop by [his/her] workstation, located [outline location] to introduce yourself and welcome [him/her] to our organization. We look forward to continuing our success as a team.
Sincerely, [Your name]
Introducing new hire to organization (remote)
Hi everyone,
We’re pleased to announce the recent hiring of [new hire’s name], who will be joining our [department name] department as a [job title]. [Name]’s first day will be [date], and [he/she] will be working remotely in the [time zone] time zone.
Please take a few moments to send a quick message to introduce yourself and welcome [him/her] to our organization. We look forward to continuing our success as a team.
Sincerely, [Your name]
Background spotlight template
Hi team,
Let’s welcome our newest member: [new hire name]
[photo of new hire]
[Name] has worked in [industry] for [number of years] years and brings extensive knowledge to [his/her] role. [He/she] will be responsible for [list responsibilities] as part of our [dept. name] department.
[Name] also enjoys [input hobbies/interests]. We look forward to welcoming [him/her] to [company name] and hope you’ll join us in sending a quick message or stopping by [his/her] workstation to say hello.
Thank you, [Your name]
First day logistics email template (in person)
Hello [new hire name],
We’re looking forward to your first day with [company name] and hope you are too! We’re confident you’ll be an excellent asset to the team and want to help you feel settled and ready to get started.
As discussed, your first day of work will be [date]. Please arrive to the office by [time], where [HR rep or manager name] will be available to greet you. Our office dress code is [outline dress code].
Upon arrival, check in with the receptionist and let her know you’re here to see [HR rep or manager name]. You’ll meet with [fill in first contact here] and get your [badge/key/card/etc.] [First contact name] will also show you around the office and introduce you to some of your team members.
We’ll have lunch together as a team, so plan to take some time on your first day to enjoy that. Feel free to contact me at [email address/phone number] with any questions. We look forward to seeing you on [date of first day].
Sincerely, [Your name]
First day logistics email template (remote)
Hello [new hire name],
We’re looking forward to your first day with [company name] and hope you are too! We’re confident you’ll be an excellent asset to the team and want to help you feel settled and ready to get started.
As discussed, your first day of work will be [date]. Please arrive to the office by [time], where [HR rep or manager name] will be available to greet you. Our office dress code is [outline dress code].
Upon arrival, check in with the receptionist and let her know you’re here to see [HR rep or manager name]. You’ll meet with [fill in first contact here] and get your [badge/key/card/etc.] [First contact name] will also show you around the office and introduce you to some of your team members.
We’ll have lunch together as a team, so plan to take some time on your first day to enjoy that. Feel free to contact me at [email address/phone number] with any questions. We look forward to seeing you on [date of first day].
Sincerely, [Your name]
First day agenda template (in person)
Dear [new hire name],
On behalf of [company name], I’d like to welcome you to the team! We look forward to the knowledge and expertise you will bring to the role.
As we discussed, your first day will be [date]. Please review the following agenda so you know what to expect on your first day of work.
On [date], please report to [office location] and check in with the receptionist. You’ll meet with [fill in first contact here] and get your [badge/key/card/etc.]
[First contact name] will also show you around the office and introduce you to some of your team members. Following this introduction, you can plan on the following schedule:
[Event 1: Date, time, location, description]
[Event 2: Date, time, location, description]
[Event 3: Date, time, location, description]
[Event 4: Date, time, location, description]
We understand that starting a new job can feel overwhelming, so we’re doing everything we can to help alleviate your stress and prepare you for what to expect. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you on [date].
Sincerely,
[Your name]
First day agenda template (remote)
Dear [new hire name],
On behalf of [company name], I’d like to welcome you to the team! We look forward to the knowledge and expertise you will bring to the role.
As we discussed, your first day will be [date]. Please review the following agenda so you know what to expect on your first day of work.
On [date], please sign into [communication tool]. You’ll virtually meet with [first contact name] to get settled and up to speed on the plan for the day. You can also sign into your email account using the credentials provided to view your schedule.
[First contact name] will introduce you to some of your team members. Following this introduction, you can plan on the following schedule:
[Event 1: Date, time, location, description]
[Event 2: Date, time, location, description]
[Event 3: Date, time, location, description]
[Event 4: Date, time, location, description]
We understand that starting a new job can feel overwhelming, so we’re doing everything we can to help alleviate your stress and prepare you for what to expect. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. We look forward to interacting with you online on [date].
Sincerely, [Your name]
Feel free to use these templates as you draft initial emails for new hires. Maintaining consistent and helpful communication is one of the best tools in the onboarding process.
