To all of my fellow People Operations professionals: we have a problem.

How long would you say is appropriate for a candidate to go through a full-cycle internal recruiting process? I put an emphasis on appropriate because I’d also like to know how long you REALLY think the recruiting process for a candidate should be?

If you are in any way connected to People Operations you already know that the recruiting process is many times too slow, too unreliable, and most alarmingly, too outdated. Candidates fall into the ATS “black hole” when they apply for a job and never hear a single peep from prospective employers. In an appropriate amount of time, a candidate is asked to do a phone screen but then never hears from the employer again. Employers ask candidates to come onsite multiple times, where candidates oftentimes give up their lunchtime and other personal time, and then never hear from the employer again.

It seems that at every step of the recruiting process there is a gigantic chance of it breaking down.

Now, I am not going to pretend that all candidates are angels and make the process any easier. But, that is another topic for another day. Right now, we are trying to hone in on why employers drag their feet and don’t make recruiting their #1 priority.

Laszlo Bock, former VP of People Operations at Google and current CEO at Humu, says that people are the #1 asset to any company. If that's the case, then why do most employers treat folks in People Operations, and subsequently candidates that apply for jobs, like they are giant pieces of crap?

(I don't know the answer to that question.)

Here is an example of a candidate experience gone bad:

A hiring manager calls a candidate for a phone screen (30 minute call), then follows up with an onsite between the candidate and same hiring manager (one week between call and onsite, onsite visit of one hour), and then follows up with another onsite between the candidate, CEO and Owner (one week between first onsite and second, second onsite is two and a half hour visit). So far the candidate has endured three weeks with the employer’s process and the candidate has invested four hours of their time to interviews alone. That doesn’t count travel time, candidate prep time, sending thank you notes, etc. Then, for no apparent reason, the employer ghosts. The candidate follows up two separate times and hears nothing in return. Then, FOUR WEEKS LATER, the hiring manager calls the candidate back with a whimsy apology and asks for more time to talk about an offer. The candidate declines to speak any longer with them as they have already accepted another offer (and started with a new employer) and had long since written the employer off because of the drawn-out recruiting process. The candidate had felt their time was abused and they felt they weren’t truly valued for the role they coveted. The total time for the employers recruiting process: Seven weeks, or 49 days, or 1176 hours.

I have another question.

What can we possibly be doing if our time is so much more valuable than a prospective candidate and we can’t even send them a courtesy email?

This is truly sickening and looks bad for everyone in People Operations, not just the folks in the above process example.

I’ll leave you today with some interesting tidbits:

1. 64% of candidates say long waits after an interview is the most frustrating part of their job hunt.

2. 24% of candidates will only wait one week to hear back from an employer after an interview.

3. 29% of candidates say 7-14 days (not weeks!) is too long for a hiring process.

4. 46% of candidates lose interest in a job if the hiring process is too long.

I was going to cite my stats, but then I thought “you know what, who cares what the numbers are?” I could have just made up ridiculous numbers and scenarios as Barney Stinson does and many of you wouldn’t have questioned it at all. The reason being is we already know the process is broken!

So, I leave you today with a few questions - mainly how do we fix recruiting? How do we make the candidate experience more enjoyable and satisfactory for everyone? What has your company or organization already done to address some of these issues?

Feel free to share your advice and leave your comments below and let’s help each other make recruiting better!