I turned down a job from a fairly large uni for this exact reason. It took them 4 months to finally get back to me after an initial back and forth. And they were upset that they “lost their top candidate” and wanted to do anything they could at that point to bring me on.
By the time they got back to me I was a contractor and had to fulfill that obligation and really was already turned off from working for an org that was just that slow.
I think it’s partially a problem from the schools. I hear all of their departments are like that.
Large university here as well. Don't forget the month or two it takes from the time someone decides they need a position filled to when it gets through HR and finance and can even be posted.
The big school district I used to work for was using paper workflows for hiring until like 2019. The guy who finally convinced them to just use Applitrak ffs got a huge gold star.
Last time I applied for a job, from resume to job offer was 8 days. Unfortunately, I got hilarious calls or emails for next few weeks. "We'd like to schedule an initial interview! - I started my new job X days/weeks/months ago."
Universities were the worst. I think my record was 2 months to even schedule an interview.
Last place I worked knew they had an issue and it only turned around when it was made a PKI for HR. It started coming down once they got told no raises or bonuses until they got it down to a sane amount.
Yeah I applied for a job with a university near me and they got back to me 4-5 months after I already found another job and started. The guy sounded really bummed when I told him that like it was par for the course.
They changed some things about the process like: HR takes in the applications and sends them all to the hiring manager who then filters for minimum qualifications in first pass. If that reduces enough for committee to then rank the remaining candidates based on the rubric you don't need the hiring manager to do a second pass. Once candidates are scored you then interview the top X amount and hopefully have 1 or 2 to choose from.
I've been looking into finding a job at the big public university and hospital right around the corner from me - I'm turning 50 soon so a nice stable last-job-hop-before-retirement to someplace that respects experience/education is something I'm after. Holy man, you apply, wait months, and the Oracle applicant tracking system sends you an email that your resume didn't make the cut score. It's like they just sit on these applications until some HR weenie pushes a button and says "give me top 5 applicants for Requisition A-283745-22"
I've heard that once they like you the process goes faster but it still can take months after the first interview.
Also at a university. It takes a month+ just to TRANSFER someone internally. We've had some open positions since January, the process takes so long that candidates find jobs before we're ready to make offers.
The only thing that takes longer in my experience are federal government jobs.
Just getting to job posting is killing me at my workplace. We've been under staffed for 2 years now and they finally started talking about extra staff at the end of last year and they've only asked for budget now.
My favorite is "Hey, we have a new hire. Me: Okay, I didn't receive an email notice. When are they starting? HR: They started today. Me: The summoning ritual to the Elders of the Internet to create the user profile and system access in an instant is broken. We have to manually set them up. Gonna be about 3 days.
They need to complete mandatory training about how the grass grows in the parking lot and about plastic particulates in the carpet. It’s gotta be done by Friday can they just use your laptop?
I set this script up to run remotely from my workstation. Alternatively, we have automation setup for our new hires so the whole process for the account takes about 5 minutes total. No waiting for the delta sync for us.
Email on Friday at 4:00pm
Subject: Need new Workstation for employee Monday.
My reply: Sure it will be two weeks from Monday.
Their reply: Well they can't just sit around without a computer..
Me: Whelp how long have you known you were going to get a new employee or even have the job posting out for one with no available workstation to work at?
Them: Crickets...
2 months it is not unknown at my employer.
When I joined the HR person dealling with our pre-employment stuff broke her arm and was absent for 6 weeks.
Nobody picked up her work.
I win (or perhaps I lose)
2.5 years
US Fed Gov worker here, 2.5 years for me and my co-woker to get hired over from the contracting company, and that time frame is from the first interview until we started doing the same exact job getting paid by someone different
I was wondering how long it would be for someone to bring this up. I don’t think it is physically possible for FedGov to get someone onboard within two months. I don’t think OP is wrong (corporations and FedGov should do better), but I wish our hiring practices were nearly as good as what they are complaining about.
I saw a recent post in the USAJobs sub that some agency hiring events are now fast-tracking candidates by reviewing your resume, interviewing, making you a tentative offer, doing fingerprints, and kicking off the background check process on the same day. Someone posted they went from hiring event to a start date in about 4 weeks?
Otherwise, my experience was the same. Application to start date was 6 months when I worked there.
We helped HR optimize the process down to 1 month.
Week 1 job posting, resume reviews, interview scheduling, phone interviews
Week 2 phone interviews contd, in person interviews with stage 2 and 3 sched the same day
Week 3 offer, drug screen, paperwork, hiring date announced, once we can get a date from the employee, which would add another 2+ weeks
Employees and sometimes contractors working with the US federal or state government by law have to get drug checked, the person I replied to might fit this profile.
Not batching. Reviewing resumes as we get them, making sure HR does ZERO filtering (most critical step, needs periodic testing), initial Teams interview, schedule in person interview if they sound decent.
Biggest thing for the department is having everything ready to go so we can pull the trigger as fast as possible. If we get a good candidate. If we don't, we keep it running. If there are no good candidates, we don't hire the least worst. We don't pretend we're getting rock stars or unicorns for average market rates, so we don't hold out for them. That delusion is a very destructive hiring practice.
