When you have a vacancy in your organization, how many days do you take to fill that position with a new employee? The research says companies take 36 days on average in order to fill the vacant position. Keeping a position vacant for more than a month is not possible for all companies as it directly hits the productivity level. But the process requires a lot of time without any doubt. Then how can you fasten the process, improve efficiency, and maintain a quality workforce! Today, we are here with lots of information and tips to improve your recruitment process. Recruitment process improvement is a solid need of today as the recruitment process is getting tougher day by day due to increased competition.
The recruitment process should be transparent, straightforward, and systematic. The increased competition in the hiring area has made the entire situation complicated for each organization. HRs are feeling more pressure to fill a vacancy. When it is about winning the most eligible candidates from a competitive market, you should focus on the best tips and trends. Apart from this, you should take the help of the best technologies in order to stay ahead of others.
- Take the help of advanced ATS solutions
According to experts, the most important element of a robust recruitment strategy is technological support. Nearly all leading organizations take the help of applicant tracking systems. From the creation of job posts to offering the offer letter, an applicant tracking system helps a lot. All the steps of the recruitment process should be well monitored.
Sourcing both active and passive candidates are tough especially when all leading organizations are after expert candidates. You may know that highly qualified candidates stay open to new opportunities for a very limited span of time. Winning them in such a short span is truly tough. And that’s why most recruiters need to concentrate on passive candidates. When it comes to sourcing passive candidates and staying in touch with them, there is no better solution than an applicant tracking system.
In order to get these candidates, you can keep a close eye on various job portals, social media platforms, and ask your employees for referrals. The leading applicant tracking systems will help you in understanding which sources are better to get quality employees. These systems are able to do solid data analysis and as a result, you get error-free results. You can easily decide which source is better as well as more reliable to get candidates who are really qualified, skilled, and open to new job positions.
Apart from this, resume analysis and candidate sorting are time-taking tasks and you need to minutely concentrate there. When recruiters try to do resume analysis and sorting eligible candidates manually, a lot of mistakes take place. After all, we humans are prone to error. But these errors can make us miss the actually deserving candidates. In order to avoid all these problems and to save time and money, lots of staffing agencies and corporate organizations are going for leading applicant tracking systems.
- Craft the job post wisely
You do not need to write an essay there! You have to craft the job post with care and dedication. The job post should be smart, crisp, attractive, and informative. You should exaggerate it with extra information. You should only add what is important for the job post. You can enter details of the positions, skill and experience requirements, salary range, location, etc. apart from this, you can mention the company position and culture in the shortest way. If you design your job this way, there is a high chance of attracting the most eligible candidates.
When candidates can know more about a company at a go, they prefer to dig more about that organization. It is all about presenting your company in an elite way to attract many eyes.
When you include only necessary information there, both active and passive candidates understand what you actually want to convey. We have seen that many job posts come with irrelevant information that simply confuses candidates and they cannot decide if the job is suitable for them or not. While preparing the job post, you should write short lines and use bullet points to highlight your requirements.
- Standard candidate communication
In order to hire the best candidate, you have to knock lots of candidates over email, phone, and social media platforms. The communication process should be gentle as well as truly welcoming. You do not know who is going to be impressed and agree to appear in the interview. And that’s why each candidate should feel welcomed.
You know that truly eligible candidates get various opportunities every week. And that’s why you have to craft the communication regime truly impressive so that winning them becomes easy from the very first stage of the recruitment process. Once you improve candidate communication, you will enjoy overall recruitment process improvement.
There should be a robust strategy that will include how to win both passive and active candidates from the very first stage. While crafting the communication plan, you should consider the fact that nobody is too free in this world and you cannot mess with their free time. You can try and test to know in which tie candidates remain most responsive. And according to that, you can make a schedule to reach them and have a conversation about the new opportunity.
While having a conversation with a candidate, you should not forget to mention your requirements, company, culture, and payable benefits. In the same way, you should not forget to listen to their requirements, career plan, and why they do not want to continue with their current employer.
- Take help from existing employees
Employee referral is a reliable and effective source for new candidates. When it is about filling an open post, you can take help from your existing employee base. In order to make current employees refer to quality candidates, there should be a reward program too. Otherwise, after a time, no employee will be interested in referring candidates to fill new vacancies.
