Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Not any more. I couldn't tell you the amount of times in the last few weeks that I've called a candidate to arrange a first round interview only to find that they've already been offered another position. While one company is perusing CV's and thinking about a shortlist another company is grabbing candidates as soon as they see them.

It's not unusual for there to be a lead time of a few weeks between submission of a CV and the scheduling of an interview. This typically goes something like this; the job is released, both on the company website and to it's agency partners; they then allow 2 weeks to accept CV's for the role. Then it's a week for the Hiring manager to assess the CV's and decide who they want to see; at which point they arrange an interview for the following week. During that same period the candidate has gone through 2 rounds of interviews, a reference and medical with another company!

The market has moved. It's now more candidate driven than 12 months ago. Companies are expanding and strong candidates usually have more than one process in play at a time. The more agile and flexible companies are streamlining their recruitment process, speeding their process along and securing the best talent in the market. Some are scheduling both first and second round interviews on the same day.

Talent is accelerating; we all need to keep up. Slow and steady is now the stuff of fairy tales.