When you have an open position to fill in your company, you’ll need to reserve time for interviews. This is one of the most crucial steps in the recruitment process, but it can also be the stage that takes the longest depending on how your interview process is structured and how many people you interview.
How do we determine the number of engineers you need to interview to make a single hire?
There is no hard and fast rule about how many candidates you should be interviewing to fill your technical vacancy, but there are some things you need to consider. Firstly, if you find that you’re interviewing countless candidates and not extending offers, this is a sign that you likely have flaws in your filtering process or in your application process.
Despite there being no clear guidance on how many people you need to interview, there is some data surrounding averages. For example, research suggests that in the UK, companies interview or call an average of 10 candidates per vacancy they have.
This figure can be greatly influenced by a number of different factors, though, some of which you may not know until you get into the interview.
Candidate quality vs availability
One of the things that may affect how many engineers you interview to fill your open position is the balance between quality and availability. On average, it takes 56 days for companies to post a job offer and have the offer accepted by a candidate in the UK in the engineering field. Depending on the notice policy in place at your company, this may leave you a team member down until someone new is hired. This isn’t a desirable position to be in.
To avoid this, there is a temptation to interview candidates who are available quickly as opposed to the quality ones who may need a longer start date. This may secure you short term, but you run the risk of increasing staff turnover, therefore meaning you need to start the process over again.
Close rate: how many candidates accept offers?
Typically speaking, only one person who has been interviewed will be offered a job, but employers need to account for the close rate. This refers to the number of candidates who accept job offers. It’s thought this rate is around the region of 80%.
The leading cause of why job offers are not accepted is because an offer was accepted elsewhere. This makes it all the more important to streamline your interview process as much as possible, especially when you factor in that more than 10% of candidates reject a job based on a long recruitment process.
The number of people you interview will have a direct impact on the length of the recruitment process, meaning this is something you will need to consider when identifying how many candidates you want to interview.
Candidate dropout pre-start date rate
Post-interview and job acceptance, there is still a risk the candidate may drop out before the start date. This may be because they have received another offer, or because they’ve decided there’s a company will better suit them. This can put you back to square one and mean you need to start the interview process all over again.
How BMS Performance can help
Streamlining the hiring process comes down to finding the best of the best and interviewing them, avoiding timewasters or those who may prove to be unreliable further in the process. BMS Performance can help you find the right candidates to interview first time, helping you fill your engineering vacancy efficiently. Contact us to find out more.
