Imagine 100 stones were dropped on the ground and 40 people were allowed to look through them. Some of the stones were precious gems, others valuable – but not as valuable – quartz and others were worthless fool’s gold; although they all look similar to the untrained eye. In that case, who wins?

It isn’t the person who just grabs a stone first. The winner is the person who can identify the precious gems the fastest.

The same applies for hiring. One of the biggest metrics in hiring today is time to fill a position, as a faster hiring process generally leads to better talent and always leads to less unfilled days for a critical position. And yet, hiring the wrong person versus the right person is a huge price swing, as a great employee can be worth 14 times their salary, while a bad hire can cost 30 percent of theirs.

Instead, the real advantage is in identifying top talent quicker than your competitors. How do you do that? Here are four key steps:

1.       Build As Large Of An Applicant Pool As Possible

Spending an extra few hundred dollars or so posting a position on two job boards instead of one, as an example, is an investment worth making. A large applicant pool is crucial to hiring the right person – the more people you have to pick from, the better chance you’ll get a great one.

2.       Screen Them Quickly

The problem with a massive applicant pool is that it can slow you down sorting through them. That’s where a system like VoiceGlance comes in and helps screen the candidates for you. It also allows candidates to take their interviews anytime, instead of being constrained to whatever hours your employees work, which shortens your screening time.

3.       Bring Them In Immediately For In-Person Interviews

Once you have whittled your candidates down to three people or so, it is time to schedule in-person interviews – fast. If necessary, agree to meet with them after hours, if they can’t get time off of work. Great talent goes quickly, so the quicker you meet with them, the better. That also leads to the final step….

4.       Be Prepared To Make An Offer

Say you do have three candidates you want to talk to in-person, it is probably best to interview all three before making an offer. But not always. If you interview someone and your entire hiring team is confident it will be a great fit – not a good fit, but a great fit – make an offer right there. Again, top talent goes fast, and the faster you can get an offer into a person’s hand, the faster your company is zooming along again with a new, great employee helping lead the way.

Conclusion

All told, your hiring process could take less than a month – faster than the average of 47 days – if you follow the aforementioned steps and everything works perfectly. And if you do find a diamond in the pile of stones, don’t hesitate to make an offer, because chances are they won’t be around for long.

Conversely, if you don’t find the right person, don’t be afraid to recast the net (as we argued in this article). Yes, you want to hire someone quickly, but you want to hire the right person as well. No matter how crucial the position, hiring out of desperation is usually a recipe for disaster.

Credit: Rob Lavinsky, iRock.com