Could We Really Make One Day Hiring Work?

John Sullivan is one of the most respected HR thought leaders in the world. I have been reading and citing his ideas forever, and love getting his articles through my ERE.net subscription.  John tends to put forth ideas slightly before they catch on in the mainstream, and that’s why my interest was piqued when he introduced the single-day hiring process.

We all know that hiring takes too long. By the time your organization gets it together enough to make an offer, a top candidate has gone somewhere else.  Unemployment rates are dropping rapidly, and no one has the time to sit by the phone for months, waiting for the opportunity to interview with you for the third time.

Current Recruitment Processes Can’t Keep Up

Lengthy hiring processes are also outdated. SilkRoad and I have been talking about the future of talent acquisition a lot this quarter, and two things keep coming up over and over again: 1) Operating with open positons hemorrhages money and kills productivity, so we need a way to hire in as close to real-time as possible, and 2) The expectation that the best candidates will walk into your office for several in-person interviews at a moment’s notice is unrealistic.  Technology has facilitated an evolution in these areas, yet our processes lag behind. Enter John Sullivan’s one-day hiring idea.

Could Speed Recruiting Be the Answer?

One-day hiring is a condensed corporate process in which you complete all interviewing and reference checking and make an offer before the candidate leaves the building or finishes an initial digital interview. John provides a lot of helpful details on ERE.net, but there are two important things to keep in mind.  First, a great deal of assessment and vetting of the candidate must take place before the day in question so that you can ensure he is a good fit skills and culture wise. Secondly, one-day hiring should be reserved for the 5-20 percent of jobs that are hard to fill because most qualified candidates are off the market in days.

For more where this came from, take a look at the SilkRoad blog.