With the downturn in the economy many are finding themselves doing the work of two or more people. Take for instance a recent Vancouver-based client of mine who was in the position of hiring for a short-term entry level position in their company. The vacancy created a flurry of over 100 applicant resumes applying for the position.

Out of Chaos was originally called in to assist this busy manager with managing her tasks and creating a prioritized action plan. It was very clear early in our process that activities relating to hiring personnel were not this manager’s expertise.

In consultation with Sandra Reder, Managing Partner of Vertical Bridge Corporate Consulting, the following steps in the hiring process can easily bog down the best of managers, especially if they are not in your area of expertise:

1. Placing the advertisement on various job boards, website and possibly in print media
2. Receiving resumes (these days it can be anywhere from 75 to 150 resumes for one position)
3. Screening resumes to the job description and short-listing the suitable candidates
4. Pre-qualifying calls to the short-listed candidates to see how they communicate, as well as to confirm some basic details about them
5. Possibly doing a more in-depth pre-screen on the phone to find out more about their past work experience before bringing them in for face-to-face interviews

“Overall this can take one person well over 20 hours of their time (this is based on 75 resumes if there’s more, then time will obviously go up).”

What is your time worth? Consider the value of outsourcing hiring related activities to the experts and free yourself up to focus on your core business.