Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
I’ve been called the father of speed hiring, perhaps because my first article on it appeared nearly 25 years ago. And today, I’m outlining a version of speed hiring that I call “Start Next Week Hiring” (or SNWH).
This program’s primary goal is to first make a hiring decision within seven days, but then only hire candidates who can literally start work immediately. This accelerated approach is necessary because in today’s highly volatile business world, there are many times when team managers literally need their new hires to be on the job “yesterday.”
Hiring manager to recruiter… “I need them to start work yesterday.”
Recruiter response… “I’ll have them on the job next week.”
Yes, Yesterday Is An Unreasonable Expectation… But It Is Possible To Hire Candidates Who Can “Start Work Immediately”
In today’s world of cost-cutting, every employee on a team is likely to be essential. Therefore, it’s not that unusual for a manager to actually need a new hire who can literally “Start Work Next Week” (or SWNW).
So, if you’re willing to do more than simply shake your head when you hear a manager scream a “I need them yesterday” demand. Begin by realizing that finding and hiring “start next week candidates” is possible if you do these four things.
First, attract candidates who don’t need to give two weeks’ notice, those you’ve already assessed in the past, and those who will likely jump at the opportunity to accept your offer. Then, you must streamline and accelerate your hiring process so that it is completed within seven days after a position is posted.
SNWH – For when they absolutely and positively must start next week!
So, if you’re interested in learning the key steps of the “Start Next Week Hiring process.” Below, you will find what I’ve learned about the approach. In this comprehensive “how-to guide,” I have separated the required actions into five SNWH steps.
SNWH Step I – Make It Easy To Learn “The Availability Date” Of Each Candidate
The foundation success element for the SNWH process is to focus your recruiting and hiring effort on the candidates who can literally start work next week. Obviously, you won’t be able to identify and prioritize those SNWH candidates until you know their availability date (the day they can start work). There are two steps in identifying each candidate’s availability date.
- Maximize your number of qualified applicants by highlighting your starting date requirement – you can attract more “SNWH” applicants while at the same time avoiding wasting time on those who can’t meet your starting date requirement. This makes it almost impossible for any potential applicant to miss your starting date requirement. Do that by placing a sentence in all of your job postings and recruiting materials that make that requirement for the job crystal clear (e.g., We are only accepting applicants who can start on April 21).
- Make it easy to identify qualified applicants by forcing them to list their guaranteed availability date – in order to cut down on the number of unqualified applications you must review. Make it easy to instantly identify which applicants can meet your start date requirement. Require each applicant at the very beginning of each application to list their earliest guaranteed starting date.
Step # II – Focus on The Candidates That Won’t Need To Give Notice
The one single factor that has the largest impact on delaying a new hire’s start date is their need to give two weeks’ notice. So, your next critical step is first to identify and then focus on the categories of candidates that probably won’t need to provide notice to their current employer. There are three categories of candidates who will likely not have to give notice.
- The unemployed won’t need to give notice, so they should be treated as priority candidates – because your currently unemployed candidates obviously won’t need to give notice. You should automatically prioritize their applications. And, of course, most full-time employees will have to give notice. Those applications should be assigned as your lowest priority.
- Retirees also won’t need to give notice so they should be a primary target – because most retirees, by definition, don’t work full-time. They also won’t need to give two weeks’ notice. So, that means that retired applicants should be prioritized for SNWH jobs.
- Many temp workers and part-timers won’t need to give notice – in today’s difficult economy. Many who are currently working temporary or part-time jobs would prefer to shift over to permanent positions. And because their current boss will likely understand (and may even support) their desire for more permanent employment, the bosses of many temporary, part-time, or contractors won’t be expecting any notice.
Step III – Prioritize The Candidates That May Require Less Assessment
Because rigorous candidate assessment often takes up at least 75% of the total time allocated to your hiring process, you can dramatically reduce the overall time that you need to spend on candidate assessment. If you first identify and then prioritize any of your current applicants that you have already assessed. As a side benefit, your past assessment history will also decrease the odds of a mis-assessment and a failed hire. There are three categories of candidates that may have already been assessed.
- Your former employees may require less additional assessment – you’ll need significantly less assessment time for the applicants who were recently your employees. So prioritize your top-performing former employees who now want to boomerang back.
- Finalists for your past open jobs may need less assessment – obviously, you already know a great deal about current applicants who were finalists for one of your recently opened jobs. So this time around, you will be able to safely shorten the time that you devote to their assessment.
- Applicants who are employee referrals have already been assessed by one of your employees – in a well-designed employee referral program, your top employees will only refer candidates who clearly meet your strict requirements. So you might be able to reduce your assessment time for these referral applicants. As a side benefit, you also get an honest “second opinion” from your employee about the candidate’s ability to start the new job on the required date.
- Because you already know a lot about the prospects in your talent pipeline, they may need less additional assessment – if you maintain an active talent pipeline and continually assess those in it. Many in your pipeline won’t need as much additional assessment.
Step IV – Focus On The Candidates Who Are The Most Likely To Say Yes To Your Offer
It’s important to note that another primary factor that delays the completion of your overall hiring process is how often you must at least partially restart your hiring process after one or more of your finalist candidates reject your offer. So, in order to avoid that loss of time, it’s critical that you also prioritize the candidates who are the most likely to accept your offer. Those categories of candidates include:
- Knowing a candidate’s job acceptance criteria will reveal whether they will likely accept your offer – you can increase the probability that a start next week candidate will accept your offer by asking them upfront to list their “job acceptance criteria.” Based on the criteria they provide, most recruiters can quickly determine if there is a reasonable chance that they will accept your offer.
