Last fall, MBA graduate Janet fell into the abyss known as the interview process—with seemingly no end in sight. She applied for a newly created senior associate position at a private equity firm. Nine interviews, a list of references, and nearly three months later, the firm decided to nix the position.

Janet estimates that she spent 12 hours in discussions with various executives over those months. “I was having to take time away from work and I was really, really busy with a project, so I would have to sneak away to go to interviews or call in sick.”

“It’s fine for them to not want to hire me, but to drag it out over two and a half months I found to be very insulting, quite honestly,” she says.

For professional jobs—engineers, paralegals, designers, consultants, and more—the hiring process takes way too long for everybody involved: candidates, hiring managers, and human resources. It’s ironic considering the tight job markets in many countries—for example, in the United States, there were 10.8 million job openings and 3.9 million employees who quit their jobs in January 2023 alone, according to stats from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of the 1,657 hiring professionals worldwide surveyed by digital recruiting company HireVue, 68% said it takes three weeks or more to fill vacant jobs, up from 55% a year earlier. Hiring times have gone from 54 days on average in 2022 to 58 days for engineering and technology jobs, 62 days for executives and 65 days for public administration hires this year.

What’s behind the lengthy hiring process? Job seekers blame a lack of communication and haphazard hiring processes on the employers’ part. In a quest to find a rock star who will dazzle on day one, hiring managers devise ever-higher hoops for candidates to jump through—personality and skills testing, multiple rounds of virtual and in-person interviews, and even mock presentations—for fear of making the wrong choice. Bungling the processes even further, companies are changing business strategies quickly in response to shifting market conditions, and open jobs may disappear midway through the hiring process.

One line of thinking is that a detailed process is part of encouraging fewer but more qualified people to apply. Author and management professor Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School, questions that reasoning.

“It’s certainly right that a longer process cuts down on the number of applicants. The important question is whether the ones who persist do so because they believe they are best suited for the job…or they can’t get a job anywhere else,” Cappelli says.

Finding that perfect hire amid a sea of applicants is a delicate balancing act. Acting hastily risks choosing the wrong candidate; taking too long risks losing out on great candidates who get other offers sooner. One thing that’s clear is that greater transparency can make the process a lot less painful for everyone. Beyond that, improving the hiring process gets tricky—automation, for example, isn’t yet the solution it might appear to be. Here, experts diagnose the problems hiding below the surface of the hiring process, explain the real trade-offs involved in seemingly simple answers, and offer ideas to make hiring more effective.

What’s taking so long, and why doesn’t automation fix it?

Mass resignations and “quiet quitting” have hiring managers doubly concerned that they’ll make the wrong choices, which are costly and time-consuming. The average cost per hire was nearly $4,700 in 2022, according to the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), but many employers say the total can be three to four times the position’s salary. That means it could cost $180,000 to fill a role that pays $60,000, Edie Goldberg, founder of E.I. Goldberg & Associates, tells SHRM. Of those expenses, 30% to 40% are hard costs, and the other 60% are soft costs, including time departmental leaders and managers invest in supporting the HR-specific roles in the hiring process, she says.

Automation currently may hurt as much as it helps. It can be helpful for compulsory things such as background checks or detecting embellished resumes. HR leaders also lean on automation and AI in efforts to avoid age, race, and gender biases by analyzing job descriptions to make them more inclusive or screening resumes and ranking candidates based on relevant skills and qualifications rather than personal details.

However, tools that automate tasks for HR often create more work for the applicants. For example, some of the tools used for initial resume scans often require a candidate to first upload their résumé and information on the job board where they found the position, then apply again on the company site. A JobVite analysis last year of postings at Fortune 500 firms found that 83% required candidates to jump through both hoops rather than allowing them to just apply directly on the company’s career page.

Further, every task assigned to AI still adds another step to the process. Hiring companies are using an array of AI tools to check backgrounds and evaluate candidates based on voice recognition, body language, and social media clues. Unfortunately, there’s little proof that this produces satisfactory hires. Only about a third of U.S. companies report that they monitor whether their hiring practices lead to good employees, Cappelli says.

Some online tests look to match personalities with the corporate culture. Maddie, a chemist, applied for a position at a chemical manufacturing company last August. She was asked to take an online assessment that compares a candidate’s personality, soft skills, and values to those of the employer. “The way they framed it, the results would not affect their decision process but indicate how I would work with the team,” Maddie says. The experience made her wonder whether this step was necessary so early in the process.

Requiring job candidates to take myriad skills tests and personality assessments may be a waste of time. However, online skills assessments and quizzes, which may or may not involve automation, are a necessary step in this job market, according to many HR professionals. One recruiting firm uses AI in video interviews to assess verbal and non-verbal cues. A hiring software vendor uses gamified assessments to measure cognitive and emotional traits such as problem-solving, creativity, and resilience.

“Companies are not finding qualified candidates, and someone who applies may think they’re qualified when they’re not,” says John Dooney, HR knowledge advisor at SHRM.

Online skills assessments help measure basic skills before interviews and weed out unsuitable candidates earlier. In many cases, hiring managers don’t think they’ll find someone with the full range of required skills, “so they’re thinking maybe they can train them—and they take a certain number of candidates who score above a minimum,” Dooney says.

These techniques can often turn off job candidates who feel they are spending time proving basic skills rather than displaying their talents for the specific position, but many companies still include these assessments. Beyond that concern, employers need to be wary when recruiting assessment tools promise that they can predict successful employees, Cappelli says. “The issue is not what data science could do in principle. The question is whether the solutions being offered can do a good job of it,” he says.

