3 Ways Employers Can Save Time in the Busy Season

The holiday season is upon us and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. After Thanksgiving it always seems as though Christmas is in full swing and the madness begins. Right after that you have New Years. It’s a non-stop period of friends, family, shopping and cooking. It’s a jovial and exciting time, but we can’t forget that our daily work load and schedules must still go on! During the holiday season, it can be a bit more difficult staying on top of things with so much else going on. That’s why employers and hiring managers should jump at anything that can save them time and energy in the hiring process. Even though the holidays are in the background, positions in the company must still be filled and for some companies it’s the busiest time of the year. Thankfully, there are a number of tools hiring managers can use in order to save themselves time and stress during the holiday season.

One-Way Video Interviews
At the top of list for saving hiring managers and employers time are one-way video interviews. The phone interview has been a staple of the hiring process for as long as hiring managers can remember. Therefore, it should be well-known that phone interviews can eat up a whole lot of time. In fact, it takes on average 30 minutes to complete a phone interview with a candidate. How many times have you spoken with a candidate on the phone and knew within five minutes that they were not going to jive well with the position? To be kind and polite, you stayed on the phone for the extra 25 minutes anyways. What a waste of time. Phone interviews are enough to kill anybody’s holiday cheer.

With one-way video interviews, saving time for you is the number one goal. When you hear that you can complete 10 one-way video interviews in the same time it takes for you to complete that one phone interview, you can’t deny the time-saving effects. With one-way video interviews, you send candidates the questions you want answered and they send you their answers in video. That way, if you don’t like what they have to say with the first few questions, you can move on to the next candidate gracefully with no guilt.

Live Video Interviews
As another tool in the screening process, live video interviews can save employers some more time in hiring. With live video interviews on Spark Hire, employers can get face-to-face with candidate’s right away before inviting them into their office for an in-person interview. You can dig deeper into their qualifications and learn even more about them than you did in the one-way interview without ever having to leave your desk. The best part about live video interviews is that you can speak with candidates that are in another state and expand your candidate pool. This can be especially helpful during the holiday season when there is a lot going on. If you are really interested in a candidate that is far away, it would be really difficult to coordinate a time for them to come in to meet during the holiday season. With live video interviews, you can interview with them online, and both you and the candidate can know that if they do come into the office it will not be a waste of time and travel.

Knowing the Position
Aside from video interviews, what can save employers and hiring managers even more time is to know the role you are hiring for like the back of your hand. Without a deep understanding of how the role operates, what skills are necessary, how the role supports the one above it, etc. then it will be extremely difficult to find the perfect candidate for it. Knowing the ins and and outs of the position will shave time off the hiring process because you will be able to weed out bad candidates that much faster. Creating a great job description is part of this tip and can work to shave time off the hiring process as well.

Office work and hiring must go on during the holiday season, but anything to cut back on the stress and time associated with the hiring process should be welcomed. Keep the holiday cheer and implement some of these tips to cut back on some of the time you spend hiring this holiday season.

What are some things you do to save time in the hiring process? Share with us in the comments section below!

IMAGE: Courtesy of Flickr by paparutzi