It's like writing advertising copy

Candidates are assessed on the basis of five- to 15-minute meetings and short-listed for traditional interviews. The approach is being increasingly used in the UK, US and Canada; Quebec-based company Videotron held Canada's largest speed recruitment drive last October to hire employees ranging from architects to technicians. It's too soon to predict the long-term success of such a technique but, says Videotron's communications manager, Isabelle Dessureault, "By the end of the day, we had filled 0 of the 300 positions. It will definitely be used again because it saves a lot of time and effort." Such an approach has yet to take off in Australia but last year, the University of South Australia held a dinner version of speed networking aimed at hooking up graduates with business leaders. After their first - and sell-out - speed-networking events last year, the Australian Businesswomen's Network is planning similar events in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for September. "Everyone loved it," says national general manager Suzi Dafnis. "The only complaint was that it was very noisy because people were having so much fun." Dafnis says participants were "primed" to practise their elevator pitch and given advice on how to follow up leads. "It's about how you capitalise on that opportunity because you only have a couple of minutes in front of someone," she says. "It's about making sure you communicate what value you can offer to that person. It's like writing advertising copy. Where you have limited words, you use the most powerful ones you can. And you can usually tell within a few moments whether there's a future business relationship." In fact, recruitment experts suggest impressions are formed in as little as 30 seconds. In Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking, author Malcolm Canada Goose Expedition Parka Gladwell narrows those snap, often unconscious judgements down to two seconds; what he dubs the "blink" response. Gladwell asserts that these blink-of-an-eye decisions can be as precise as months of analysis. It's what psychologists call "thin- slicing", where people make intuitive decisions based on slivers of information or considering a few key variables, while discarding other details. "When it comes to something like dating, we all readily admit to the importance of what happens in the first instant when two people meet," writes Gladwell. "But we don't admit to the importance of what happens in the first two seconds when someone encounters a new idea or we interview someone for a job or when a military general has to make a decision in the heat of the battle." While Gladwell advocates paying more attention to those fleeting moments, he also warns there is good and bad cognition; racial, sexual and physical characteristics may trigger deep-seated biases. Amanda Nissman points out that while speed networking gives participants 30 seconds to discern a connection, it also offers people a chance to talk to someone they may have otherwise dismissed. "A lot of us have preconceived ideas and prejudice," she says. "You end up talking to people you might not naturally gravitate to and it may surprise you." "You can make a judgement call straightaway but it is about evaluating those impressions and validating them, otherwise you are not doing justice to the client or the candidate," argues Amanda Earle, executive consultant from Melbourne-based management recruitment firm Oppeus. "Gut" hires can be costly so employers often use complex psychometric testing to assess candidates, particularly senior managers. "Things like speed recruitment are risky when you look at the cost of a bad recruitment choice," she says, adding that firms that do -minute interviews give short guarantees on placements. Such caution is well placed. Hiring the wrong candidate can cost between 30 and 0 per cent of that person's annual salary, according to a 03 report from Drake International.

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