Finding new people, especially for a small business, is a long process. The study shows that companies only offer invites for an initial conversation to 17 percent of all candidates. The group of applicants who get to the screening stage most often (almost 60 percent of the time) are those that come by way of referral or a staffing company. As employers, we turn down almost 90 percent of the people who just send us a resume directly. Those who make it to the onsite interview get an offer about 30 percent of the time.

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Unfortunately, even when you’ve finally found the right person don’t get your hopes up. The study found that 31 percent of those who were offered jobs declined them, with the worst offenders being engineers, product managers and business development people – all who reject their offers about 60 percent of the time. The best acceptance rates come from, again, referrals.

The easiest people to hire, it seems, are sales people. Sales candidates are most likely to receive a screening (i.e. review) of their resume, and 44 percent of sales candidates progress from getting their resumes screened to receiving an onsite interview. They also require the fewest number of resume screenings. Best of all, 74 percent of sales people accept an offer when they get it.