A successful tool would gather information on thousands of past hires for various positions—all their attributes—and a good measure of their job performance and success on the job, he says. “Has the vendor done that? Will they show you how good a fit their model is? Do you believe that the job they profiled is really like yours? Will they validate their algorithm with your data? If the answer is no, don’t bother.”

“Jumping through flaming hoops”—the interview process

Those lucky candidates who survive the digital screening steps often run into an even more daunting obstacle: humans.

Jessica was up for a job as a fundraiser at a large social services organization in New York, she says in an interview with the Web site Vox. Over two months, Jessica took part in six separate interviews involving nine people, many of whom were present in multiple interviews. She put together a dummy presentation on a hypothetical corporate partnership program for interview number four.

“It just gets really mentally exhausting, and it’s hard to manage your work schedule because obviously you don’t want your employer to know you’re interviewing,” she told Vox.

Virtual interviews became the norm during the pandemic and gave hiring managers the time to do more frequent interviews with more candidates in less time and at very little cost. A bonus for them—but a bummer for job candidates.

“It’s unfair to make five candidates jump through flaming hoops and go through [multiple] rounds of interviews when four of them will be told no,” says Kelsey Collett, a former HR manager at a global consumer packaged goods company. Most candidates have other jobs, after all, and interviewers often ask the same questions. Collett suggests no more than three rounds of interviews.

According to Indeed, one to three interviews typically yield the best results, but no rule is true in every case. Organizations may sometimes justify using a fourth interview to make a final decision between two highly qualified candidates—but if the cycle repeats too many times, the candidate may question why the hiring manager hasn’t made a decision. They may also wonder if it’s still worth it to schedule time away from their current job to continue pursuing a new one.

Cappelli finds today’s overwrought process a bit ridiculous and often the result of poor planning by the hiring company. “Unstructured interviews, where employers just ask whatever they want, are major sources of bias in the process and predict very little about who will succeed,” he says.

How to strike the right balance

It’s a balancing act—companies stand to lose out on the best candidates when the process drags on, but going too fast risks hiring someone who turns out to be a bad fit. It also risks making job candidates feel like a commodity. “It may feel too fast and easy to get the interview because they’re so desperate,” Dooney says, “and the new hire thinks the company really wasn’t looking for that person long-term.”

While the numbers have been trending in the wrong direction, per the HireVue study, companies still want to ensure that they choose the right, long-term employee. HR experts say there are ways to reconcile these conflicting interests and make the hiring process less painful for all. Here’s what to do.

Start with realistic job requirements. If you’re looking for a rock star, unicorn, or “purple squirrel,” a nickname for an impossible combination of sought-after skills for a given job, reset your expectations. “If your current employees don’t have those attributes, the candidates don’t need them either,” Cappelli says.

Make an actual hiring plan. At the outset, determine skills requirements, a maximum list of candidates, a maximum number of must-see interviewers, distinct roles and objectives for each interviewer, and a decision date. Having a clear timeline should also cut the chances of running into a sudden hiring freeze that can delay the process and leave the hiring manager trying to string along candidates.

Be transparent about the hiring process up front. Explain the process to candidates, including what to expect in terms of time to hire and rounds of interviews.

Add more human elements throughout. This doesn’t necessarily mean making everything in person—it could mean just having a real person send an email, make a follow-up phone call, let the candidate know how they were received by the interviewers, and discuss next steps. Don’t lead them on, but fill them in. This personal connection may also help reduce ghosting of the hiring team by candidates after getting an offer.

Consider returning to more in-person interviews. It won’t necessarily speed up the process, but it may ensure a better fit and help curb the impulse to do too many interviews.

Don’t let one employee hang up the process. “In terms of buy-in, make people who want a say in the decision sign up to meet only the short-listed candidates,” Cappelli says. “Don’t make it a requirement that no one can be offered a job until everyone has met them.”

Avoid redundant interview questions. Consider scheduling a small panel of interviewers in the room at the same time to avoid repetition of questions in multiple interviews. For one-on-one interviews, avoid general questions that are already answered on the candidate’s resume and ask questions about how the candidate would handle situations that are under the interviewer’s purview.

Break up quickly. If you don’t see a good fit or the right qualification, don’t waste everybody’s time. Case in point: Another job-seeker, Charles, applied for a marketing position at a digital security company, which abides by a 24-hour rule for making a decision after any interview and informing the candidate immediately—with either “You’re advancing, and here’s the next step” or a polite version of “Sorry, you’re out.” Like ripping off the Band-Aid, it stings at first, but, to the private equity candidate Janet’s point, it’s respectful and keeps the process moving.

Consider taking managers and/or leaders out of the hiring process. One reason for the lengthy process is that managers and leaders are too busy, and the hiring process is treated as a second job—so it stands to reason that companies should stop putting them in that position. “Drop all the rounds of interviews. Have them done by one expert who knows what they are doing,” Cappelli says.

Companies have decimated their own recruiting offices to save money. They often turn to outsourcing or push the tasks onto line managers “who don’t know how to do it, who don’t do enough of it to get good at it, and who aren’t held accountable for it,” Cappelli says. “Bring back recruiters and let line managers focus on what they are supposed to do.”

Make offers quickly. All the preceding steps should allow you to make most offers more quickly than before. When companies do so, applicants are more likely to accept.

It’s not just employers who must adapt to these labor market trends. Prospective employees are paying attention too. Bruised but not beaten by the process, Janet now goes into job interviews with a new perspective. “I know to ask for clarity and what I should expect. At the beginning, I ask what criteria they’re looking for in this role. If I had pushed for that and in the end they said no, I could look back and see where I fell short.”