I think we can all agree that our business world seems to be moving faster.
We live in an era of instant replies. It is expected that things happen more quickly than before. There is a greater sense of immediacy.
It is interesting and possibly understandable that job seekers appear to have an attitude that vacancies must therefore get filled more quickly than before.
As an example, a standard ad on SEEK runs for four weeks. There have been that many times when someone would ring me at day 15 or 20 of an advertising campaign and say, “I see the job has been advertised for a while, have you filled it?”
This leads me to believe that A) there are jobs being advertised that have been filled, or B) applicants expect roles to be appointed within 2-3 weeks.
With several ads I have gone as far as putting in the advertisement lead-in, “If you can still see this ad, we are still looking for quality candidates.”
While the quality of applicants varies with the job category, level of seniority and location across Australia, a quality hire is obviously not completed until that letter of offer is signed off.
In my opinion, a quality appointment should prevail over a reasonable time-frame to fill at a cost-effective price point unless it takes an incredibly long time and costs an extraordinary amount of time to get someone on board.
Regrettably, there a number of regional locations that are struggling to find quality staff at any cost that have moved offices to more metropolitan locations irrespective of whether a greater portion of their work is elsewhere.
It is unfortunate that candidates could believe someone could be hired before an on-line ad is removed. However, in the ultimate analysis, while many facets of the business world are moving more quickly, this does not mean that HR activities should be rushed.
“Hire slowly, fire quickly” is still a good mantra.
Sometimes things take time.
After all good people typically are already employed.