How to Hire Employees Quickly Without Cutting Corners

How can you hire someone quickly?

When you need to hire someone fast, the key isn't just speeding up the process; it's hiring differently. That means focusing on the qualifications that matter most, simplifying interviews and being ready to make decisions quickly. Start by exploring internal referrals or temporary solutions. If you need someone immediately, working with a staffing firm can give you access to pre-screened, available candidates without starting your search from scratch.

According to SHRM's 2026 benchmarking data, the median time to fill a non-executive role in Canada is around 39 days, and that number climbs well past that for specialized or senior positions. Meanwhile, the cost of replacing an employee in Canada has climbed past $30,000 on average, according to Express Employment Professionals' national survey of Canadian hiring decision-makers. And Mercer's Canadian Turnover Survey puts voluntary turnover across the country close to 12%. Put together, that means most organizations deal with unplanned, urgent hires more often than they'd like, and the standard hiring timeline usually isn't built for it.

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Why hiring suddenly becomes urgent

Urgent hiring usually comes from something outside your control, instead of something you can plan for.  

• Someone resigns with little or no notice, sometimes right before a busy period

• A key employee needs to go on medical or parental leave sooner than expected

• Your business wins a new client or project that needs to be staffed immediately

• A seasonal or demand spike hits faster or harder than forecasted

• Budget for a role finally gets approved, but only if the seat is filled right away

These are the realities of the workplace, not the fault of anyone, and they're exactly why it's worth having a plan for urgent hiring before you actually need one.

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The real cost of leaving a role open

An open seat rarely sits there quietly. Someone else on the team absorbs the workload, often on top of their own and that usually shows up as overtime, missed deadlines or a project that quietly slips. For client-facing or revenue-generating roles, the cost compounds further, since a vacant account manager or salesperson seat can mean stalled relationships or lost potential revenue that may be harder to measure but just as real.

The longer a role sits open, the more expensive the eventual hire tends to be too. Teams under pressure often lower their standards to fill the seat quickly, which can lead to needing to make a second, even more urgent hire a few months later when the rushed one inevitably doesn't work out.

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What urgent hiring really requires

Moving fast doesn't mean skipping steps; it means being ruthless about which steps matter most.

• Separate must-haves from nice-to-haves. Under normal timelines, it's easy to hold out for a wish list of qualifications. Under time pressure, you need absolute clarity on which two or three things this person genuinely can't do the job without.

• Compress the interview process, don't remove it. One well-structured round with the right people in the room can tell you as much as three loosely organized ones. Combine steps where you can instead of cutting steps out and hold onto the two that matter most: validating the candidate and meeting them in person wherever that's realistically possible.  

• Give whoever is deciding the authority to decide. A lot of urgent hires stall because the person interviewing them doesn’t have the authority to make an offer without a chain of approvals that takes another two weeks.

• Move at the speed of your best candidates, not your process. Strong candidates in an urgent search usually have other options. A slow decision on your end is often the reason you lose them, not a competing offer.

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Where you can focus first

Sometimes there are a few things you can do internally first to find a solution:

• Internal referrals. Your own team often knows someone who's available and already understands your business, which shortens both the sourcing and the trust-building part of the process.

• Boomerang hires. A former employee who left on good terms already knows your systems and expectations, which can turn a normally lengthy ramp-up into a matter of days.

• Temporary internal reassignment. Sometimes the fastest fix is shifting responsibilities within your existing team for a short period while you run a proper search for a permanent hire, rather than rushing that long-term decision.

Often none of these internal methods apply, and that’s usually where a staffing firm comes in as the most viable path forward.

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When a staffing firm is the stronger option

• The pipeline already exists. A good staffing firm doesn’t start a search from scratch; it taps into a pool of candidates who are already screened, reference-checked and in many cases, ready to start within days rather than weeks. For sudden spikes in demand, some firms can tap a much larger network to deliver vetted candidates in as little as 24 hours. With over 1,000,000 candidates in our internal database, we’re ready for all types of roles.  

• Contract talent can start almost immediately. Bringing someone in on a contract basis lets you close the gap right away, without needing to be certain yet whether the role should become permanent. If you’re looking for a temporary executive quickly, fractional hiring can also be a strong avenue to explore.  

• You can run two tracks at once. A contract placement can cover the work temporarily while a more robust, unhurried search for the right permanent hire happens in the background, taking the pressure off a rushed long-term decision.

• The administrative load gets absorbed. Payroll, onboarding and compliance for a contract worker are handled by the staffing firm, which matters most exactly when your internal team has the least capacity to take on something new.

In one case, an incumbent staffing vendor had gone two full weeks without producing a single qualified candidate for a property management role that couldn't stay open. Altis stepped in, and the role was filled in under 12 days from the first call, with a 100% interview conversion rate along the way. The client later expanded the engagement into a broader, ongoing partnership, which is often what happens once a client sees what a warm, pre-vetted pipeline can actually do under pressure.

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Temp, temp-to-perm or permanent: deciding under time pressure

When time is short, it helps to separate the question of "who fills this seat right now" from "who fills this seat long-term." Those don't have to be the same person.

A temporary or contract placement can solve the immediate problem without locking you into a permanent choice made under pressure. If that person turns out to be a strong long-term addition, a temp-to-perm conversion lets you make that call once you've seen them work. If not, you can keep searching for a permanent hire without the operational strain of an empty seat in the meantime.

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Common mistakes when hiring under pressure

• Skipping reference or validation checks. In 2026, validating candidates' experience and references should never be glossed over. It's why thorough candidate validation is non-negotiable at Altis, even on the fastest searches.

• Lowering the bar out of urgency. A rushed hire that doesn't work out costs more time and money than the delay you were trying to avoid in the first place.

• Leaving scope undefined. Unclear responsibilities tend to surface a few weeks in, when expectations don't match reality.

• Rushing the decision-maker without giving them what they need. Speed works when the person making the decision has clear information to act on. It backfires when they have too many unanswered questions to make a good decision.

Hiring urgently can feel frantic, but it doesn't have to. If you're facing an urgent hire and want to talk through the fastest path to the right person, contact us through our hire page.

Altis is a Canadian-owned staffing firm supporting organizations across the private and public sectors. We focus on relationship-driven recruitment, clear process and consistent delivery, helping employers hire with confidence and professionals build meaningful careers.