How do we have such great team members? You ask. I don’t lollygag around with the hiring process. When you have a tough job to fill, a skill set that is in high demand and with a shortage of qualified people, you have to move quickly to get them secured as a team member and in the Technology world it holds truer now than ever. Don’t let the old adage “you snooze you lose” come back to bite you. Too many times I’ve seen hiring managers hold to their process of finding a specific number of candidates to interview before moving forward. In the start of my career I always held to that. With age comes wisdom. I’m not saying don’t do background tests, drug tests, or reference checks. What I’m saying is if you interview one person and you know it’s the right person, hire them! Get the ball rolling NOW! Make an offer pending all your processes.
It’s sound to have a good hiring process that works for you and your organization, but you have to think about the current situation and do what is best for business. Technology candidates with backgrounds and skills that are in short supply are in massive demand so you can bet that someone else is looking for them too. The risk of losing them increases with every passing day. Get your cream of the crop team members, move quickly in these situations and you are going to get a greater share of the top talent.
Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, the Chief Economist for Glassdoor, once stated in an article a couple years back that “employers face a tradeoff: The longer they take to screen candidates, the better matches they get. But that’s at the cost of possibly losing candidates to other employers if those delays drag on too long.” I agree 100% with him especially in this ever-changing, competitive landscape of technology. Yes vetting them out over a period of time may be the way a majority of hiring managers do it but my thinking is, “Why wait?”. I know what we are looking for regarding every position and I’ve been doing this for over 20 years so I am completely confident in my ability to validate a candidate. I’ve spoken to so many people over the years that I often know the right person as soon as I speak to them.
We hire great people and have top performers because we don’t procrastinate. If we like what’s in front of us we go get it!
