TORONTO, July 12, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian companies aren't delaying when it comes to the job interview process for fear of losing out on top talent and wasting time and resources, according to a new survey from The Harris Poll commissioned by Express Employment Professionals.
Indeed, most employers conduct one interview (24%) or two interviews (45%) before making a job offer to a candidate. A smaller number hold three interviews (19%), and only approximately 1 in 10 (12%) say they conduct four or more interviews before offering a position.
Most Canadian job seekers (54%) also agree that one-to-two interviews are ideal as part of the job hiring process, with the remainder saying that either three interviews (21%) or four or more interviews (26%) are expected.
Both hiring managers and job seekers though agree multiple interviews are beneficial for several reasons, including to better evaluate the candidate’s personality (50%) and skills (49%), to ask follow-up questions (44%), to ensure the job seekers are a good fit for the company’s culture (41%) and get other employees’ perspectives on the prospective colleague (32%).
However, employers are concerned about the potential drawbacks of taking too long with an interview process before extending a job offer, including having the job unfilled for longer (50%), a candidate potentially accepting a competing job offer in the interim (45%) or becoming fatigued or disillusioned with a drawn-out process (25%) and increased costs for an extended interview process (27%).
According to Michael Elliott, an Express franchise owner in London and Kitchener, Ontario, with recent increases in the number of job seekers, companies are being more selective and taking longer to make hiring decisions.
“It’s a bad equation when electronic job boards make it very easy for job seekers to apply for any job, added to traditional HR hiring practices being ill-equipped to address the flurry of applicants, they cannot effectively eliminate the high percentage of unqualified candidates,” said Elliott. “There’s been a noticeable shift in that our clients are expecting more candidates and they are involving more decision-makers in the interview process before an offer is extended, but this approach is not effective. Express Employment Professionals’ ISO-certified hiring process means that candidates can be screened-in and shortlisted for a faster fill rate.”
He warns that lengthening the interview process can result in losing the best candidates.
“There’s a lot of transparency in the time to fill jobs, especially where a company has posted the job to one of the popular electronic job boards as you can see right on the posting the number of days the job has gone unfilled,” he said. “As a job seeker, I would question why a job posting has been open for three months.”
“We spend more time coaching our clients on the best and shortest hiring approach, given that the ‘best’ candidate knows their value and won’t wait for a long and arduous hiring process,” added Elliot. “Quite often companies are losing out on the right candidate in this labour market because they aren’t making decisions fast enough.”
Elliott says the traditional job interview process needs to be updated.
“While the multi-interview process with more interviewees seems like it should make sense, we really believe this approach needs to be abandoned in place of a more dynamic approach,” he said. “Please no more ‘tell me a time when…’ as the intention is for both parties to get acquainted in a short time. We are seeing an increasing trend to ‘working interviews’ where the candidate demonstrates their skills and experience while interacting with colleagues. This is the best approach for both sides and will ultimately lead to faster and more effective hiring practices.”
Making bad hires is costly in time and money, according to Express Employment International CEO Bill Stoller.
“Finding the balance between getting to know a candidate and facilitating too long of an interview process is tough but worth it to create a tenured, invested workforce,” he said.
Survey Methodology
The Job Insights survey was conducted online within Canada by The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals between June 8 and June 22, 2023, among 510 Canadian hiring decision-makers (defined as adults ages 18+ in Canada who are employed full-time or self-employed, work at companies with more than one employee, and have full/significant involvement in hiring decisions at their company). Data were weighted where necessary by company size to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in our surveys. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within + 4.6 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest.
The Job Seeker Survey was conducted online within Canada by The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals from June 13 to June 26, 2023, among 506 adults ages 18 and older. Data are weighted where necessary by age, gender, race/ethnicity, region, education, marital status, household size, household income and propensity to be online, to bring them in line with their actual proportions in the population. Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in our surveys. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval. For this study, the sample data is accurate to within + 3.8 percentage points using a 95% confidence level.
If you would like to arrange for an interview to discuss this topic, please contact Ana Curic at
(613) 858-2622 or email Ana@MapleLeafStrategies.com.
About Bill Stoller
William H. "Bill" Stoller is chairman and chief executive officer of Express Employment International. Founded in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the international staffing franchisor supports the Express Employment Professionals franchise and related brands. The Express franchise brand is an industry-leading, international staffing company with franchise locations in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
About Express Employment Professionals
At Express Employment Professionals, we’re in the business of people. From job seekers to client companies, Express helps people thrive and businesses grow. Our international network of franchises offers localized staffing solutions to the communities they serve across the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, employing 586,000 people globally in 2021 and 10 million since its inception. For more information, visit ExpressPros.com/CA.
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