Clients who drag out the process of hiring and making an offer to candidates are doing a tremendous disservice to themselves, the potential hire — and you!

I recently had a company take eleven business days to make an offer after a final interview. During the eleven days, the candidate had one on-site interview and two phone interviews with three other companies. This candidate I recruited for my customer didn’t have options when I first contacted him; then suddenly he had several. In the end, he had two offers on the table to consider and was beginning to wonder if he was my customer’s second choice.

Recruiting and hiring is a delicate emotional dance; if your date has to wait too long to be asked to the prom, they will simply go with someone else. In this case, if the company had been quicker with an offer he would have not interviewed with the other companies.