How Long Should You Spend On An Interim Appointment?

When it comes to bringing people into your team or placing someone into a new position, every post is important. Yes, some posts will be more important than others but ultimately, every position in your company should be important or it shouldn’t really be a post at all. However, there are obviously posts which you hope will drive your company forward and then there will be posts which are of the holding variety. There are many reasons why companies may be looking to appoint an interim member, but how long should your business spend on this style of appointment?

A recent study indicates that key HR professionals take around three and a half days in appointing an interim team member. Clearly the costs associated with this action will depend on the firm involved but it is believed that the average cost on this style of appointment is £530. If every small to medium sized company in the UK made one appointment of this nature a year, the total cost would be just short of £3 billion.

Interim posts require a lot of work to be carried out

You may think that an interim post may not require a lot of work but there are still key tasks to be completed, including:

•   The creation of the job description
•   The advertising of the post
•   Reading the responses
•   Interviewing candidates
•   Negotiating on the post and rates
•   Verifying references and job offers

There is a lot of work associated with interim positions and if you are a small or busy company, this is time that could be better spent. There is also the problem that many firms believe they make poor decisions when it comes to finding candidates to fill an interim position. With the study indicating that a figure as high as 85% of respondents agreeing that they made poor selections with respect to filling this vacancy, there is a need for companies to improve their recruitment policy. The same study also found that 20% of companies stated that they make a bad hiring decision on a monthly basis, if not more frequently. 25% of respondents admitted to making a bad recruitment decision at least once a year.

You can never be 100% certain about the recruitment process

It is impossible to be 100% confident about any recruitment because no one can tell what is going to happen in the future. However, the fact that so many companies appear to be struggling with a key recruitment area, and with recruitment in general, suggests that there is a need for companies to focus on recruitment again.

A company needs to understand what sort of firm they are and what sort of candidates they really need. There is often a gap between the culture a company thinks they have and what they actually have, and this is why it is often best for firms, of all sizes, to turn to an external recruitment specialist to undertake recruitment tasks and roles.

September 2017 Author : 2XL Recruitment Solutions part of 2XL Media Solutions