from one of the top Recruitment Agency & Outsourcing Company in Thailand & Indonesia
How Long Does It Take To Recruit The Right Candidate?
03/08/2017
Fischer & Partners Executive Search | Outsourcing Company | Recruitment Agency in Thailand
Once you have decided to use a Recruitment Agency | Executive Search company to fill an open position, you might be wondering about how long it’s going to take to find a successful candidate. How long a typical candidate search takes depends on several factors. Although not all agencies follow the same path, at Fischer & Partners Recruitment we follow a particular set of guidelines during candidate searches for our clients which allow us to deliver a consistent, efficient and positive experience.
The Recruitment & Executive Search Process
Here’s a short breakdown of the search process:
Searching & Sourcing Strategy
We source our candidates through several channels depending on the positions. Referrals are one of the most effective ways to find that ideal /high profile talent. We rely on a network of contacts that we have built up over the years we’ve been in business. We also use professional networks and sometimes our database if the position is junior-mid level.
Screening & Selection
Once we have targeted a potential candidate, we start the screening process. We conduct initial telephone conversation with the candidates (before meeting them in person). Since we are in Thailand/Indonesia, English isn’t the first language for the majority of candidates. Therefore, we have a native English speaking consultant in our firm who will be part of the screening process to evaluate a candidate’s language competencies.
Client Interviewing
Once the suitable candidate has been identified, screened and checked fully, they will be added to a shortlist. Then it’s over to you! Clients review a candidate’s profile and have the final say on whether they think they’re a good match. Once the interviews have been conducted by the clients, we will follow up the feedback from both candidates and clients so that we can improve or adjust our search accordingly.
Offering & Reference check
We will make sure that the candidates' salary expectation is reasonable and realistic. Once both sides agree on the offer we then conduct at least 2 reference checks to ensure a candidate is eligible for re-hire and verify their educational background no matter how amazing a candidate may be on paper or how impressive they may have been when you interviewed them. In addition, we can also process CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK of the candidate if the client requested, just to ensure that he/she doesn’t have a criminal record – we don’t want any nasty surprises!
How long will a recruitment process / executive search take?
There are a few areas which make a difference:
The required skillset
At Fischer & Partners Recruitment, we have a team of consultants who are experts in their assigned sectors. However, positions requiring technical expertise may require a longer search. We will need to pay extra attention during the screening process to make sure that the candidate has the skills needed to succeed in the role. If the role requires a candidate to have a special set of skills, qualifications or technical know-how, then it could take around seven days to come up with an initial shortlist.
The required level of English communication skills
Thailand is a unique market in that there is a huge influx of international companies coming here to set-up brances. Most of the companies will be led by foreign management, so many candidates will need to have good English communication skills. There is a great talent pool to choose from in Thailand, so finding English-speaking candidates is not a challenge. However, in certain sectors, it can be more difficult to find that perfect candidate who also speaks a good level of English. The Finance and IT sectors can be the most difficult sectors to source English-speakers, so this could mean the process takes a little longer than usual.
What happens after the candidates have been shortlisted?
We can tailor our candidate search process to you, the client. We can send the profiles to you in one batch, or we can send each profile to you one at a time. It depends on what's your company's preference. Sending a batch of 3-5 candidates at a time can be a useful benchmark for comparing profiles. However, it will take longer to send a batch compared to if we send candidates as soon as we identify them.
How can we speed up the recruitment / executive search process?
We are 100% confident that we can deliver excellent results within a timeframe that suits you. There are a couple of things that you can help us out as well, to make sure we provide an even better experience:
Providing a brief and JD
Providing a job description is a great way to help us make sure we are on the right track when it comes to sourcing candidates. Many of our clients provide us with a generic job description (or sometimes not one at all!). However, getting down to the nitty-gritty details about what the role is really about will be a solid base around which we can build our search.
Meet us!
Putting a face to the name is one of the best ways to source the right candidates quickly. A face-to-face meeting helps us gain a better understanding of the working environment, the culture and management style. It enables us to gain a deeper understanding of the position and responsibilities in a way that can’t be transferred to a piece of paper. Our success rate goes up greatly if we are able to not only survey the working environment but also interact and have direct access to the Hiring Manager.
Feedback
This is another great way to speed up the process. Let’s debrief after a candidate’s interview to find out what attributes that you liked about a particular candidate and other qualities that you weren’t so keen on. This information is crucial to us since we’ll use it to narrow the search afterward.
We choose not to rush the search process because we think it’s better to spend more time finding candidates who are the perfect match for you. Our research shows it takes around 5 weeks, on average, to make a staff-level hire and 7.5 weeks to staff a management-level role. That being said, that number is a rough estimation based on our experience over the past seven years.