By Kevin Roth

“We would usually have her meet a few more people, but don’t want to lose her to another opportunity. Let’s just move forward with an offer!”

How many hiring managers can relate to this one?

Most of you out there have felt the pain recently of losing a strong candidate to another opportunity before you’re able to get them through your interview process.

While the obvious reaction to that is to shortcut the process for the next go-around, that can be a very dangerous proposition for both your company and the prospective employee.

Instead of cutting steps out of the process and risking making the wrong hire, try the following steps:

1. Find ways to consolidate (not eliminate) steps. Map out your interview process and identify ways in which you can group steps together or reduce turnaround time between stages.

2. Emphasize timeline throughout the interview process. “Where do you stand with other opportunities?” needs to be asked at the end of EVERY interview.

3. Expedite interviews wherever possible. Instead of giving candidates a link to a Calendly that offers options 7-10 days in the future, provide windows only 1-2 days in advance. They can always come back and ask if they need more options.

The only thing worse than losing your top candidate due to timing is hiring the wrong candidate because of a shoddy interview process.

If you can find the balance of speed AND quality using the tactics above, you’ll be steps ahead of most other companies out there.