High Volume Hiring: Efficiently Improve Recruiting Strategies and Maintain Strong Candidate Relationships
Businesses need strong recruiting strategies. Employees’ workplace priorities have shifted since the pandemic, prompting a mass exodus of workers in search of better opportunities, and causing a major labor shortage. Companies are desperately searching for ways to win over talent quickly to fill the 11.3 million job openings. Since 66% of candidates are willing to wait less than two weeks to hear from a potential employer before moving onto a new opportunity, according to CareerBuilder, understanding how to hire quickly and efficiently is key for companies looking to scale.
To implement a fast-tracked hiring process, automating processes and leveraging screening tools and pre-made templates for candidate outreach can help expedite hiring. An accelerated hiring strategy can help to not only fill open roles to offset the current labor shortage amidst the Great Resignation, but it can help improve the overall candidate experience, setting both the applicant and company up for long-term success. Here are three ways that businesses can incorporate speed hiring techniques into their hiring process to streamline and improve their recruiting strategies.
Reevaluate How Job Descriptions can Reflect Candidates’ Skill Level
Strict job descriptions have become outdated since the onset of the pandemic. The integration of HR technology has both encouraged workers to acquire new skills and forced HR managers to adjust job titles and descriptions to fit the new work culture. Instead of rigid descriptions outlining responsibilities, HR teams should consider revamping job postings to emphasize the impact of an employee and the expectations they have within the first month, 3 months, 6 months, and a year that they can make to the company. This way, candidates can visualize their impact rather than solely focusing on their daily responsibilities. Revamping job descriptions can broaden the candidate pool for candidates with aligned experience and those without the experience, but who are willing to upskill.
In today’s market, candidates have the upper hand when it comes to job hunting as they are interviewing the employer as much as the employer interviews them, so transparency from HR teams can go a long way in winning top talent. To further transparency in the HR industry, hiring managers can consider revealing salary ranges on job descriptions to promote equal pay and manage candidate expectations. These ranges can prompt more interest and investment when applying because candidates understand from the first touchpoint what the company is offering. Job descriptions with a more accurate and transparent overview of the position can also prompt workers that actually plan to accept the job to apply, leading to faster hiring.
Utilize Talent Rediscovery and Implement Technology to Build and Maintain Candidate Relationships
Improving the candidate experience has been a major focus for HR teams lately, with research from Careerarc finding that 98% of employers believe that a positive candidate experience helps elevate their brand. Improving candidate relationship management (CRM) strategies supports prospective candidate engagement at the start of the application process and helps win over top talent. A positive candidate experience that reflects well on the company can lead to more referrals, fewer quits, faster hiring time, and can foster ideal conditions for an engaged and productive employee. Utilizing technology such as applicant tracking systems (ATS) and CRM tools can provide a base for building and maintaining relationships easily, helping to speed up the overall hiring process.
By closely tracking relationships through ATS and CRM technologies, HR managers can also use a talent rediscovery strategy to find previous candidates and match them with new roles. Additionally, hiring managers can cultivate candidate pools so that the talent best suited for each different role can be tapped as hiring needs arise. This expedites the process because hiring managers already have a group of qualified candidates ready to revisit when looking for additional talent.
Streamline the Interview and Application Process
Research from CareerBuilder shows that 60% of candidates quit job applications because of the length. By offering shorter applications, flexible interview schedules, and participating in virtual jobs fairs, HR managers can continue to accelerate the hiring process and improve candidate experience.
HR teams can turn to a HR technology to streamline their hiring processes and improve communication. This process allows hiring managers to review resumes with a yes/no response, prompting recruiters to quickly screen a higher number of applicants. Along with an expedited resume review process, candidates are increasingly looking for more points of connection throughout the process – CareerPlug reveals that 85% of candidates note that constant communication, especially after the interview, was very important in their decision to join a company.
According to Andreessen Horowitz, the average time to complete the recruiting process is 38 days. Hiring managers can shorten the process by rethinking what qualifications and assessments are truly necessary for the role and eliminating excessive evaluations and repetitive interviews. Implementing specific hiring days where candidates are interviewed consecutively by multiple members of the team can optimize hiring time. Even panel interviews, where candidates answer questions from a variety of interviewers in one sitting, can allow HR teams to hear multiple perspectives after the first interaction with the candidate. The use of technology can also help to organize the interview process and ensure interviewers are not providing biased candidate feedback and ensure questions are not repetitive. This strategy allows for a fair playing field for all candidates by not revealing interviewee feedback until all panel interviewers have met with the candidate. Further, allowing applications through LinkedIn instead of requiring a resume and limiting the number of application questions or even creating multiple choice options are all strategies for HR teams to reduce hiring time and improve fairness.
As HR technology evolves and labor shortages continue on, it will be even more critical for hiring teams to create the most efficient processes to keep candidates engaged, interested, and invested. Speed hiring strategies routed in technology can help companies stand out in the job market and attract top employees during the war for talent.