You can also take advantage of the onboarding features built into ApplicantStack, an all-in-one recruiting platform that’s built for small businesses. With helpful templates, tools to text and email candidates, and other powerful features, this solution is perfect for any organization that needs to fill open roles.
Working in the healthcare field comes with many fulfilling aspects, including the ability to help others recover from physical challenges and conditions. But when you’re responsible for recruiting in healthcare, you know just how many challenges can come with this role. Explore our comprehensive guide to healthcare hiring, including tips to ramp up your efforts.
An Overview of the Healthcare Industry
The healthcare industry encompasses various organizations, services and professionals who focus on improving and maintaining the health of people. Examples of physical locations that offer healthcare services include hospitals, medical and dental clinics, outpatient and inpatient care facilities, and assisted living facilities. Health insurance providers, biotechnology firms, pharmaceutical companies, and research facilities also fall under the industry umbrella.
Healthcare Hiring Challenges
Since this sector plays such a vital role in society, addressing the needs of individuals who have suffered injuries or are dealing with ongoing conditions, staffing all roles is important. But oftentimes, positions go unfilled. Some healthcare organizations have high turnover, while others are growing faster than recruiting efforts can support.
Another factor that makes healthcare hiring more difficult is the fact that most roles must be filled by skilled and trained professionals. Many positions require specialized education, and those working in the field must comply with strict licensing requirements and regulatory standards. Some areas are also facing a shortage of skilled and qualified workers, making it more challenging to fill roles.
Small facilities may have trouble with staffing, as they likely don’t have the resources to compete in the healthcare hiring market. Additionally, an aging population requires more care, which increases the demand for healthcare services. Some professionals feel burned out, causing them to leave the industry altogether.
Five Tips for Faster Healthcare Recruiting
With the challenges outlined above (and then some), healthcare recruiting can become difficult. But these tips can help you boost your efforts and get the right talent in the door.
Use social recruiting
Social media sites are an untapped resource for recruiting, particularly in the healthcare field. Taking advantage of this often-free resource can help your organization attract top talent and build its branding.
Shorten the time to fill
We covered the importance of tracking and improving the time to fill in recruiting on our blog, and it certainly applies in the healthcare field. Since people may be applying to multiple roles at the same time, speeding up the process could secure your top choice. By contrast, a slower process could push top talent to accept roles elsewhere.
Create opportunities for newcomers to the field
As mentioned, many healthcare roles require specialized skills and training. But limiting open positions to qualified applicants could make them harder to fill. Look for opportunities to provide in-house training and mentorship programs to support newcomers or those who are just starting to build their skills.
Build a talent pool
Creating a pool of talented individuals can help your company hire faster. Even if you’re not actively recruiting, provide a way for skilled individuals to submit their resumes to have on hand should a role open up that aligns with their experience.
Improve employer branding and culture
Your employer branding plays a role in whether jobseekers want to work for the company. Take time to establish a consistent and supportive culture and communicate the values through all recruiting channels.
The Best Hiring Tools for Healthcare Hiring
Finding the right tools for your healthcare organization is vital in the success of your hiring efforts. ApplicantStack is a powerful recruiting solution designed with the needs of healthcare providers in mind. It’s built for small-business budgets yet includes the features needed to find, recruit, and onboard top talent.
CHAS Health, a nonprofit system of 12 community clinics, relies on ApplicantStack to fill its open position.
ApplicantStack has also been a lifesaver for Heartwarming Care, an independently owned in-home care provider located in the Tacoma area.
Bringing a new hire onboard is an exciting time for any organization, but it can also come with some stress. Knowing how to onboard an employee effectively is a must, and this guide to onboarding planning ensures a more effective and efficient process.
What is Onboarding?
Onboarding refers to the process of bringing a new staff member into a role within an organization. It often includes a variety of steps that begin when an individual accepts a job offer with your business. Part of the onboarding process includes collecting vital information, often through the completion of required forms and documents. But that’s not all onboarding involves, and failing to see the big picture can increase your company’s risk of high turnover and poor retention rates.
What is Onboarding Planning?
Onboarding planning involves creating a detailed plan for how the process will look every time you bring on a new hire. While some of the steps in the process will remain the same across all departments and roles, others may need to change to accommodate different responsibilities and needs.
4 Steps to Develop an Onboarding Plan
Follow these steps to engage in onboarding planning in a way that will benefit your organization and workforce.
