Time-to-hire is one of the core recruitment metrics that has stood the test of time across all forms of recruitment whether that be permanent, temp, casual, contractors or internal movements. Time-to-hire remains essential for contingent workforce leaders. Read ahead to understand how implementing a Direct Sourcing strategy can reduce time-to-hire without sacrificing on quality of hire.
What is time-to-hire?
A common misconception is that ‘time-to-hire’ and ‘time-to-fill’ can be used interchangeably. In fact, both are important metrics, and by treating them differently you can gain separate insights. Here is the difference:
- ‘Time-to-fill’ is the number of days it takes to fill your contingent role from the point at which the job requisition is raised to the candidate accepting (note, not the day the candidate starts)
- ‘Time-to-hire’ is a candidate centric metric referring to the number of days between a candidate applying for your contingent role and that same candidate accepting a job offer
In this article, we will focus on how Direct Sourcing reduces time-to-hire and the ways in which it is all anchored to candidate experience from the moment they apply to the instant they accept.
Defining ‘Direct Sourcing’
What exactly is Direct Sourcing, you may be wondering? Or perhaps you’ve come across some contradictory definitions and if so, you’re not alone!
Simply put, at LiveHire when we talk about Direct Sourcing of contingent workers, we are specifically talking about the process wherein a company leverages their own brand and network to attract and engage non-permanent staff. That is, they create an internal talent cloud of candidates for temporary employment roles at their company.
If you happen to be at the beginning of your Direct Sourcing journey, we’ve researched and developed some insightful guides on all things Direct Sourcing, including business case tips and common misconceptions to avoid, so you can achieve early wins.
Why is a competitive time-to-hire important for contingent labor?
The best talent is always in high demand. We all know this, but do we plan accordingly for it in our processes? Contractors are often high-quality specialists with proven skills, as they must frequently demonstrate their capabilities off the back of their reputation and most recent project. Typically, they become highly effective at moving from contract to contract, commonly with their next jobs lined up. With this in mind, it is paramount that lengthy, drawn-out recruitment processes are eliminated for contingent workers so as not to risk losing them to a competitor.
5 ways Direct Sourcing will reduce your time-to-hire for contingent workers
There are 5 essential ways Direct Sourcing will accelerate contingent hiring from point of application to accepting a job offer at your organization:
- Seamless candidate experience
- Having a structured recruitment process
- By nurturing a Talent Cloud of qualified contingent candidates
- Rapid communication
- Running the whole process on a digital staffing platform
Seamless candidate experience
Candidate experience is a trending topic at the moment. As we begin to emerge from the global pandemic, many market dynamics, organizational structures and systems have fundamentally shifted. Companies are now looking to understand how to gain access to talent in this new era. With more top tier talent transitioning to contingent work, one thing is certain: they have the luxury of choice. As such, the way candidates feel as they progress through your recruitment process is vital. Seamless candidate experience is no longer a ‘nice to have’.
As it relates to reducing your time-to-hire, you need to consider how it improves engagement and affinity with your brand, how the right communication – both in the message and channel – lead to a faster response time from candidates and how visibility for candidates enhances engagement which again chips away at the time-to-hire clock.
Organizations using LiveHire for Direct Sourcing found contingent candidates’ median response time was less than 1 hour when using our two-way text messaging, email, and in-platform messaging.
Having a structured recruitment process
Messy is not always a bad thing when it comes to ideation sessions and innovations, but lack of structure is the arch enemy of reducing time-to-hire. You need a structured, documented recruitment process to deliver a fast and efficient time-to-hire. Why so?
- Everyone in the process is clear on their roles
- Everyone in the process is clear how and when to communicate
- Everyone in the process is working to the same clearly defined goal and outcomes
Reputational benefits in the way you present your organization are also important because contingent workers will refer their network of contacts to work for you, having a flow on effect to reducing time-to-hire of future roles as well.
Your chosen Direct Sourcing technology needs to have a clear recruitment process in place for your recruiters and contingent workers.
Build a Talent Cloud
Now, bearing in mind the previous distinctions between time-to-hire vs time-to-fill, Talent Clouds positively impact both these key recruitment metrics. There are numerous benefits of Talent Pooling for contingent workers that you should be aware of:
- Access to a live Talent Pool of candidates
- A better candidate experience
- Encourages diversity and increases inclusion
- Reduces time-to-hire
- Reduces cost-of-hire
So, how does this relate to time-to-hire, especially given candidates often join Talent Clouds pre-job requisition? When a contractor engages with your Talent Cloud, they form an early impression of your employer brand. By getting to know you from a distance, they are already engaged and bought in from the moment they choose to apply. Thus, the candidate’s first impression via your Talent Cloud poses a hugely undervalued opportunity to fast track time-to-hire.
Talent Clouds can further be used to engage and nurture potential candidates before a role is available for them.
Rapid communication
Communication is king.
Why are we defining communication in an article about reducing time-to-hire for contingent staff? Key concepts to take away from this definition are ‘exchange’, ‘behaviors’, ‘rapport’ and ‘verbal or written’.
If you are truly committed to reducing your time-to-hire for contingent workers, great communication, both internally and externally, must be prioritized. Quick, clear and efficient communication is not only a professional secret weapon, but in the context of hiring, it reduces dropouts, slow response rates and time scheduling challenges. All these micro wins add up to positively impact time-to-hire metrics.
Running the whole process on a digital staffing platform
We cannot shy away from the simple fact that technology is a key enabler for reducing time-to-hire. In the context of Direct Sourcing, it’s critical to leverage a leading digital staffing platform to accelerate the hiring of contingent staff. Having the end-to-end recruitment process, from approved job requisition through to candidate acceptance, all managed digitally, delivers numerous benefits that reduce time-to-hire. Specifically, features such as two-ways text messaging, recruitment automation and multi-stakeholder access for information clarity are time-to-hire game changers.
With an increase in cases of COVID-19, the Ontario Ministry of Health needed to accelerate their rapid recruitment and hiring of contact tracers to meet the public health needs. The Ontario Ministry of Health partnered with Raise Recruiting, supported by LiveHire’s technology, to manage the high volume sourcing and hiring of COVID-19 staffing resources.
Raise Recruiting exhibited how Direct Sourcing, with the power of talent pooling and a centralised workflow, can help reduce time-to-submit in both critical and non-critical situations.
Key results included:
- The hiring and onboarding of over 300 people within weeks
- A reduced median time-to-submit of just 3 days
- 60-minute median candidate response time
Client Story: Raise Recruiting’s rapid recruitment for the Ontario Ministry of Health
Final thoughts
Having a fast time-to-hire for contingent labor is not a cherry on top, it’s a prerequisite to remaining competitive in the private sector and delivering effective customer service in the public sector. While there are multiple levers you can pull from the moment a candidate applies to the point they accept, the key is having clear communication, a robust and structured process and ensuring all stakeholders are aligned.
Learn more about how to evaluate implementation options and map out a game plan to maximize the potential of Direct Sourcing with our Direct Sourcing Playbook.
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