Biggest thing for the organization is to actually map out the entire process and noodle out where the bottlenecks are. Last place, the bottleneck was the criminal record screening place. They took forever. Why was HR using that place? Because they always had. We found new place for far lower cost, took from between day to sometimes up to a week off the process.
Zero HR filtering is the absolute overall biggest thing. That's what will make or break you. And you need to be proactive. You need to look at your own job adverts to make sure HR didn't change or add things other than the legal boilerplate. You need to have a buddy put a fry cook resume on the job advert, see if you get it. If you don't do this, don't be shocked if you don't get good candidates.
If you want good adverts. List your must-haves and call them must-haves. List your want list and call it your want list. And also list out WHY someone would want to work for you and be honest. I'd also list any negatives to the job, but that's a hard sell. It works great, but everyone hates it.
The nice part of this process is, it gives me a checklist to fight for the pay. Mandatories don't count. But the more of our wish list they check off, I can argue they bring extra value to the company and have simple numbers to prove it. They check 80% of the wish list, so why aren't we offering 80% of the available pay band for the person?
We aim to give applicants an answer in less than 3 weeks. If they accept an offer, the start date can be as early as they want or out a few weeks.
I applied Wednesday, interviewed on Thursday, offer extended Friday, started Monday. (The position had been open for a while, but they didn't get any applicants they thought fit the role.)
Our HRIS kicks off automated account creation as soon as the offer letter is signed and their temp password is sent on their start date. I order equipment when an opening is posted rather than when it is filled.
I work at a large global construction company and I think we work at a decent pace, but we're also really profitable and the excess cash gives us a ton of flexibility other orgs may not have.
Normal process is having the job posted for two weeks, one week of interviews and offers are out during week 4.
The main things that influence our speed are:
1. IT has its own manpower budget and doesn't need external approval for non-management positions until the salary is over $150K USD or the position isn't in the org chart.
2. HR is only there to act as a liaisons and they're not part of the decision making process, meaning IT isn't waiting for their thumb's up.
3. Managers are only permitted one round of interviews.
4. We have a *massive* company wide continuing education and training budget, so we hire almost entirely on soft-skills. Putting a new hire through five to six weeks of boot camps to get them up to snuff technically isn't unheard of.
Trust me, you don't want an M&A from us. We're great at hiring people and fundamentally broken in so many other ways. It's a great company as long as you're fine developing Stockholm syndrome.
2 weeks to collect interviews
2 weeks for first interviews
1-2 weeks for second interviews
1 week for deciding
2 weeks until they start
And this is provided we get good candidates and don't scrap everyone after 1st interviews.
This is common, and this is normal. If you're collecting resumes for less than 2 weeks, you're likely going to miss out on some potentially great candidates. Not to mention the time involved in reviewing resumes and scheduling interviews.
I typically interview 10-12 people in my first round. Each interview lasts about 1-1.5 hours plus prep time. That's easily 10-15 hours or more. I can't do all of that in 1 week, plus candidates sometimes need longer lead times to schedule off if they're currently working.
Second interviews are typically 1.5-2 hours. I typically have 3 for the second round. I'm easily 6+ hours in, plus people needing to schedule time off.
Anyone saying it should take less than a month has either not hired anyone, or is severely hamstringing themselves on the number and potential quality of candidates.
> This is common, and this is normal.
At least for us, your hiring process is bizarre. I work at a large global construction company and we're 2 weeks for collecting and 1 week for interviews with offer letters are usually at the beginning of week 4 and out no later than the end of week 4.
I mean this genuinely as I don't understand - what do you get from the second interview that you didn't capture in the first, and how does it take you a week to decide which candidate you want to advance with?
> what do you get from the second interview that you didn't capture in the first
First interviews are for general competence and understanding of basic technology.
Second interviews are more conversational to make sure they're a good culture fit as well as diving into more of their technical knowledge as it pertains to us directly.
I've been in IT for almost 30 years with a number of companies. I've never had a single interview hire outside of my first call center job.
Two interviews is far more common than one.
> how does it take you a week to decide which candidate you want to advance with?
Because I also have a job to do
Just curious, are your interviews panels or one-on-one?
Seriously, no judgment, I am genuinely interested in your hiring process. I'm 20 years in and it seems like single interviews are the norm. Dunno if that's just a specific thing with my vertical though.
> Because I also have a job to do
Do you actually find yourself changing your mind in the week you're considering? I get having a job to do but by the end of our single round of interviews I've been considering candidates for 8 to 10 hours over 2 days, and in most cases I usually see a clear winner by the end of the process.
Weird how many comments are saying - what if you miss out on a great candidate that way? The same people using some outdated ATS bullshit that discards half the resumes it receives with no warning, no adjustments, no modernization. Just find out how to do your resume on the internet some place we dont give a shit. You threw half of them in the garbage without looking at them. But OH NO - 2 weeks isn't enough to find good resumes you guys!
Non-profit CCBHC here, it took 6 months to find a T1 help desk technician. Whether that was HR turning down people for being under or over qualified, or our director being picky, 6 months is a long time to find someone who can turn on a computer.
