The days of long interview and hiring processes are over. Timing is more important than ever. “We all know that the hiring cycles are way too long,” says Kelly Mawhinney, a partner at Toronto HR consultancy Mercer Ltd., who was recently interviewed on the topic by Michael LeBlanc, senior retail advisor at the Retail Council of Canada.
Mawhinney says she recently visited a client and had to tell them, “You guys are killing people. There’s no way people are going to go to this panel, and this test, and this panel, and this test.” She advised the client to compress the timeline for hiring. “You’ve got to streamline the process. You have to follow a game plan when hiring and you have to tell the people hiring what the game plan is going to be.”
She stresses the importance of staying close to the potential hire throughout the accelerated process. “You really have to be proactive, you really have to be streamlined, and you really have to get bums in seats quickly.”
But getting the new hire in place is only part of the challenge, she notes. “Then the retention game plan has to kick into gear, because you don’t want recent hires deciding, ‘I really don’t like this job.’”
