When the labor market fluctuates, as it always does, you need to be prepared. You can be recruiting and hiring the best job candidates with a few internal changes that will give you the hiring edge, no matter how competitive the market.

Most small companies worry about the fact that they have fewer growth opportunities for employees or that their total compensation package is much less than the competition. If this has been your experience or the only way you’ve tried to compete for candidates, you need to think outside the box.

Small companies actually have a few major advantages over large companies. This article will focus on the ability to make changes quickly.

What kinds of changes are needed to win at recruiting? Simply, speed up every step in your recruiting process. However, fast does not mean sloppy. Fast means beating your competition to the offer letter.

This process won’t stand a chance unless you first obtain top management’s agreement that changes are needed to improve your recruiting record and approval for the new process. Everyone in your company needs to know the goal is to hire well, but as quickly as possible.

Centralize your recruiting process. This means one person is the hub for all recruiting activity. If you have an HR (human resources) person on staff, this is the most appropriate person. Otherwise, select someone who is organized and can maintain confidentiality. For this article, this person will just be called “HR.”

Create a simple chart that lists each opening, job code (a unique alphanumeric code that identifies this opening), date of opening, hiring manager, advertising used, candidates interviewed, and current status. Start by making things simpler by ensuring all job listings and advertisements use the job code in the “Attn” line. This makes it fast and easy to know which job openings and resumes go together. 

All resumes come to HR for re-distribution to the hiring manager. I prefer to log in resumes, but that’s for another article. The hiring manager must review the resumes within 24 hours of receipt. The hiring manager must then provide HR with a list of resumes being kept for further review and returns to HR resumes that are not in the running. 

The hiring manager (or HR) conducts initial phone interviews to determine whether or not the candidate should be brought in for face-to-face interviews. No interviews should be scheduled until you have made all the phone calls and have chosen the most likely two or three candidates.

Let me tell you about “serial interviewing.” This is my own term for scheduling back-to-back interviews for a candidate. Again, it’s important that the management team recognizes the need to be available for interviews. I like to schedule four or five interviews for each candidate, but they all happen in the same morning or afternoon. Frankly, I leave the candidate in the dark about who they will be meeting. I have found it easier to just tell them to schedule about four hours if everyone is available.

The escape clause there was “if everyone is available.” Actually, you make sure they’re available when setting up the schedule. However, the escape clause gives you the opportunity to stop the interview process at any time without difficulty or embarrassment. Part of this whole process is not to waste anyone’s time, your employees’ or the candidate’s.

You save your employees’ time by not making them go through an interview if the candidate is not viable. You save the candidate’s time by not making them come to your office three or four times for interviews.

The first interviewer is the hiring manager. If the manager does not feel the candidate is truly a possible hire, the interview process is stopped so no one wastes time. If the manager finishes interviewing a candidate and still feels they may be a good choice, the process continues. As soon as the hiring manager is free s/he has a quick meeting with the other interviewers to let them know they are still scheduled. The hiring manager may also express areas where other interviewers should explore a little more deeply. 

This serial interviewing session is the only time you bring in the candidate except under special circumstances, so make sure all your questions have been asked.

After all the interviews are done, the candidate goes home with a promise that you’ll contact him/her. All the interviewers come together for a meeting to share insights and feelings about the candidate. Although the consensus of the interviewers is not the final deciding vote about hiring this candidate, it is always interesting to hear the different things each interviewer has discovered.

All candidates should be interviewed as soon as possible after receipt of their resumes, usually within four or five days. The sooner, the better.

As soon as you find a candidate you like, keep moving forward. Do your reference checking while waiting for the background investigation to be completed. And a side note here … if you’re using a background check company that doesn’t or can’t return the report within 2-3 days, find another company. 

If you have trouble getting the references to return your calls, put it back on the candidate to give you more references or arrange for the callbacks. Also, use the time to start putting together an offer. By the time you receive the background check, you should have all the pieces together to make the offer.

This whole process can be completed in about one week from receipt of the resume, but should definitely not take longer than two weeks.

If you are really trying to stay ahead of the competition, your timing for this whole process is critical. Why? Because large companies often take at least a month before an offer is made and frequently take a month before they even make first contact with a candidate.

Moving with speed can make the candidate feel like you’re excited about hiring them. Plus, you have a good chance of having them on your payroll before your competitors have even tried to interview them.

When it’s hard to find qualified candidates, you don’t want to lose them merely because someone else was faster than you. Take advantage of your ability to move quickly … it works surprisingly well.