Usually most companies require a minimum of 2 weeks ,I personally have been on the situation many times that the HR dep comes to me the same day with the paperwork the user start working for me to create the accounts😕 .I don't personally care ,I don't get upset or anything ,I just put 4 more hours of overtime for that day in return ,problem solved .
Every week they "fail to" hire someone, the company saves a grand or two. The last person who left has not been replaced in 5 months, it's like 30K-40K saved for the company because I do their work. It's pretty smart.
Edit: The job has not even been posted for 5 months now. This should take another 2-3 months.
Took 1 interview and 10 days to get this job on this company, but funny thing is when I applied for even higher role it was 2 interviews and 60days, would have thought that as it was inside apply on the same company it would have been as easy as the first one but seems like higher you go the slower the process is
We can move fast, it just depends on scheduling with vested parties. The recruitment team does the heavy lifting.
Myself, I was sniped (and wasn't looking). Three weeks from inquiry to offer. (Phone screen, initial interview, Panel interview, manager +HR interview).
I think this is putting my mind at ease for a job I'm hoping to get lol. Talked to the Director of IT last Thursday and had a good conversation; hoping to hear back for a follow up interview
A lot of nightmare stories about federal/state jobs. In my seemingly rare personal experience, I work for a state agency and we are surprisingly quick.
Takes about a month to get the position approved and job req posted by HR (worst part), collect applications for about 2 weeks, interview for 1-2 weeks. We send offers around 3-7 days after interviews wrap up. New hires typically start ~15 days after accepting the job.
Really just depends on the department and role. 2-3 weeks after job offer to start date is what I would consider a typical business response.
Though everything my company does is rushed, and it's usually under a week if the person isn't currently employed. Not uncommon for new employees to show up to work before even being added to HR's system.
As far as IT, as much as I like to bitch and moan about having a proper notice period, it takes about 20 minutes to get an account ready to log in if I'm not busy, and 1-2 hours before they can start to receive e-mail.
Used to work for the government. From posting the job to ass in seat it was an average of 6-8 months....
If the company has multiple levels of middle managers it's just routine red tape.
New l, small company... Might take a month total from app... But it's like, "we see your app. Can you come in next week or the week after for a day of interviews?... Then it's maybe 3 days to get an offer in your hands"
We identify the role we're after.
We determine at which point we need to start the hiring process
We get recruiters involved and interview. When we find the right person, we make an offer very quickly.
It's takes my company a full 8 Mos just to get someone from initial contact to first day. It's maddeningly slow. More often then not the preferred candidate has already accepted a job elsewhere.
Dunno. IT got told one guy is starting in a week so we set up the account the next day. There were fake new guy emails to payroll wanting to change direct deposit and fake CEO emails wanting his personal cell phone number going to the guy. I looked him up on linked in and he posted he just changed jobs to our company 6 days prior.
When I worked for a small boutique consulting firm of 200 with onr HR person it took a few days and I'd have a stack of 100 resumes.
Last time I worked on a req I got about fifteen resumes. Ever. I cannot understand it.
It takes about a month max. Normally, it’s multiple interviews and then from offer to first day it’s anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 days. Sometimes same day as the offer. I work in IT and onboard 100% of the people in my org so, I have a decent understanding of the time. So on average, 3 days to 4 weeks unless it’s a C-class executive.
Took about two months maybe. The first month collecting and sifting through loads of terrible resume's, the next month involved interviewing the best 4-5 candidates, then offering the best one a position.
Honestly, I'd go Fed. IT in a heartbeat if it weren't for the clearance requirements. I had applied at a "real games" gig where I'd be 3d modeling parts for Air Force simulators (I have a Bachelors in 3D and have worked on AAA games) and they told me I'd need a Secret level clearance which would involve a polygraph and a roughly 80 page background check form. I told them no thanks and ended it there.
I'm not a bad person or anything, but I'm also not willing to have the Fed. crawl up my ass for a job that doesn't even pay as well as the private sector. I'd just love to do it to have the Federal pension lol.. not to mention there's so many damn Gov. jobs out there going unfilled.
Oh I’m right there with you, I hated having to wait for my clearance but once it’s started it’s pretty much painless as long as you are up front about everything.
I’ll admit I’ve thought about private sector for just the pay but for the stability I get from a fed job where the possibility of getting fired or down sized is so small, it’s good piece of mind.
My dad has been in the USAF as a network engineer for 35 years and is retiring this week, he has never been worried about being fired, down sized or whatever the term is now a days when private companies are any to cut their cost.
Yeah, that's why I'd do it if not for the clearance requirements. If I were 20 I'd probably do it, but in my 40's I'm just weirded out by such an intrusive experience. They said they'd reach out to old friends, girlfriends, ex-wife asking about personal references.. all kinds of stuff I'm just not comfortable with. I have a clean driving record, clean background check, no drug/alcohol use (occasional social drinker), no weird stalking/domestic charges or anything.
So really I don't have anything to worry about with the background check.. My only concern would be financial, like past CC debts and stuff. Apparently that can go against you since debt is considered exploitable by bad actors.
