How to hire people faster without having to cross your fingers
You want a great hire, and you want them quickly.
It's the age old balancing act for anyone who's hiring, you want to make sure that the person you're hiring is right but you also don't want it to take months to find them. After all, every day a gap stays unfilled has a direct impact on the business.
In fact, UK business reportedly experienced £132.6 million in lost productivity in 2025 due to gaps in teams remaining unfilled.
This is clearly a problem, but making hiring faster can often come at the detriment of quality. And you don't want to have to cross your fingers and hope the person you've made an offer to is right. So how can you balance quality with speed? Here's a few things we often speak to our clients about when they’re looking to do exactly that.
1. Get crystal clear on the brief
A great hiring process starts with a great brief.
This is your blueprint for success and, ultimately, streamlines everything that comes after it. By getting into the nitty gritty of exactly who you're looking for when you're hiring, you set yourself up to attract the right candidates (they can self-assess whether they're a fit!), create the comms that will engage them, screen them more effectively, and make sure all internal stakeholders are singing from the same hymn sheet. The result is interviews with candidates that are properly aligned - rather than wasting time on those that don't actually meet the criteria - and a reduced likelihood of making the wrong hire even when you're working at speed.
Plus, all of this leads to a better candidate experience. Clarity is a candidate's best friend, making them feel valued - which in turn reduces drop-outs, and keeps them interested and more likely to accept an offer.
2. Figure out what 'good' looks like, and how you'll measure it
With that brief clear in your mind, you can move onto thinking about what your ideal candidate has that makes them fit that brief. By benchmarking what 'good' looks like for each role you hire, you'll be able to identify more quickly when you're talking to someone who fits the bill.
We'd recommend following a structured approach to scoring candidates. By using something like a rubric or a scorecard you can define specific criteria and score candidates against how well they match the competencies you need. This can reduce the chances of conversations around candidate suitability going back and forth, as well as removing any biases and making it simpler to assess candidates against one another on a level playing field.
This gives you confidence in the hires you make, whilst also meaning you can make decisions more quickly, safe in the knowledge that candidates have been screened fully and fairly.
When you work with us on a Full Search, we can help you to create these. Find out more here: https://www.fmctalent.com/services
3. Think about talent pipelines
Do you have a role type that you're frequently working on? If so, talent pipelining can be your best friend.
Say, for example, that you regularly hire for Territory Managers. By building and maintaining a relationship with candidates who are qualified for the roles, you can act more quickly when you do need to hire. This is because you can often skip that initial screening stage, and you're essentially marketing to a group of people who are already relatively engaged with your process. Fundamentally it eliminates some of the reactivity that comes with hiring, having a direct impact on your time to hire.
Whether you do this yourself, or use an agency like us who already has those relationships with candidates, having a strong talent pool to go to when a hiring need appears can mean you can respond quickly and more effectively.
4. Move quickly - particularly when you've got a 'good one'
This sounds obvious, but moving quicky helps the process to, well, move quickly.
What this looks like in practice is aiming for simplification. This could be streamlining interview stages to avoid excessively lengthy processes or using the pre-agreed 'scoring' systems we mentioned earlier to make decision making easier and more efficient. Setting out interview dates in advance can really help here - not only for those in your business who are involved in the hiring, but also for communicating to candidates in the process.
And then there's the big one. If you've found a great candidate that you believe could do the role, we'd recommend not hesitating or waiting to 'compare' other candidates that you don't already have. The last thing you want is for your preferred candidate to pull out because of a long, protracted process, leaving you back at the drawing board.
5. Put yourself out there properly
Our last tip is to really consider how you take your employer brand to market.
This is all about putting your best foot forward in the market you want to hire in. 75% of candidates will judge a company's employer brand before they decide to apply for a job, so making sure yours is both appealing to candidates and genuinely reflective of what they'd find when starting with you is key. We'd recommend you build a clear picture of who you are as an employer, by communicating why a candidate should work for you and giving voice to your employee experiences.
A great place to start - and one that's often overlooked - is the humble job ad. Not only is it a great place to quickly and simply communicate to prospective candidates exactly who you are as employer, but it's also a great tool to get you the right people. A well thought through, compellingly written job advert will act as a self-screening tool, encouraging the right people to apply and deterring those who are unsuitable.
This can be challenging when you're juggling multiple priorities, but when you work with FMC (on any of our services: https://www.fmctalent.com/services ) we can handle this for you - your ads are written by our in-house Marketing team who are copywriting pros.
There's just 5 tips to help speed up your recruitment process, without sacrificing quality. Is there anything else you do to get that balance right?
If you're wanting to hire this year and are thinking of adding some extra firepower to your recruiting team, we can help. Get in touch on charlotte.clancy@fmctalent.com for a non-committal conversation.