Having trouble finding employees to work for you? It may not be that people don’t want to work—it may be that they don’t want to work for you. Ouch, we know. Sorry. But if you’re consistently having trouble finding or keeping employees, it’s time to take a look at common reasons job seekers turn away from companies.

Your hiring process is too long

Who wants jobs?

We do!

When do we want them?

In eight to ten weeks…?

According to LinkedIn, the median time from application to hire is 41 days: just shy of six weeks. The slowest 10 percent of hires takes twice that time, or 12 weeks. And if you think the best candidates will wait 12 weeks (that’s three full months, folks) for you to hire them, you’re in for a nasty surprise. In the competition for the best-qualified candidates, the speedy company wins, so see where you can look at your hiring process to slim down your time frames.

Your online application process is not mobile friendly

We all know how annoying it is to have to copy the information from our resume into a job application. Now imagine if you’re trying to fill out this job application on your cell phone. It’s one thing to attach your resume, and another to need to retype—on a tiiiiiny electronic keyboard—entire blocks from your resume. Knowing that mobile job applications surpass desktop applications (to the tune of 61 percent), what can you do to make your application process mobile friendly and completable in 10 minutes or less?

Your expectations are unrealistic

Not everyone can hire the unicorn, and remember, the unicorn is mythical. So if you’re requiring two to three years of experience (or more) for your entry-level positions, you’re creating a Catch-22 and weeding out an awful lot of great young workers. Take a chance on recent college grads, or maybe consider dropping your degree requirements altogether.

You’re offering a signing bonus

Hear us out on this. Throwing instant money at would-be employees is a short-term strategy doomed to fail. Why? Well, let’s look at a bank account that offers a cash-back bonus for depositing $500 in the first three months. What’s the first thing you’re going to do after you earn that cash-back bonus? Move your deposits to another new bank account with a cash-back bonus, and so on, and so on. The moral? Quick sign-on incentives do not foster loyalty; it’s often the opposite. Look to build long-term incentives that attract long-haul employees.

Your wages aren’t competitive

In many industries, wages have needed to increase to attract even entry-level candidates. If you haven’t had your compensation strategy reviewed in recent years, there is a good chance you have fallen behind the market. The employees you’re looking for may not be able to afford entering or re-entering the workforce—if that means paying for childcare, gas, and so on—at the wage you’re offering.

In conclusion

You’ve got this. By making some tweaks to your recruitment strategy and bringing your hiring process into the times, you’ll be attracting top talent before you know it!