Looking for a new job is time-consuming and often frustrating. Often, you’ll hear absolutely nothing back about your application. The whole process can feel incredibly slow, and all you want is to land that next job! Why does the recruitment process take so long?

Having worked in HR as an in-house recruiter for many years, there were quite a few things that could get in the way or delay the process from moving forward.

Lots of internal events can contribute to the time it takes to move through the hiring process. A good recruiter will aim to keep candidates informed throughout the process or better still

There are a couple of potential reasons why a manager might be absent during the hiring process. They may have a personal holiday planned. Or they may have a business trip. Of course, there’s always the potential for an unexpected business trip or absence.

When I first joined HR, I learned very quickly to ask the hiring manager if they had any holidays or business trips planned? This was critical to managing the candidate’s expectations.

This can happen during the hiring process. Particularly, if there are several stages and the process has spanned several weeks.

Of course, any recruitment during the months of July and August will almost certainly be interrupted by holidays; hiring manager on holiday, candidates on holiday, recruiters on holiday!

If we really like the candidate, we’ll want to wait for them to return and continue to consider their candidacy.

This is always an interesting scenario to manage. There’s usually an internal policy to respect and consider in this situation. Sometimes companies don’t encourage internal moves within a probation period.

Employees must gain approval from their current manager or at the least have a conversation with them before applying.

If the employee is valued by the current manager, they may attempt to persuade them to remain in the job and team. The current manager may also start to worry about covering their work, or want to start the hiring process before the person’s even been selected for an interview (this isn’t allowed!).

Whatever discussions there are between the employee and their current manager, the hiring manager and HR all take time.

It’s never a great time to start making redundancies or put employees at risk of redundancy. This is another event in the business that can potentially delay any ongoing recruitment.

If the redundancy programme is companywide, then, of course, it has a bigger impact on open vacancies and likely the recruitment will go on hold or slow down significantly.

If there’s a small team or part of the business at risk, then those employees affected will have the opportunity to be considered for the open vacancies.

So, again this will slow down the external recruitment and that’s when candidates going through the process will feel the most frustrated.

You might be wondering what could possibly hold up a job offer?  The interviewers probably said we are keen to move forward quickly with this piece of recruitment.  And, then you’re sitting watching your iPhone all day!

When recruiters identify the successful candidate, they cannot update or reject the other candidates at this stage.  If there are one or two good candidates, capable of doing the job they don’t want to reject them until the other candidate has accepted the offer. 

Recruiters wait to follow up with these candidates after the interview because it may have been a close call between two candidates.

So, again this will slow down the external recruitment and that’s when candidates going through the process will feel the most frustrated.

Here’s a typical scenario when recruiters make a job offer. 

𝐉𝐨𝐛 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫: Extend a job offer to the successful candidate. This is usually a telephone call (verbal offer). If the candidate asks for time to consider that’s absolutely fine.

𝐖𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞: If the company decides to send out the offer letter and contract after the verbal offer, then typically, it’s 7 days to accept or decline.

𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐬: If the candidate accepts, then it’s time to go back to the other candidates and update them (reject!).

𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬: If the first candidate declines, then the recruiter will contact the ‘reserve’ candidates!