Know your employee onboarding goal
The first step is identifying at least one goal of the onboarding process. This often includes what a new hire should be able to accomplish by a set date. In order to achieve that goal, what needs to happen? Maybe the employee needs specific training or education, or perhaps they need to do certain tasks to become more familiar with them. With a goal in mind, it becomes easier to establish an onboarding process that includes the steps needed to achieve it.
Create your onboarding training team
Another vital aspect of onboarding planning is deciding who will take part in each step. Who is helping throughout the process? In most cases, the employee’s supervisor will take an active role in bringing them onboard and up to speed on their tasks and responsibilities. But you may also have others involved, such as those working in human resources and IT. Make sure you know who is part of the onboarding team and keep them informed as to their role.
Invest in the right tools
Invest in the tools needed to manage the onboarding process more effectively. A simple option is to create a checklist with all the tasks that need to happen before the employee begins working on their own. You could also use a timeline that emphasizes when each step will be completed and what the new hire can expect.
Technology tools are also vital in ensuring a consistent and highly efficient process. The days of filling out forms by hand are long gone, and it’s time for every organization to say goodbye to this manual and hand-cramping process. Choose an HR system that includes vital documentation with electronic completion capabilities. You can also look for onboarding tools available within your hiring platform, or an all-in-one solution that keeps all data in a single place.
Map your onboarding steps
Map out the steps of the onboarding process to ensure that everyone in the organization is on the same page. You can also provide a copy of the timeline or checklist to your new hire to keep them apprised of what to expect during their first few weeks or months on the job.
Understanding the Stages of Onboarding
We cover the stages of onboarding in detail on our blog, but here’s a brief overview of what each time period should include:
During the hiring process: Collect personal and contact information from the new hire to make follow-up communication easier.
During the offer stage: When making an offer, stay in contact with the individual and answer any questions they may have.
1-2 weeks before new hire’s first day: Before they come onboard, send a welcome message and any new hire paperwork they can complete prior to starting.
Day before first day: Provide details around their first-day schedule, work location, and expectations so they know where to go and what to bring.
On the first day: On day one, make sure to greet the new hire and show them around (if in person), as well as provide all necessary tech tools to do their job.
During employee’s first week: Throughout the first week, a new hire should have someone they can count on to answer their questions and provide assistance. This may be their supervisor or a co-worker.
During first three months: Over the first 90 days, assign the employee small tasks to build their confidence and skills, set aside time for regular check-ins, and request feedback on the process.
Onboarding FAQ
If you have questions about onboarding planning and the process of bringing on new hires, we may have an answer for you below.
How long should the onboarding process take?
The timeline for onboarding often depends on the role and experience level of the new hire. But for most positions, it should last for at least a few weeks. You can also review our blog post that covers this question in more detail.
An onboarding checklist is a document used to track the process and ensure that no steps are overlooked. You can review templates and examples to build your own that aligns with the needs of your employees.
With ApplicantStack, onboarding planning doesn’t have to take a lot of time or effort. With onboarding tools built right into the platform, clients can easily find and bring on top talent. Learn more or try it for free today!
The recruiting process is much more in-depth than it appears on the surface. Recruiters and HR professionals are often measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) behind the scenes to optimize processes, increase candidate engagement and boost the quality of their potential hires.
Further, tracking metrics, such as time-to-fill, helps recruiters communicate the value of what they do and the effectiveness of an employer’s investment in recruiting activities, improving the hiring processes over time.
As one of the more popular recruiting KPIs to measure, time to fill sounds and feels similar to other important metrics. Here, we’re defining what time to fill means, how to calculate it, how it’s different from time-to-hire and more.
What Is Time-to-Fill and How Do You Measure It?
In simple terms, time-to-fill is a recruitment KPI that measures the average amount of calendar days it takes your organization to fill an open role with a new candidate. The measurement generally starts when you get job requisition approval and/or actually post the listing, and ends when a new hire accepts your job offer.
Some organizations may choose a slightly different starting point based on their unique circumstances, but measuring from the date when the role is first advertised is the most standard, and a bit easier to manage.
What Impacts Time-to-Fill?
There are quite a few factors that can affect time-to-fill, most of which are outside of an organization’s control or are simply a product of the role itself. Components that can alter time-to-fill include:
The role itself, i.e., its complexity or what’s being asked of candidates
The job market
The quality of candidates that apply
Your organization’s hiring process
As an example, if the open role requires highly specialized skills, it can take longer to find a suitable candidate. Similarly, if your interview process includes multiple rounds of interviews or requires candidates to submit a video, the time to fill will be longer.
