I have written a lot about how hiring practices affect the size of your current and future candidate pools and thought that this might be a good time to talk about what you CAN do NOW to increase or maintain your current candidate pool.

I have read a lot of articles from other experts in the field and though they have not conducted the extensive surveys that we have, we all seem to share a common opinion; treat all applicants and future employees with respect and meet their expectation or your ability to find good people in the future WILL suffer.

Here is a TOP 5 list of things you can do right now to improve your ability to hire the right candidate and attract qualified candidates in the future.

1. Send a personal message to EVERYONE who applies to your jobs – suitable or not. They may not be the right fit today – but in a year they may be perfect. We know that up to 40% of candidates will NEVER re-apply to a company that does not respond to their application!
2. Make sure your respond to all the people you want to interview within 5 days of their application. You need to do this for a few reasons; the market is heating up and people are finding work more quickly as well as the fact that over 80% of applicants (qualified or not) expect a response within 5 days (again up to 40% will never re-apply if you don’t meet their expectation).
3. Complete your entire interview process in 5 days or let the candidates know if it will take longer. 84% of people in the interview process expect the process to be completed – yes completed within 5 days! And I don’t mean to sound like a broken record here but over 40% will never re-apply to you if they are frustrated by your process or take another job because your process takes too long!
4. Present your offer within 5 days of the interview process being complete. If you wait too long… if you haven’t gotten the picture yet, your procedure is seriously flawed and you can expect to have troubles now and in the future!
5. Respect the candidates. Don’t present “Low Ball” offers, make people jump through hoops because you think you can in this economy or implement new and outrageous policies that make a new employee feel like they are “under the gun?”

The truth is that most people are not desperately taking any job they can get. In fact most people are holding out for a job that meets their most current level of experience and pay. If you do get someone at a “bargain” you can expect them to be a rental – meaning that they are gone for their fair market value as soon as the opportunity comes their way. You have no idea of how many calls I get from people who took a job to be employed and are ready to leave immediately if the right opportunity comes across my desk.

If you are an employer and in a position to hire, let me give you the best advice I can. DO NOT take the opinion of “we are in the drivers seat” or “now is the time to top up with great people for cheap.” You WILL get burned – you are getting burned right now – you just don’t know it.

Treating a new employee with respect NOW = performance and loyalty NOW & LATER! Treating them like a bargain or second class employee does not equal performance or loyalty it = a huge headache at the wrong time!