Giant candidate databases are a sign of a vendor stuck in the last decade.

Cool your jets. That’s what a growing number of articles are advising about waiting to hear if you’ve got the job. Does it just seem that way or is it really taking longer?

It’s not a figment of anyone’s imagination. A report from Glassdoor says the average interview process lengthened from 13 days to 23 days between 2011 and 2015. It could be worse. The average is 32 days if you live in France.

What’s going on, anyway?

The reason will be the same, whether you undertake the entire process yourself or wisely utilize the resources of a recruitment company. It takes time to establish the validity of talent. It’s more than a matter of paying top salary to get the best people for your organization. The cost of everything as it pertains to employees has risen to the point where hiring mistakes can take a huge bite out of your bottom line.

The consensus is that it’s better to slow down and make a wise decision. Otherwise, it’s not just lost productivity from the current open position. Add the expenses of hiring, training, firing, and then re-hiring a second time. Is it any wonder that caution is stretching hiring times?

We want to do it right the first time, and that means we’re willing to spend more time on screening. An increasing number of laws have also made it costlier to both hire and fire workers. No one will argue that this is good for employees. The side effect, however, is that it adds time to navigate through the maze of regulations to properly match employers with new talent.

Prove it!

The Internet has proven to be a recruiter’s best friend in establishing the credibility of recommended candidates. Online screening gives them the ability to dramatically increase their confidence level with candidates. The result for clients has been an escalation of quality.

The focus away from quantity of candidate recommendations, however, has pushed pre-employment screening to new highs. It is the main reason for the reason hiring takes longer. The percentage of companies that participated in the Glassdoor study increased their skills test screening from 16% to 23%.

More telling, though, is the data about screening for other aspects. Companies don’t want to hire people who make bad decisions about their personal lives.

• Personality test screening increased from 12% to 18%.

• Drug test screening increased from 13% to 23%.

• Background screening increased from 25% to 42%.

The cut and paste days are over

All this extra screening is the obvious reason why your request for candidates to fill a newly open or created position shouldn’t result in an instant list from a recruitment company. The dramatic push to thoroughly screen and vet candidates has transformed the role of recruitment companies—or at least the ones that excel at providing results for their clients.

By necessity, their association with you has had to deepen into a partnership. They must already be keenly aware of who you are and how you operate. They have to be confident in their understanding of your company culture and their knowledge of the direction in which your company is going.

There’s an optimal space—the median space—where top recruitment companies now must operate. It remains, as it always has, a priority for them to find the talent you need as quickly as possible. The value proposition, however, no longer is how many people they can get for you to interview. It’s quality, and that takes time.

They aren’t sitting around all day playing with their fidget spinners until you call them with an open position. It’s already too late if that’s their cue to start looking. Today’s top recruitment firms have gone from being headhunters with giant candidate databases to talent cultivators with powerful networking capabilities.

At Consultis, we’ve spent the last 33 years finding quality talent for our clients. We have the ability to respond quickly with qualified candidates, leading to more productive and satisfying relationships. Find out how we can help you.