Balancing Workload and Interviews: How Can We Encourage Our Team to Help with Hiring?

We have urgent requirements in our company. We are scheduling many interviews, but due to the limited availability of the interviewers or interview panel, we are canceling or rescheduling some interviews. Is there any way we can encourage them to conduct the interviews? Some of them are hesitant due to their heavy workload. However, we need to fill these positions quickly, so we require assistance from the panel.

Please suggest any strategies or options through which we can attract them and make it easier for them to share their availability. We acknowledge that work takes priority, and we are not pressuring them to conduct interviews. Providing attractive offers such as incentives or bonus points might make them more inclined to participate.

Please share your suggestions.

Hi,

Interviewing is also a part of the job and not a personal task. If interviewers are busy on weekdays, you could consider scheduling interviews on a particular weekend well in advance. By fixing interviews on that day for all, they can focus on the interviews without worrying about their day-to-day work. Additionally, you may consider offering lunch and snacks to the interviewers.

Dear Pratima,

The problem of this kind happens because:

a) Primary and secondary duties are not defined. Involvement in recruitment is a secondary duty. But then if the manager is laden with so much primary work, if there is no room for the secondary duties, then they are bound to avoid it.

b) If many positions need to be closed, have you done any analysis as to how much time must be allocated for the interview of each position? Do the managers have that surplus time?

Now coming to the solution. If you push the manager, then they may handle the job interviews perfunctorily, and a wrong selection of the job candidate could create problems in the future. Therefore, the solution at this stage is creating a recruitment team comprising technical and non-technical persons. They should be able to handle complete recruitment.

Lastly, about incentives to the managers for conducting the interviews. If you do that, then it will set a new trend where people work only for the money. There is a difference between incentive and inducement. Hope you understand it well.

Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar