Three Ways to Avoid Losing your Perfect Candidate

Have you recently lost a perfect candidate you thought was joining your team?  You spent a lot of time and effort to find a perfect candidate, and now you have to start over. Demand for great candidates has increased recently, giving them the power to choose their best option. 

Connexis Search Group places over 100 molecular diagnostics, CLIA lab, and life science candidates annually, giving us the inside scoop on how to prevent losing a candidate. Below are our recommendations.

Having two candidates who are equally capable of doing the job is the best way to avoid issues of not making a hire. Most companies do not accommodate this process, which is a mistake. The majority of hiring processes are designed to narrow down the candidate pool to one candidate who travels to the company headquarters for final approval.

The assumption is that the candidate has been through several phone or in-person interviews with the hiring manager, and the last approval is with higher-level decision-makers at corporate. The only problem is that 2-3 other companies are pursuing most candidates and may not decide to join your company. Now you have to start the 2-4 month process over!

Have you ever mapped out the steps in your hiring process? If not, I recommend getting with your HR team and finding steps to eliminate or combine. When the demand for candidates is high, you have to be decisive. Some hiring managers equate a quick process to one that is not effective; this is not the case. Below are some suggestions to help reduce the time to hire:

• Eliminate phone interviews and go straight to in-person interviews.

This is easier to do when working with a search firm that understands what you are looking for and eliminates candidates who are not a good fit. The more you work with one firm, the easier this is to accomplish since they know what you are looking for and will only present top-tier candidates. If you are working with multiple firms, you cannot eliminate the phone interview step. See “How to get the best out of your recruiting firm” for more information about the disadvantages of working with multiple search firms. Typical time savings = 2-3 weeks

• Interview at least four candidates in person on the same day.

Your search firm will pick the four best candidates and schedule them to meet you. Many hiring managers meet candidates sporadically throughout 3—4 weeks, prolonging the hiring process. Candidates you interviewed early in the process and were interested in may accept another offer if you take a long time to advance them to the next step. Typical time savings = 2-3 weeks

• Schedule the final interviews ASAP after deciding on your top two candidates.

The hiring manager should quickly work with corporate headquarters to schedule the candidates for final interviews. The longer the delay, the more likely it is that one of the candidates will accept an offer from another company. This is also an excellent time to “test” your offer to ensure that the candidate will accept what you are proposing.

If you work with a well-trained recruiter, they will know what other opportunities their candidates are considering. Ask your recruiter how interested the candidate is in working for your company. Knowing this information will help you decide which candidates to bring in for a final interview.

Candidates are reluctant to reveal too much information about other opportunities they are considering; they want options and feel like the more they reveal, the less control they have. Medical candidates are in demand, so they do not stay on the market as long as they did 2-3 years ago.  Using the same strategies of the past will no longer work.