- Candidates who are referred by your employees and boomerang rehires both have a high acceptance rate – applicants who were referred by one of your employees usually have one of the highest offer acceptance rates. This is because your employees will likely actively encourage them to accept. Former employees who want to boomerang back are also likely to accept. They already thoroughly know the job, and they have already decided that they want to return.
- The unemployed and retirees usually have high offer acceptance rates – because both the unemployed and those who are retired clearly don’t have a job right now. They usually have a high probability of accepting your offer.
- Temporary workers, part-timers, and contractors also have a high acceptance rate – because most temps, contractors, and part-timers are actively seeking permanent employment. You can expect a high percentage of them to say yes in order to gain additional compensation and job security.
- Full-time permanent employees are the least likely to accept your offer – in many cases, candidates who currently have a permanent full-time job are the least likely to accept any offer. Simply because it’s easy for them to decide to stay in their current situation.
- A “start on time” incentive will increase your offer acceptance rate – almost every final candidate will be able to think of a dozen reasons why they could or should delay starting a new job. But fortunately, most of those minor excuses go away when you offer them a “start on time” bonus.
- If you allow them to initially work side-by-side jobs, more of your finalists will be able to accept and start on time – this last option is vitally important if you need an extremely high offer acceptance rate. In cases where your finalist finds out at the last minute that their current boss suddenly expects two weeks’ notice. If you have some flexibility regarding the hours the new hire must work, you can allow your finalist to work both jobs simultaneously during their notice period. By initially assigning them to work in your job outside of normal hours (usually on a night or weekend shift) until their notice period ends. Obviously, because of potential performance issues, you need to be extremely cautious.
Step V – Actions for Speeding Up Any Hiring Process
Your SNWH effort will more likely be successful if you reduce the time it takes to reach your hiring decision. The next section highlights the six elements of the hiring process where you are likely to save the most time.
- Increase manager focus by providing them with a compelling business case – if you expect your hiring managers to devote more time to recruiting. You will need to provide them with a compelling business case that shows them how they will benefit directly from the SNWH process. I found that it’s best to work with your CFO’s office in order to develop that case.
- Because interview scheduling is a primary delaying factor, it should be automated – the back-and-forth of interview scheduling is incredibly time-consuming. So, it is almost essential that you have an online interview scheduling app that allows your top candidates who have completed their initial interviews to self-schedule their remaining interviews electronically.
- Because requisition approvals are a primary delaying factor, you may need an always open requisition – another major delaying point in your overall hiring process is waiting for the job requisition to be approved. So, for SNWH jobs, it may be essential to have a pre-approved and always open requisition. (i.e., an evergreen job),
- You will speed up your entire hiring process if you immediately begin assessing all resumes the day they are received – it’s a primary delaying factor if you wait until all resumes are received before you start assessing them. Instead, designate a recruiter to assess all incoming SNWH resumes on the same day they are received so that you can immediately begin prioritizing the resumes of those most likely to become top candidates.
- Making most interviews remote is a primary timesaver – because face-to-face interviews require so much scheduling and travel time. It makes sense to make most of your interviews remote and electronic. That means that in lieu of most face-to-face interviews, you should instead rely primarily on telephone interviews, live Zoom interviews, automated interviews, questionnaire interviews, and text interviews. Other interview shortcuts include limiting all but the final interviews to 30 minutes, interviewing all qualified walk-ins immediately, and stopping interviews the minute the interviewer realizes that this is not a top candidate.
- Accelerating your reference checking will save significant time – you don’t want your reference checking process to slow up your hiring decision. So, in many cases, you should begin reference checking immediately after you are down to 2 or 3 finalists. If you are unable to satisfactorily complete the reference checking for your finalist on time, you can make your offer to those finalists contingent upon the eventual completion of all reference checking.
Additional SNWH Process Improvement Actions To Consider
If you’re serious about implementing an SNWH process at your company. Here are some additional process improvement actions that you should consider:
- Limit the number of jobs that qualify for the SNWH process because that will dramatically speed up your hiring – your SNWH process should be reserved for the 5% to 20% of jobs most likely to produce immediate hires. Obviously, you should allow individual hiring managers to request participation in this process. But it’s critical that recruiting leaders make the final decision on which jobs should qualify.
- Qualifying and educating the participating managers and recruiters will improve your process – it’s critical that you educate each of your managers and recruiters about the process, including why it works and the common failure points to avoid.
- Always include a “delay option” if you are unsure about an SNWH candidate – because the process is admittedly expedited. If there is any significant uncertainty about a candidate, it’s best to put the candidate on hold and move on. Or, instead, consider hiring them initially under a short-term contract.
- Don’t ever use slow communication channels – whenever possible, avoid the use of snail mail for communications. And when you need a quick response, send a text rather than an email. And when you need a hard copy of your offer to be signed. Use an overnight service both ways, or simply ask them to come into the office to sign.
If you need more information on hiring for a manager’s “need date,” you can find it here.
Final Thoughts
In most cases, the primary benefit you will receive from speed hiring is that you won’t lose your top candidates to your competitors who generated earlier offers. However, with this “start next week hiring” approach, it’s important to realize that you get the added benefit of dramatically reducing costly position vacancy days because your team will be fully staffed at the precise time it is most needed.
Note for the reader
This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was called “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company.
Please help spread these ideas by sharing them with your team/network and posting them on your favorite social media.
