Is Speed Hiring Right For You? -

Labor shortages in the U.S. have been a longing issue that businesses have been battling with due to the rise of the Omicron variant and the “Great Resignation.” According to the Labor Department’s latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover report, approximately 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in 2021 which is equivalent to 3% of the total U.S. workforce. Most of the turnovers came from minimum-wage industries such as food services, health care, social assistance and warehousing. In order to combat labor shortages, companies such as Home Depot have adjusted their hiring strategies in order to get their speed hiring perfected.

How Fast Is “Speed Hiring”?

Dubbing the hiring shift as the “speed hiring” era, companies are taking less time to hire in order to expand their workforce. Jobseekers usually have to go through a timely process before obtaining a job. On average, the hiring process takes about 23 days to hire with some industries taking up to 53 days to hire. Not to mention, the jobseeker market is highly competitive as it is candidate-driven. Jobseekers have more bargaining power over employers and have a variety of job options.

Some Companies Offer One-Day Offers

In response to the hiring challenges, Home Depot plans to offer job seekers a position within a day of receiving their application. With Home Depot’s plan to increase their workforce by 25% in the Spring, speed is the name of the game in their hiring strategy. According to Home Depot’s vice president of talent acquisition, Eric Schelling, he states that “We know that the same things that are important to our consumers are important to job seekers — speed, simplicity and controlling the experience to fit their schedule”.

What Types Of Companies Are Speed Hiring?

With the current candidate-driven market, speed hiring might be best suited for companies who lack the right personnel to run their businesses and need positions to be filled right away. For companies that require skilled workers, speed hiring doesn’t mean that the business neglects their hiring standards. This implies that businesses need to reevaluate their hiring strategies in order to speed-up the hiring process. Especially with a candidate-driven market, speed hiring provides companies with a one-up from competitors who are seeking a similar candidate.

As companies are eager to acquire top candidates, speed hiring allows businesses to cut back on hiring time and costs, gain access to higher quality hires and potentially increase job acceptance rates.

Speed hiring allows HR managers and recruiters to reduce the amount of time spent in recruiting, researching, and screening candidates. This also reduces the time spent for HR managers and employees covering the workload for the unfilled position; in which, cuts back on hiring costs.

On average, top candidates are out of the jobseeker market within 10 days. Speeding up the hiring process allows businesses to recruit top qualified candidates before other competitors. This secures businesses with their ideal candidate and prevents businesses from missing-out on quality hires.

Besides acquiring the top suited candidate, speed hiring increases the chances for job acceptance rates. Providing a faster and more efficient hiring process provides a positive candidate experience, avoids candidate bidding from competitors and prevents candidate drop-out. Providing a timely offer also gives jobseekers less time to interview with other companies or engage with counter-offers from other hiring managers.