Roll Out an Efficient Recruitment Process in 2022
“Efficiency and focus are the keys to success.”
- Robert Crais, American Author
The world of recruitment and hiring has become rather erratic and unpredictable over the past few years. This was especially highlighted by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. When recruiters need to hire these days, they usually need to do it quickly. Now, the pandemic does play a part in this, but as we said it is only one part. The other is due to the rapid digitization of the market. As a whole, candidates are getting more and more accustomed to a more efficient and higher quality recruitment process. According to a whitepaper published by the Robert Walters Group, around 65% of candidates are put off by lengthy recruitment.
Another paper published by Deloitte states that around 83% of candidates who have a negative recruitment experience can often change their minds about a role or a company that they once liked. What these numbers tell us is that a long and awkward recruitment process will do more harm than good. This is not just speaking in terms of your candidate pool, but also your employer brand. Having said that, in this blog, we will have a look at a few different ways to improve your recruitment process strategy in 2022.
How Do You Define Efficiency in the Recruitment Process
Efficiency in the recruitment process is both fast and easy for all parties involved. This means it should be a seamless experience between and for the candidate and hiring manager. If you were to define it further, an efficient process would be one where automation takes care of the manual tasks and saves on administrative time. An efficient process is also one that has the right timing. It collects the necessary information at the required time so no one wastes theirs.
At the end of the day, there might be a million different ways to make the recruitment process more efficient. However, the truth of the matter is, it all begins with having the right technology.
Simplifying the recruitment process is one of the best ways to make things more efficient.
#1 Maintain a Common Core for Your Information
Let’s be honest, the usual way that recruitment processes unfold is by having candidates apply through a job site. As the hiring manager, you download their information, shortlist them and add them to a spreadsheet. Once all that is done you feed it into the screening software you use. In this day and age, this is too clunky. It leaves candidate information everywhere and becomes a chaotic mess that you need a whole team of people to track at times.
A good place to start is by integrating some form of Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Think of it like a storage core where you keep all your candidate information. It’s like a one-stop-shop. This way, you eliminate the need for multiple excel sheets and keep things streamlined for yourself and the candidate. No information will be lost, candidates won’t miss crucial emails and you can close unwanted candidates off from the process with higher efficiency.
You can judge the quality of the ATS based on how well it integrates with other recruitment technologies like your automated reference checking software.
#2 Accept the Power of Automation
Automation is a modern luxury that allows recruiters to work smarter and not harder. They can put their skills to use where it matters rather than spending hours phone-screening candidates. Once you have the right automation technology on your side, you will be able to shortlist candidates more efficiently. This means you don’t have to spend days or even weeks working your way through a thousand different applications and resumes.
Rather, you just need to call the candidates who were shortlisted and select the best from that crowd. Easier shortlisting means less time to hire and better quality of candidates seeing as the recruiter is free to use their talents where it matters most. Once again, as we mentioned before this should ideally integrate with your ATS as well.
"Efficiency is doing better what is already being done."
Peter Drucker, Austrian-American Educator
#3 Check Scalability and Compatibility of Technologies
So far, we have talked about the implementation of technology. This point is more about making sure you implement the right technology. With the arrival of the pandemic and everyone shifting to remote work, practically overnight, it was a big change. Companies grabbed the first recruitment automation solution they could get their hands on. However, with remote work looking like it will be a possible constant in the future, it’s time to adopt technologies that will scale up with your business.
Ask yourself if the technology adds value to the process and what ROI you get from it. What are its limitations? Is it available 24/7? Can you integrate it with your existing systems or expand it as necessary? These questions will help determine if you are choosing the right product for your specific business needs. If you suddenly have to hire a huge influx of candidates you don’t want to be left stranded because you need to update your strategy or tech stack.
#4 Keep Experimenting
Experimenting doesn’t just mean checking all your processes all the time. It means to change things up a little! If you usually recruit at the end of the process, try doing it at the beginning! This is a great way to shortlist a group of strong candidates and it saves a ton of time. It can also help you lock down top talent fast as the due diligence will be done early on in the process.
Another thing you could do is pre-screen all your eligible candidates at the beginning of the recruitment process. It will allow you to evaluate more candidates in half the time. This means that you get to work with a wider talent pool and more data efficiently. There is also the added benefit of reduced human bias.
Constantly testing and experimenting will help you improve your overall recruitment process and candidacy funnel. Remember, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or anything, just small changes can go a long way. Following these steps can help make the process easier and of higher quality, which is what you need in the modern job market as an employer.