For reasons like these, it often makes sense for employers to measure time-to-fill by department or role. Doing so can help clean up the numbers and leave you with an even more accurate snapshot of time-to-fill metrics throughout the organization.
How To Calculate Time-to-Fill
Calculating time-to-fill is fairly straightforward. To determine it, sum the number of calendar days for each position you filled during a specific timeframe (i.e., a year or a quarter) and divide that sum by the number of hires during that time.
For example, if you hired three new employees in a year, spending 10, 15 and 20 calendar days respectively to move from requisition to offer acceptance respectively, here’s what the formula would look like:
10 + 15 + 20 / 3 = 15
In this case, your average time to fill is 15 days.
Time-to-Fill vs. Time-to-Hire
A similar-sounding recruitment metric, time-to-hire is often confused with time-to-fill and vice versa. However, the two KPIs are distinct and serve separate purposes.
Here’s a brief comparison:
Time-to-fill measures the average number of calendar days between an organization deciding to open a new job position or posting the listing, and having a candidate accept the job offer.
Time-to-hire highlights the amount of time between when you receive an application for a role (i.e. when a candidate enters the funnel) and when a job offer is accepted.
Same endpoint, different starting point.
Why Is Time-to-Fill Important?
Beyond the more tangible benefits that will be outlined below, there are a few additional reasons why measuring time-to-fill is important for your organization:
It provides a quick reference point: If you find that your time-to-fill is significantly higher than industry benchmarks, which in 2023 is an average of 44 days, it’s a pretty clear sign that making a change may be a good, strategic play.
It helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your recruitment strategy: Striking a balance between too short and too long a time-to-fill is essential. Measuring your recruiting KPIs can give you insight into what’s working well and what needs to change to optimize the candidate experience.
It can help gauge changes in the labor market: The economy is in constant flux, which means the labor market is, too, influencing recruiting and hiring trends. If you historically have had a low time-to-fill and you notice it trending upwards, you can better prepare for changes and take proactive steps to optimize your hiring process.
But what about more tangible benefits?
The Benefits of Measuring Time-to-Fill
Recruitment metrics, in general, help recruiters optimize their organization’s hiring process by highlighting areas for improvement, identifying practices that are working well and more.
Time-to-fill specifically, however, offers a few unique advantages for employers.
Streamlined Hiring
Tracking time-to-fill helps organizations identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in their recruitment process. By pinpointing where delays occur, companies can take corrective actions to streamline hiring procedures.
Common recruiting bottlenecks include:
Indecisive or overly critical hiring managers
Too many unqualified applicants
Manual candidate screening
If you notice that your time-to-fill is stretching out longer than you’d hoped, you can dig into your processes and make amends where necessary to bring the number down.
Cost Savings
Lengthy recruiting often results in higher costs. Advertising a job post on third-party boards and websites is not free. In fact, some job boards can cost as much as $500 per month to advertise a listing. Optimizing your time-to-fill means less money spent on advertising.
In the same vein, if your company holds in-person interviews for an open position, you may have to reimburse interviewees for travel expenses, including transportation, food and lodging. The sooner you can find a suitable candidate, the less money you’ll need to spend.
Gain an Edge Over the Competition
Having a long time-to-fill not only puts strain on your organization but impacts the candidates involved in the process. The longer it takes to make a hiring decision, the more likely candidates are to walk away from the opportunity. In fact, 62% of professionals start to lose interest in a job if they don’t hear back within two weeks (10 business days).
A faster hiring process produces better chances of maintaining interest from top talent and securing those candidates before your competitors.
Enhanced Decision-Making
Collecting time-to-fill data using an applicant tracking system enables organizations to analyze historical trends and make data-driven decisions about resource allocation, staffing levels and recruitment strategies.
Reduce Your Time-to-Fill With ApplicantStack
Applicant-tracking software like ApplicantStack automates integral portions of your talent acquisition process to help reduce time-to-fill, find the right candidates more quickly and even aid with employee onboarding for a more seamless experience.
Our software operates on a recruit, screen, select workflow with intuitive tools for:
Creating and publishing job postings online
Functional recruiting where you may be most likely to find the right candidate, like social media
Creating questionnaires and scoring applicants
And much more
The platforms help talent acquisition teams streamline and automate essential recruiting checkpoints, such as pre-screening, pre-employment assessments and candidate nurturing to boost engagement and reduce your time-to-hire.
Start a free trial today and discover how ApplicantStack can help you make better hiring decisions, quicker.
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