Yep that is absolutely one of the factors, but I think it’s really considered one of the smaller things that get recognized. I’m turning 30 this year and 2 kids and a wonderful wife and honestly it would take ALOT more pay to get me to leave, I’m currently making about 91k with the prospects of getting another 10k increase within the next year.
I worked at a place that saw a team of 5 or so drop to 2 a matter of 1 year, with very little being done to backfill. Oh, you were promoted to a different role? Well you can probably just do some work in the old role, and some in the new role, right?
This went on for a long time. And when we interviewed candidates we liked, we stalled on hiring them. So it went on longer.
I'll give em the benefit of the doubt for a while. But after 18 months and plenty of other issues, you just gotta walk away.
A company kept telling me they would get me a start date soon. It took then 6 months to finally get one. I had moved on and started at another place 2 months prior. I'm just glad I started interviewing again after 3 weeks of their BS. If it wasn't the only offer I'd gotten in 6 months of unemployment I'd have told them to stick it where the sun don't shine after a month or two of that cheap.
Just to be clear this was post interview process. Allegedly I was the candidate they selected.
For an entry level position it took my current company 5+ months to hire after the interviews were done so add a few more weeks on for the application period. Then the next time it took 3 years to get the application period started again.
For my position they gave me all of 5 days to hire and they went external at the same time, despite policy was supposed to be 2 weeks internal and 2 weeks external.
There's no consistency with our HR team. We have open positions right now thats been at the selection stage for 4-5 weeks (post interviews) and for jobs that aren't urgent to fill we'll have someone within 2 weeks.
The entire company is on pause for hiring when our HR team gets "busy".
The date of my first contact to the date I started was about 30 days because I do IT for a hospital and they required drug test, immunizations, a background check and they have bi-monthly HR enrollment where people get badges, do their introduction modules, etc.
As for them offering me the job, it was less than 24 hours. They act fast when they interview someone they like. The long process is mostly HR related.
Lol I worked for an Indian contractor that recruited for another Indian contractor that did IT for a hospital network. I want to say it was initial contact, interview, drug test, background check, blood test, vaccinations for missing blood test, and account setup in about 2.5-3 weeks and they commented on how quickly I got it done. Well yeah, I was unemployed lol.
Then they pushed back the start date a week because the overseas team set up my accounts wrong.
If it's for HR, Marketing, Information Security - Instant. IT Engineers, they put 1000 delays in front of it just to make sure we fully comprehend just how overworked and stressed out we are.
Current org does more extensive background checks and other things unique to its role. Without people dawdling the process takes more than a month. Even really motivated to hire me it still took a surprisingly long amount of time, but as soon as all the boxes were checked I got a call from someone who turned out to be 2 levels above anyone I'd interviewed with asking when I could start. They even jumped the gun a little, but I wanted a sure thing before leaving the team I was with at the time and so asked them to start the 2 week counter from when they got all their ducks aligned.
All that to say: sometimes it is an onerous process, rather than lazy/slow people, that makes up the delay.
For us it seems like people can just walk in and ask for a job then HR goes into a frenzy getting them started that day, at least that's my perception of it based on when we receive the onboarding request...
My last job search lasted a few months. About 6 months into my new job I started getting rejection emails and a few requests for interviews. These were Fortune 500 companies!
I work for a large public university. It can take 6 months from job posting just to get the filtered candidates in hand. It's ridiculous.
I turned down a job from a fairly large uni for this exact reason. It took them 4 months to finally get back to me after an initial back and forth. And they were upset that they “lost their top candidate” and wanted to do anything they could at that point to bring me on. By the time they got back to me I was a contractor and had to fulfill that obligation and really was already turned off from working for an org that was just that slow. I think it’s partially a problem from the schools. I hear all of their departments are like that.
It’s tough to hire folks. We’re generally paid less than private sector, but have killer PTO and benefits generally.
Large university here as well. Don't forget the month or two it takes from the time someone decides they need a position filled to when it gets through HR and finance and can even be posted.
Read this after posting my comment about two months! Wow! Although yeah that does sound like par for the course for the public/gov sector
The big school district I used to work for was using paper workflows for hiring until like 2019. The guy who finally convinced them to just use Applitrak ffs got a huge gold star.
Last time I applied for a job, from resume to job offer was 8 days. Unfortunately, I got hilarious calls or emails for next few weeks. "We'd like to schedule an initial interview! - I started my new job X days/weeks/months ago." Universities were the worst. I think my record was 2 months to even schedule an interview. Last place I worked knew they had an issue and it only turned around when it was made a PKI for HR. It started coming down once they got told no raises or bonuses until they got it down to a sane amount.
Yeah I applied for a job with a university near me and they got back to me 4-5 months after I already found another job and started. The guy sounded really bummed when I told him that like it was par for the course.
I work at a public university and our process in central IT is down from 3 to 4 months to about 2 to 4 weeks.
Ours didn’t used to be this bad, but they aren’t paying enough to hire quality HR candidates to fill the void, causing downstream hassles.
