One Day Hiring Made Easy: Part I

In a war for talent it is essential that you differentiate yourself from your competitors. If you want to wow top candidates (who have the potential to get multiple offers), you must act differently. Making same day offers will certainly get the candidates attention. What Is One Day Hiring? One day hiring is not for all jobs or candidates. It is designed for people that we have pre-assessed and for those that clearly exceed the qualifications for the position. The premise of one day hiring is that if you build an effective decision process that responds in a day, you will capture superstars candidates before the competitor can even schedule an interview! In a war for talent, you need to differentiate yourself. You can’t gain a competitive advantage if you use the same tools and strategies as your competitors. One day hiring is deliberate strategy for improving both the quality and the number of hires by making hiring decisions on top candidates (and an offer) in one day! Why Do One Day Hiring?

There is no evidence that slow hiring produces better hires. But there is clear evidence that the most desirable candidates are on the job market for “as little as a day.” The key is to identify ways to shorten the process of getting people hired. Most hiring takes between 30 and 100 days, with the latter being a more common number. Delays in hiring can also cause managers (and candidates) to get frustrated and lose interest, because they see no immediate rewards of making hiring a priority. Interviewing and making an offer in one day is a strategy to make your firm appear decisive. Making an offer on the same day as the interview excites candidates and makes them feel important. Making a same day offer sends a clear message to the candidate that they are “special” and highly regarded. Fast hiring is a great image builder. It reinforces your firm’s image as a rapid decision maker. How a firm acts during the selection process is also often seen as a reflection of how companies manage on the job The reason most hiring decisions take so long are varied but the primary reason is that most hiring systems were developed to hire “unemployed people” that have the time to go through an arduous process. However, employed people and top candidates have little time or inclination to go through a long drawn out process. This is especially true internationally or when coast to coast travel is required. These candidates can’t take two days off from their job (and “fib” to their boss about being away at the dentist for more than one day). It’s time to face facts. In a low unemployment period… fast is better! Slow hiring means vacancies. The cost of a vacant position can be extremely high. One computer firm calculates it at $7,000 a day and another at $1 million a week for key positions. Slow hiring delays product time to market and vacancies may frustrate other team members and increase their chances of them leaving also. One day hiring (ODH) gets hires on board faster. Advantages Of One Day Hiring

You get higher acceptance rates and better quality hires.
Applicants may judge your firm by the efficiency of your hiring decision-making. Wasting people’s time irritates candidates and can show that you don’t respect them.
The top candidates want you to make the decision quickly. These top candidates get frustrated easily. They don’t see why it takes so long and why there are so many time gaps in between interviews.
Top candidates are often willing to make a decision pretty quickly because most have already pre-identified the firms they want to work for and pre-identified what they want in a job. They can be pretty quick to make the decision, if you give them the information they demand.
Candidates who have multiple offers can get confused. If you can get to them quickly (when they decide to move on), they might decide right away and avoid the hassle of seeking out multiple companies.
Managers get frustrated with the long process of hiring and therefore don’t spend a great deal of time on it. They will focus on it after they see the immediate results from a one day hire.

Disadvantages & Problems

It might violate a “culture of inclusion” and offend members of the team (employees) by taking away their “vote”, if they can’t be present that day.
Making a fast decision might result in a bad hire. It might result in a firm being fooled because of the brief time for assessment.
It is difficult to develop hiring processes that work that quickly, although it can be done.
HR is not always ready to make offers in one day due to legal issues or wanting to check references first.
Background checks may take a while.
Getting a decision in a consensus culture is sometimes a little difficult because it takes awhile to get everyone together to make a decision.
There is a possibility if you hire people in one day they will say yes right away because of the excitement but later get buyers regret and eventually turn you down.

Companies Who Have, In Some Cases, Made One Day Hires

Agilent
HP
Schwab
Microsoft
Cisco
SUN
Nortel

Part II, “Steps in the One Day Hiring Process,” will appear next Monday.