How long does it take to recruit someone?

Quick recruitment isn’t good and good recruitment isn’t quick. That truism can be perplexing to employers who have an urgent need because someone has just resigned and they need somebody to fill the role ASAP. If you just need a body a quick database search from a recruiter may get you interviewing in as little as a week. If you an run your interview schedule (usually 2 or 3 interviews) you may strike lucky and be making an offer to a new employee within 2-3 weeks - plus 2-4 weeks notice period and you’re looking at 6 weeks minimum, most likely 2 months. And that’s the quick version! If you are recruiting for a critical hire do you really just want a search of the available and active market or do you want to find the golden nugget? If you need a critical hire then you need to work with a consultant who will put in the hard yards and do a thorough professional search of the market. This will involve something called Market Mapping - an analysis of competitors or similar organisations where your future employee may be happily employed. A consultant doing this work needs more time, and commitment, to do the job thoroughly. Typically this can take as little as 3 weeks but could be as much as 6 weeks or more depending on the complexity of the hire. When you then factor in 2-4 weeks of interview rounds and contract negotiation it is likely to be 2-3 months minimum before you will be offering a position to a new employee. Add in a minimum one months notice, possibly three month and a critical hire can take you up to 6 months to put in post. It may seem like a long time but if it’s a hire critical to your business needs it’s probably a better route to take rather than rush it and need to repeat if your “quick” hire doesn’t work out - and statistically that happens around 30% of the time, which is a sobering thought.