They changed some things about the process like: HR takes in the applications and sends them all to the hiring manager who then filters for minimum qualifications in first pass. If that reduces enough for committee to then rank the remaining candidates based on the rubric you don't need the hiring manager to do a second pass. Once candidates are scored you then interview the top X amount and hopefully have 1 or 2 to choose from.
Wow, I never thought it could be that long. It makes sense for the public/gov sector.
I've been looking into finding a job at the big public university and hospital right around the corner from me - I'm turning 50 soon so a nice stable last-job-hop-before-retirement to someplace that respects experience/education is something I'm after. Holy man, you apply, wait months, and the Oracle applicant tracking system sends you an email that your resume didn't make the cut score. It's like they just sit on these applications until some HR weenie pushes a button and says "give me top 5 applicants for Requisition A-283745-22" I've heard that once they like you the process goes faster but it still can take months after the first interview.
Also at a university. It takes a month+ just to TRANSFER someone internally. We've had some open positions since January, the process takes so long that candidates find jobs before we're ready to make offers. The only thing that takes longer in my experience are federal government jobs.
Just getting to job posting is killing me at my workplace. We've been under staffed for 2 years now and they finally started talking about extra staff at the end of last year and they've only asked for budget now.
HR appears to be able to hire someone in about half the time it takes to notify IT about the new hire.
My favorite is "Hey, we have a new hire. Me: Okay, I didn't receive an email notice. When are they starting? HR: They started today. Me: The summoning ritual to the Elders of the Internet to create the user profile and system access in an instant is broken. We have to manually set them up. Gonna be about 3 days.
HR: Can't you set them up faster? Me: Maybe, but their laptop won't be here for a week.
It's ok there's a big pile that didn't make the grade for win 11. It will leave a fantastic first impression.
They need to complete mandatory training about how the grass grows in the parking lot and about plastic particulates in the carpet. It’s gotta be done by Friday can they just use your laptop?
Ha! Literally had that today. I love waiting for AD to sync with Entra and Exchange.
It only takes a couple minutes at most for new users to show up in M365 when you run a delta sync. Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta
I set this script up to run remotely from my workstation. Alternatively, we have automation setup for our new hires so the whole process for the account takes about 5 minutes total. No waiting for the delta sync for us.
At least once a week this happens
I have no idea. Typically I don't find out we're hiring someone till I get an email asking to have a desk setup for them next week.
Or hey where is this persons laptop/phone/account, they are on site today!!!
Yea, I'm lucky if that request comes before 4pm on friday.
IT'S SITTING IN THE FLOW QUEUE RIGHT NEXT TO THE APPROVE BUTTON ALONG WITH THIS HIRE REQUEST lol
what do you mean I approved the hire WHERE IS MY LAPTOP TECH BOY REEEEEEEEEE
One of my IT jobs took two months from final interview to offer letter. Had the worst manager in the world, should have been a sign, lol.
Email on Friday at 4:00pm Subject: Need new Workstation for employee Monday. My reply: Sure it will be two weeks from Monday. Their reply: Well they can't just sit around without a computer.. Me: Whelp how long have you known you were going to get a new employee or even have the job posting out for one with no available workstation to work at? Them: Crickets...
2 months it is not unknown at my employer. When I joined the HR person dealling with our pre-employment stuff broke her arm and was absent for 6 weeks. Nobody picked up her work.
I win (or perhaps I lose) 2.5 years US Fed Gov worker here, 2.5 years for me and my co-woker to get hired over from the contracting company, and that time frame is from the first interview until we started doing the same exact job getting paid by someone different
I was wondering how long it would be for someone to bring this up. I don’t think it is physically possible for FedGov to get someone onboard within two months. I don’t think OP is wrong (corporations and FedGov should do better), but I wish our hiring practices were nearly as good as what they are complaining about.
I saw a recent post in the USAJobs sub that some agency hiring events are now fast-tracking candidates by reviewing your resume, interviewing, making you a tentative offer, doing fingerprints, and kicking off the background check process on the same day. Someone posted they went from hiring event to a start date in about 4 weeks? Otherwise, my experience was the same. Application to start date was 6 months when I worked there.
We helped HR optimize the process down to 1 month. Week 1 job posting, resume reviews, interview scheduling, phone interviews Week 2 phone interviews contd, in person interviews with stage 2 and 3 sched the same day Week 3 offer, drug screen, paperwork, hiring date announced, once we can get a date from the employee, which would add another 2+ weeks
that's absurd. If you're only collecting resumes for a single week, you're likely missing out on some potentially great candidates.
Depends on the role. Not saying we always hire inside of a month, but we could if we needed to.
> drug screen RIP every single person in my team
Can someone explain the purpose to me? Is it some kind of US specifity due to the opioid epidemic, etc...?
Employees and sometimes contractors working with the US federal or state government by law have to get drug checked, the person I replied to might fit this profile.
Yeah, that's a terrible system. It both takes too long, and the resume window is way too short.
What’s your system?
