It’s difficult to maintain a level of intensity when a recruitment search gets ‘old’ or the new year is stretching out to the new quarter and there is just as much to do as there was 30 or 60 or 90 days ago.  Finding the motivation to keep momentum going on recruitment efforts takes discipline and positive re-enforcement.  I find some HR Managers/Corporate Recruiters "get" how important momentum is to the process but others don’t so it seems fit to start there.

PARAMOUNT to anything in the recruitment process is time.  My mantra around TZ is "Time Kills All Deals".  If someone asks me who Talent Zoo’s biggest competitor is, I answer "TIME!" not another recruiting firm’s name.  There are psychologies behind this phenomenon I don’t profess to understand, I only know they exist. 

• When the interview process takes a 7-14 day break, someone will lose interest - either the candidate or the hiring manager.
• When there is more than a week between final interview and offer extension, the offer will be declined.
• When there is more than 2 days given to accept an offer, the offer won’t be accepted because the candidate is holding out for something else.  If that something else doesn’t pan out, the offer still doesn’t look great.
• The most recently interviewed candidate will be the most favored by the hiring manager (if you’re the candidate who interviewed first, your deal just fell apart)

With these truths occurring far more frequently than not, you can see how keeping momentum is the ultimate goal.  The best advice I have is to chart out the process on paper and require all parties adhere to the schedule.  The first week of a search is reviewing resumes.  The second week is initial interviews.  The third and fourth week are final interviews, decisions, and offers.  Honeymoons, new business pitches, 3 day weekends, whatever else comes up, don’t let it affect the agreed upon timeline.  Recruitment is everyone’s responsibility, not just HR, but HR should be in the driver’s seat to keep the pace up.  At this time of year with Spring in the air, the get-up-and-go everyone had to start the year waning, and the talent pool only shrinking, I wish you luck.  The cards aren’t stacked in your favor but as always, with the right recruitment partners we can help.