Hiring Manager Alert: If you have a problem with candidates taking other positions during your interview and hiring process, it's likely that you've gotten your candidates from job boards, newspaper ads, and so on... which means that it's also likely that you've contacted them late in the job search cycle.

To avoid this problem, the solution is simple: work with a recruiter. A recruiter prescreens candidates for you, eliminating the waste of your time and productivity on a candidate who ultimately won't be available.

Advantages of working with a recruiter:

• You won't waste time reading through resumes
• You won't waste time on phone interviews with clueless candidates
• You won't waste time interviewing candidates who don't "fit"
• You will only interview candidates who are qualified, informed of the position and the pay scale, and interested in the job
• You will maximize your productivity
• You will stand out as someone who finds quality hires

I advise small companies especially to move quickly through the interviewing and hiring process - don't take shortcuts, but do be quick. This can be a competitive advantage in the "war for talent". A recruiter will be an efficient resource for hiring managers to use to find the best candidates in the shortest time possible.

Bottom line: As in all things, if you want something done quickly and well, hire an expert. Use a recruiter (hopefully, a recruiter who specializes in your industry). Take advantage of your recruiter's experience, industry knowledge, and network, and reap the rewards of a job well done.

Author's Bio: 

Peggy McKee is the owner and chief recruiter for PHC Consulting, a recruiting firm providing top sales talent, sales management, marketing and service / support personnel to some of the most prominent high growth companies in the medical and laboratory products industry for 10 years! Our client companies provide capital equipment and reagents for the clinical laboratories or research laboratories, equipment and consumables that aid the physician/clinician in diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic information, software that provides the workflow improvements that have unending positive impact on the patient, physician and the laboratory professional and a number of service offerings in the medical arena (for example: laboratory service, imaging etc).

Our expertise is in providing: Sales, Sales Management, Marketing, Technical Service, and Support Professionals. We provide top talent (usually the top 10% of sales force rankings) and reduce turnover (through exceptional client knowledge and candidate screening) this in combination with our reputation for smoothly facilitating the hiring process makes us the search firm of choice in this arena. For more information, see our website at http://phcconsulting.com