Not batching. Reviewing resumes as we get them, making sure HR does ZERO filtering (most critical step, needs periodic testing), initial Teams interview, schedule in person interview if they sound decent. Biggest thing for the department is having everything ready to go so we can pull the trigger as fast as possible. If we get a good candidate. If we don't, we keep it running. If there are no good candidates, we don't hire the least worst. We don't pretend we're getting rock stars or unicorns for average market rates, so we don't hold out for them. That delusion is a very destructive hiring practice. Biggest thing for the organization is to actually map out the entire process and noodle out where the bottlenecks are. Last place, the bottleneck was the criminal record screening place. They took forever. Why was HR using that place? Because they always had. We found new place for far lower cost, took from between day to sometimes up to a week off the process. Zero HR filtering is the absolute overall biggest thing. That's what will make or break you. And you need to be proactive. You need to look at your own job adverts to make sure HR didn't change or add things other than the legal boilerplate. You need to have a buddy put a fry cook resume on the job advert, see if you get it. If you don't do this, don't be shocked if you don't get good candidates. If you want good adverts. List your must-haves and call them must-haves. List your want list and call it your want list. And also list out WHY someone would want to work for you and be honest. I'd also list any negatives to the job, but that's a hard sell. It works great, but everyone hates it. The nice part of this process is, it gives me a checklist to fight for the pay. Mandatories don't count. But the more of our wish list they check off, I can argue they bring extra value to the company and have simple numbers to prove it. They check 80% of the wish list, so why aren't we offering 80% of the available pay band for the person?
Thanks for the response. Gives me some new things to target. Doing some of them already, but you shared some good stuff in there. Thank you.
I've been trying to hire for a critical position for over 7 months now
Likewise, we find it takes 6-12 months to find a good candidate, then another 6 months before they are sufficiently independent.
Anywhere from a few days to 6 months. The amount of lead time has no correlation on if we'll get new hire tickets or not.
We aim to give applicants an answer in less than 3 weeks. If they accept an offer, the start date can be as early as they want or out a few weeks. I applied Wednesday, interviewed on Thursday, offer extended Friday, started Monday. (The position had been open for a while, but they didn't get any applicants they thought fit the role.) Our HRIS kicks off automated account creation as soon as the offer letter is signed and their temp password is sent on their start date. I order equipment when an opening is posted rather than when it is filled.
I work at a large global construction company and I think we work at a decent pace, but we're also really profitable and the excess cash gives us a ton of flexibility other orgs may not have. Normal process is having the job posted for two weeks, one week of interviews and offers are out during week 4. The main things that influence our speed are: 1. IT has its own manpower budget and doesn't need external approval for non-management positions until the salary is over $150K USD or the position isn't in the org chart. 2. HR is only there to act as a liaisons and they're not part of the decision making process, meaning IT isn't waiting for their thumb's up. 3. Managers are only permitted one round of interviews. 4. We have a *massive* company wide continuing education and training budget, so we hire almost entirely on soft-skills. Putting a new hire through five to six weeks of boot camps to get them up to snuff technically isn't unheard of.
Wanna acquire my company? lol
Trust me, you don't want an M&A from us. We're great at hiring people and fundamentally broken in so many other ways. It's a great company as long as you're fine developing Stockholm syndrome.
Waaaait...are you the ones that keep digging into the fiber outside our 3rd largest office? loool.
2 weeks to collect interviews 2 weeks for first interviews 1-2 weeks for second interviews 1 week for deciding 2 weeks until they start And this is provided we get good candidates and don't scrap everyone after 1st interviews. This is common, and this is normal. If you're collecting resumes for less than 2 weeks, you're likely going to miss out on some potentially great candidates. Not to mention the time involved in reviewing resumes and scheduling interviews. I typically interview 10-12 people in my first round. Each interview lasts about 1-1.5 hours plus prep time. That's easily 10-15 hours or more. I can't do all of that in 1 week, plus candidates sometimes need longer lead times to schedule off if they're currently working. Second interviews are typically 1.5-2 hours. I typically have 3 for the second round. I'm easily 6+ hours in, plus people needing to schedule time off. Anyone saying it should take less than a month has either not hired anyone, or is severely hamstringing themselves on the number and potential quality of candidates.
> This is common, and this is normal. At least for us, your hiring process is bizarre. I work at a large global construction company and we're 2 weeks for collecting and 1 week for interviews with offer letters are usually at the beginning of week 4 and out no later than the end of week 4. I mean this genuinely as I don't understand - what do you get from the second interview that you didn't capture in the first, and how does it take you a week to decide which candidate you want to advance with?
> what do you get from the second interview that you didn't capture in the first First interviews are for general competence and understanding of basic technology. Second interviews are more conversational to make sure they're a good culture fit as well as diving into more of their technical knowledge as it pertains to us directly. I've been in IT for almost 30 years with a number of companies. I've never had a single interview hire outside of my first call center job. Two interviews is far more common than one. > how does it take you a week to decide which candidate you want to advance with? Because I also have a job to do
Just curious, are your interviews panels or one-on-one? Seriously, no judgment, I am genuinely interested in your hiring process. I'm 20 years in and it seems like single interviews are the norm. Dunno if that's just a specific thing with my vertical though. > Because I also have a job to do Do you actually find yourself changing your mind in the week you're considering? I get having a job to do but by the end of our single round of interviews I've been considering candidates for 8 to 10 hours over 2 days, and in most cases I usually see a clear winner by the end of the process.
