Employers need to fill job vacancies within 67 working days (14 working weeks) before tech professionals assume it’s a job no one wants, according to research carried out by Randstad Technologies, the IT and technology recruiter.

Randstad asked 2,001 members of the public, “How many working days does a vacancy for a permanent job have to be open before it starts to look like a bad job that no one wants?”

The UK’s working population said they thought a post has to be vacant 74 days before it looks like a bad job that no one wants, 1 working week more than tech professionals.

In a similar survey, Randstad found that, on average, professionals in tech or IT jobs feel they currently have to perform the job of 1.5 people meaning they are covering 50% more work than one person should be; the equivalent of fitting an additional two and a half days’ worth of work into the ordinary working week.

Mike Beresford, managing director of Randstad Technologies, said, “Tech professionals are far more concerned about the length of time a vacancy’s been advertised than the rest of the UK’s workforce. They work in a fast paced world which rapidly evolves every day. A stagnant recruitment process signals alarm bells.Recruiting for a techpost is like trying to sell your house. Leave it on the market too longand, for whatever reason,peoplestart to think there is something wrong with it.That leads to fewer applicationsand increased pressures on the rest of the staff left trying to cover the empty position.   We know tech professionalsalready feel they are performing the job of one and a half people.   If they’re cramming an extra two and a half days’ worth of work into a working week, they are going to find it extremely difficult to cover for vacant job posts, too.”

As part of the research, recruitment consultants working at Randstad Technologies were asked what the ideal length of time was to fill a vacancy, balancing the need to secure the best candidate for the job and the need for organisations to fill a skills gap. The poll found that given those criteria Randstad’s consultants thought 29 days (just under 6 working weeks) was the ideal.

Mike Beresford said, “While IT and Tech workers won’t start judging a job negatively until the vacancy has been on the market for 67 days, the ideal recruitment window is actually under half this time. A positive and efficient interview experience creates a fantastic first impression and is the first step in winning the battle for premium talent signing on your dotted line. It may seem obvious but having a clear plan before embarking on any recruitment activity is vital. The availability of all the stakeholders required to interview candidates, run assessments and finally authorise the hire is the most common cause for delay so something as simple as a co-ordinated diary management approach can make a huge difference.”

The results of this research were gained from data from 2,001 people surveyed by Canadean, the consumer market research company, between 23rd and 30th July 2012 (including 113 from the Technologies Market sector) and a survey on ideal time to hire of 35 Randstad Technologies consultants conducted on Weds 19th September.

The Randstad group is one of the leading recruitment & HR services providers in the world with a top five position in the UK and a top three position in fifteen countries including the US, France and Germany.

In the UK, Randstad’s business lines serve the public and private sectors across Accounting and Financial services; Business Support; Construction, Property and Engineering; Education; Health and Social Care; Interim Management and Search; Human Resources; IT; Legal; Retail; Sales, Marketing and Creative; Student and Worker Support and In-House and Managed Services.

At the end of 2011, Randstad had 1,930 corporate employees in the UK, working in 255 locations. UK revenue in 2011 was €789 million. Randstad was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Diemen, the Netherlands. Randstad Holding nv is listed on the NYSE Euronext Amsterdam. (For more information see http://www.randstad.co.uk and http://www.randstad.com.)

Source: Randstad

Image: Paul Swansen, via Flickr (CC)

About Francis Rey Balolong

A coffee junkie who spends most of his time writing about the latest news on social media and mobile technology. I would definitely consider myself a nerd (in the coolest most hipster way possible). That being said, I love technology, music, writing, and all things mobile. Follow me: Google+ Twitter

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