What a survey of 272 recruiters tells us about HR recruitment processes

The recruitment process is one of the most complex areas of HR. There are many steps during recruitment that need to run smoothly from the creation of an accurate job description to vetting candidates, shortlisting, and making the final job offers. Running these processes smoothly is of utmost importance for hiring, and later retention, of employees. To find out more about the biggest hiring and interview scheduling problems faced by recruiters today, we surveyed 272 of them. Let’s take a look at what the results showed…

Interview scheduling takes too long

Our survey discovered that 41% of recruiters still take three or more days to schedule an interview with candidates. 11% took a week or longer. 

Finding ways to reduce this number is therefore imperative for recruiters that want to reduce their time and cost to hire, and provide a better candidate experience. 

A poor interview scheduling experience reflects badly on the recruiter and company they’re hiring for, meaning that candidates are more likely to drop out. They may be more likely to decline a job offer, too.

The more candidate-friendly every step of the interview process is, the more likely candidates will be to endorse the company, even if they’re unsuccessful. This can make a huge difference to future hiring processes and a company’s employer brand.

Communication methods are still an issue

The reason it takes so long to schedule an interview is because the systems many recruiters and employers have in place aren’t efficient.

All of the recruiters we surveyed still send several emails or make several phone calls to find the right time for hiring managers to meet with candidates. Sending one email or making one phone call doesn’t take long, but when scheduling interviews the time spent on these tasks adds up fast. 

If it takes 15 minutes to write an email, and a recruiter needs to send three emails to schedule an interview, that can equate to 225 minutes of productive time lost to schedule one interview. It’s time nobody can afford to waste in an increasingly productivity obsessed world.

Not enough companies are offering candidates the ability to schedule their own interviews, either. Having interview scheduling capabilities in your HR software that present candidates with the real-time availability of the hiring manager – or hiring managers – takes away the need to send countless emails, increasing efficiency and reducing friction during the hiring process.

More interviewers = more time wasted

61% of interview panels consist of two people. The more interviewers there are, the more complicated it is to find a time that works for everyone. Instead of it taking 225 minutes, it can take 7.5 hours to find a time that works for a two-person interview panel. 

The more the panel grows in size, the more time this adds up. 

This is time that hiring managers – and the recruiters they work with – could better spend on other tasks, such as preparing for the interview itself, or sourcing more candidates.

Conclusion 

It turns out recruiters and hiring managers are wasting far too much of their working week on scheduling interviews. You add in the time it takes us to return to a task when we’re interrupted, and this adds up even more.

This is a waste of time for hiring managers and recruiters. The more vacancies they need to fill, the more time they lose to interview scheduling. But they only have so much time. The longer they take to fill those interviews, the more money they lose and the more damaging it is to their employer brand.

When it comes to interviewing hundreds of candidates for vacancies during the holiday period, this isn’t sustainable.

It’s inconvenient for candidates, too, as they have to take time out of their working day to take phone calls or respond to emails. If they miss a call or take too long to respond to an email so that they can cross-reference their schedule, it’ll take longer to schedule their interview.

Using HR software that is capable of handling the recruitment process from beginning to end is a no brainer for businesses looking to make their hiring strategies more efficient. By having interview scheduling capabilities, the time hiring managers spend on agreeing interview times and aligning schedules can be saved and redirected to more important matters. 

You can read the full interview scheduling report on the Cronofy blog.