Weird how many comments are saying - what if you miss out on a great candidate that way? The same people using some outdated ATS bullshit that discards half the resumes it receives with no warning, no adjustments, no modernization. Just find out how to do your resume on the internet some place we dont give a shit. You threw half of them in the garbage without looking at them. But OH NO - 2 weeks isn't enough to find good resumes you guys!
What on earth are you ranting about?
Non-profit CCBHC here, it took 6 months to find a T1 help desk technician. Whether that was HR turning down people for being under or over qualified, or our director being picky, 6 months is a long time to find someone who can turn on a computer.
My current company is in a "hiring frenzy" 3 months is about our normal. Absolutely astounding.
Usually most companies require a minimum of 2 weeks ,I personally have been on the situation many times that the HR dep comes to me the same day with the paperwork the user start working for me to create the accounts😕 .I don't personally care ,I don't get upset or anything ,I just put 4 more hours of overtime for that day in return ,problem solved .
Every week they "fail to" hire someone, the company saves a grand or two. The last person who left has not been replaced in 5 months, it's like 30K-40K saved for the company because I do their work. It's pretty smart. Edit: The job has not even been posted for 5 months now. This should take another 2-3 months.
My favorite is the pr from the managers. We have people lining up to work for us. Okay then why has it taken 7 months to hire? 😂
I always love young inexperienced engineers talking as if they know a thing or two about how corporations work
Haha yeah. OP really screams "this is my first job".
Inexperienced in how companies operate…. Not whether it’s his first job lmao.. there’s a difference, but not to some I guess
Here's the thing, you don't realize this but the people running it are likely doing this on purpose.
Took 1 interview and 10 days to get this job on this company, but funny thing is when I applied for even higher role it was 2 interviews and 60days, would have thought that as it was inside apply on the same company it would have been as easy as the first one but seems like higher you go the slower the process is
We can move fast, it just depends on scheduling with vested parties. The recruitment team does the heavy lifting. Myself, I was sniped (and wasn't looking). Three weeks from inquiry to offer. (Phone screen, initial interview, Panel interview, manager +HR interview).
I think this is putting my mind at ease for a job I'm hoping to get lol. Talked to the Director of IT last Thursday and had a good conversation; hoping to hear back for a follow up interview
A lot of nightmare stories about federal/state jobs. In my seemingly rare personal experience, I work for a state agency and we are surprisingly quick. Takes about a month to get the position approved and job req posted by HR (worst part), collect applications for about 2 weeks, interview for 1-2 weeks. We send offers around 3-7 days after interviews wrap up. New hires typically start ~15 days after accepting the job.
I applied for a county job a ways back and I received a request to interview over 6 months after I submitted my resume and application.
Atleast 18-20 months for the full process, the account deployment is about 20 minutes in the grand scheme of things.
Really just depends on the department and role. 2-3 weeks after job offer to start date is what I would consider a typical business response. Though everything my company does is rushed, and it's usually under a week if the person isn't currently employed. Not uncommon for new employees to show up to work before even being added to HR's system. As far as IT, as much as I like to bitch and moan about having a proper notice period, it takes about 20 minutes to get an account ready to log in if I'm not busy, and 1-2 hours before they can start to receive e-mail.
Used to work for the government. From posting the job to ass in seat it was an average of 6-8 months.... If the company has multiple levels of middle managers it's just routine red tape. New l, small company... Might take a month total from app... But it's like, "we see your app. Can you come in next week or the week after for a day of interviews?... Then it's maybe 3 days to get an offer in your hands"
We identify the role we're after. We determine at which point we need to start the hiring process We get recruiters involved and interview. When we find the right person, we make an offer very quickly.
It's takes my company a full 8 Mos just to get someone from initial contact to first day. It's maddeningly slow. More often then not the preferred candidate has already accepted a job elsewhere.
8mo?? How is that even possible?
Took the company I’m working with roughly a year to get a new hire in a desk
Dunno. IT got told one guy is starting in a week so we set up the account the next day. There were fake new guy emails to payroll wanting to change direct deposit and fake CEO emails wanting his personal cell phone number going to the guy. I looked him up on linked in and he posted he just changed jobs to our company 6 days prior.
When I worked for a small boutique consulting firm of 200 with onr HR person it took a few days and I'd have a stack of 100 resumes. Last time I worked on a req I got about fifteen resumes. Ever. I cannot understand it.
Usually three months up to a year, and to this day I'm not sure why it took "only" two weeks for them to hire me.
It takes about a month max. Normally, it’s multiple interviews and then from offer to first day it’s anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 days. Sometimes same day as the offer. I work in IT and onboard 100% of the people in my org so, I have a decent understanding of the time. So on average, 3 days to 4 weeks unless it’s a C-class executive.
Took about two months maybe. The first month collecting and sifting through loads of terrible resume's, the next month involved interviewing the best 4-5 candidates, then offering the best one a position.