If a team has a vacancy, you can ask the rest members of that team to refer someone to fill the open position. They will know better how they manage everything and who can best handle the responsibilities. We have seen that most successful hires come from referrals. Current employees also know who is going to stay with their team. When you let your current employees refer candidates for your organization, you not only get expert candidates to hire but also get candidates who will stay for long with you and boost the employee retention rate.
- Create a referral program
It is important to have an amazing referral program. You cannot ask your employees every time to refer good candidates for vacancies. If there is a good referral program with stunning money or other rewards, employees will take initiative on their own to fill the position via their referrals.
We have seen that all leading organizations have amazing referral programs. They inform each employee about their referral programs so that employees can refer good candidates and improve the workforce quality. Recruitment process improvement becomes easier than ever when there is a solid referral program. While designing the referral program, there are a lot of things that you should consider such as company culture, expense, employee base, goals, and so many other things that you find critical to consider while making any decision for your organization.
While designing the referral program, you should prepare guidelines also. In this way, they will be able to understand how rewards will be distributed. Generally, leading organizations release rewards once a referred candidate becomes permanent in the organization. Ask your employees to only refer candidates who are skilled, experienced, and perfectly match with the requirements of the vacancy.
- Go for remote interviews
If you are planning to hire candidates beyond the geographical barrier, you should enable the remote process to interview them. Currently, the world is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and as a result, many organizations are running their operations remotely. It also has created an opportunity to create a remote workforce where employees can join from any location.
For the recruitment process improvement, it is important to enabling all the advanced solutions. If you activate the remote interview process using advanced technologies, you can schedule interviews faster, have virtual interviews while maintaining social distance, and hire the best candidate for the vacant position.
There are various free and paid video conferencing software solutions available in the market. You can choose some popular ones and use them for virtual interviews. During this pandemic, many companies are hiring remote employees and initiating virtual interview sessions to select the best one. The process should be interruption-free so that you can create a smooth candidate experience.
- Rely on the best technologies
Technology-driven hiring is faster, safe, and more appreciable. If you try to handle the entire thing manually, a lot of errors will take place. In order to avoid these errors, unnecessary delays, and faster recruitment process improvement, a lot of organizations are going for advanced software solutions such as communications tools, ATS, human resource management software, employee tracking software, and so on. From the very first step of your recruitment process, you should take the help of technology to maintain the desired pace, accuracy, and transparency.
- Develop your own talent pipeline
Before a position becomes vacant you should start your candidate search process. In this way, you will be able to reduce the vacancy filling time. You should develop your own talent pipeline especially for job positions where you face high turnover.
You should activate all ways to easily connect with all passive candidates. If you start before a position gets open, you actually get more time to find the best one for the position. You can take the help of online job portals, employee referrals, and social media platforms to shortlist the best candidates. When you have a sound time hand, you can interview candidates taking time and understand who is going to be the best fit for the position. You can select the best one and keep in touch with others to satisfy future requirements.
- Craft excellent candidate experience
When it comes to the Recruitment process improvement ideas, you should keep a close eye on candidate experience. How well you can craft the candidate experience the more satisfied candidates you will get. Satisfied candidates always share good words about you in their friend and family circles and from there you can easily get future candidates to power your workforce.
If you satisfy candidates well, you can see the reflection on various company review platforms such as Glassdoor, ambition box, Google local listing review, and so on.
- Keep a close eye on reviews
Your ex-employees, existing employees, and even interviewed candidates have a perspective of you and they will share that on various platforms (most importantly Glassdoor, Ambition box, Google local listing review, social media platforms, and so on). You have to keep a close eye on these reviews to get fruitful recruitment process improvement ideas.
From these reviews, you will understand the strengths and weaknesses of your recruitment process. At the same time, you will get an opportunity to manage your popularity.
Conclusion
After discussing the top 10 recruitment process improvement ideas, we have landed at the conclusion point. From the entire discussion, it is evident that technology is getting a major part in the modern recruitment process irrespective of the organization type and size. We must say, the desired accuracy, pace, and transparency are only achievable when we are rightly equipped with the best set of technologies. The hiring market is more competitive than ever. And that’s why we suggest including advanced technologies as a major part of recruitment strategy. The above-mentioned points are going to wholly transform your recruitment experience and you will be competent enough to win candidates before your competitor does.