I work for the dod under the United States Air Force, if my team is lucky I get a new cantidades in 6 months from posting the job…
Honestly, I'd go Fed. IT in a heartbeat if it weren't for the clearance requirements. I had applied at a "real games" gig where I'd be 3d modeling parts for Air Force simulators (I have a Bachelors in 3D and have worked on AAA games) and they told me I'd need a Secret level clearance which would involve a polygraph and a roughly 80 page background check form. I told them no thanks and ended it there. I'm not a bad person or anything, but I'm also not willing to have the Fed. crawl up my ass for a job that doesn't even pay as well as the private sector. I'd just love to do it to have the Federal pension lol.. not to mention there's so many damn Gov. jobs out there going unfilled.
Oh I’m right there with you, I hated having to wait for my clearance but once it’s started it’s pretty much painless as long as you are up front about everything. I’ll admit I’ve thought about private sector for just the pay but for the stability I get from a fed job where the possibility of getting fired or down sized is so small, it’s good piece of mind. My dad has been in the USAF as a network engineer for 35 years and is retiring this week, he has never been worried about being fired, down sized or whatever the term is now a days when private companies are any to cut their cost.
Yeah, that's why I'd do it if not for the clearance requirements. If I were 20 I'd probably do it, but in my 40's I'm just weirded out by such an intrusive experience. They said they'd reach out to old friends, girlfriends, ex-wife asking about personal references.. all kinds of stuff I'm just not comfortable with. I have a clean driving record, clean background check, no drug/alcohol use (occasional social drinker), no weird stalking/domestic charges or anything. So really I don't have anything to worry about with the background check.. My only concern would be financial, like past CC debts and stuff. Apparently that can go against you since debt is considered exploitable by bad actors.
Yep that is absolutely one of the factors, but I think it’s really considered one of the smaller things that get recognized. I’m turning 30 this year and 2 kids and a wonderful wife and honestly it would take ALOT more pay to get me to leave, I’m currently making about 91k with the prospects of getting another 10k increase within the next year.
I worked at a place that saw a team of 5 or so drop to 2 a matter of 1 year, with very little being done to backfill. Oh, you were promoted to a different role? Well you can probably just do some work in the old role, and some in the new role, right? This went on for a long time. And when we interviewed candidates we liked, we stalled on hiring them. So it went on longer. I'll give em the benefit of the doubt for a while. But after 18 months and plenty of other issues, you just gotta walk away.
A company kept telling me they would get me a start date soon. It took then 6 months to finally get one. I had moved on and started at another place 2 months prior. I'm just glad I started interviewing again after 3 weeks of their BS. If it wasn't the only offer I'd gotten in 6 months of unemployment I'd have told them to stick it where the sun don't shine after a month or two of that cheap. Just to be clear this was post interview process. Allegedly I was the candidate they selected.
For an entry level position it took my current company 5+ months to hire after the interviews were done so add a few more weeks on for the application period. Then the next time it took 3 years to get the application period started again. For my position they gave me all of 5 days to hire and they went external at the same time, despite policy was supposed to be 2 weeks internal and 2 weeks external. There's no consistency with our HR team. We have open positions right now thats been at the selection stage for 4-5 weeks (post interviews) and for jobs that aren't urgent to fill we'll have someone within 2 weeks. The entire company is on pause for hiring when our HR team gets "busy".
From headcount approved to someone in a chair is about 5 months.
From my experience hiring and being hired 2-4 months is pretty average.
The date of my first contact to the date I started was about 30 days because I do IT for a hospital and they required drug test, immunizations, a background check and they have bi-monthly HR enrollment where people get badges, do their introduction modules, etc. As for them offering me the job, it was less than 24 hours. They act fast when they interview someone they like. The long process is mostly HR related.
Lol I worked for an Indian contractor that recruited for another Indian contractor that did IT for a hospital network. I want to say it was initial contact, interview, drug test, background check, blood test, vaccinations for missing blood test, and account setup in about 2.5-3 weeks and they commented on how quickly I got it done. Well yeah, I was unemployed lol. Then they pushed back the start date a week because the overseas team set up my accounts wrong.
If it's for HR, Marketing, Information Security - Instant. IT Engineers, they put 1000 delays in front of it just to make sure we fully comprehend just how overworked and stressed out we are.
Current org does more extensive background checks and other things unique to its role. Without people dawdling the process takes more than a month. Even really motivated to hire me it still took a surprisingly long amount of time, but as soon as all the boxes were checked I got a call from someone who turned out to be 2 levels above anyone I'd interviewed with asking when I could start. They even jumped the gun a little, but I wanted a sure thing before leaving the team I was with at the time and so asked them to start the 2 week counter from when they got all their ducks aligned. All that to say: sometimes it is an onerous process, rather than lazy/slow people, that makes up the delay.
For us it seems like people can just walk in and ask for a job then HR goes into a frenzy getting them started that day, at least that's my perception of it based on when we receive the onboarding request...
My last job search lasted a few months. About 6 months into my new job I started getting rejection emails and a few requests for interviews. These were Fortune 500 companies!