It is important to spend time refining your hiring process to ensure you are bringing aboard the best candidates,
Recruiting is time-consuming and expensive, so it’s no surprise that staffing managers and talent management professionals are on the lookout for tips and tricks to ease the process while maintaining effectiveness.
In fact, the average cost per hire in the United States is just over $4,000. If you combine the cost with the average interview process duration of 23 days, you’re looking at a serious financial and time investment.
Recruiting well is no easy task. Yet, 32% of the workforce hoped to change jobs in 2019. It’s clear that there are many, many job seekers on the market, and it’s just a matter of attracting the right ones and keeping them on board throughout your recruiting process.
Luckily, there are several effective hacks that help cut down on both cost and process duration, while increasing your chances of discovering qualified candidates. Here are nine recruiting hacks you can implement today to create a smoother, more efficient process.
1.Craft an effective job ad
It should be obvious, but with all the job posts out there riddled with typos and irrelevant requirements, it bears stating – writing an attractive and well-edited job ad that matches the position is the ultimate recruiting hack.
There are candidates who will apply to every job in sight, but they’re not who talent management professionals like you are looking to attract. If you want top tier options for potential employees, make sure your ad is impeccable.
First things first, does the position title accurately reflect the role’s requirements? Most candidates search by job title, so make sure yours is aligned to attract those with the skill set you need.
Don’t simply cut and paste new ads from previous job postings. Though you should certainly reuse templates to cut down on time, update each position listing and craft it to attract your ideal audience of qualified candidates. Keep formatting clear and simple so the description is easy to scan. If a quick glance piques a candidate’s interest, they’ll pause and read through your ad thoroughly. If not, they’re likely to move on.
Inform your audience of what’s special about this position at this company – it should be like that of no other company. Don’t include unnecessary requirements which may turn off otherwise great candidates. Share the salary range and benefits whenever possible. Unfortunately for talent management professionals like HR managers and staffing agencies, many job seekers will pass over jobs that don’t list this information. Why hold back sharing the information they’re seeking?
2.Showcase your mission
Make sure your mission and values are front and center to your online presence. Millennials, for instance, gravitate toward companies that know what they stand for and strive toward their ideals.
Ensure your mission and values are clearly expressed throughout your social media channels and website. Are there pages dedicated to them? You might also consider briefly expressing the company’s mission in your job advertisements. By doing so, you’re likely to attract job seekers that are better in line with your culture and share the company’s passions.
3.Update your HR software
Before you take any serious steps in the hiring process, make sure your HR software is up-to-date, efficient, and suited to your needs. There are many wonderful tools that help automate recruiting processes like job ad placement and candidate communication.
In fact, most job seekers claim their biggest frustration when applying to jobs is radio silence. Have you ever applied to a job, excited at the thought of a great opportunity, only to never get a response? We can all agree it’s deflating, to say the least.
HR software automatically keeps candidates up to date, thereby eliminating the problem entirely. In addition to this benefit, automated software is an enormous time saver for talent management that cuts down on recruitment costs and helps keep the hiring process organized.
By using talent management software like that of VeriKlick, companies may set certain hiring and recruiting tasks to perform automatically, giving the staffing manager more time to focus on other responsibilities, all while simplifying the hiring and recruiting processes.
Software for hiring and recruiting is ideal for improving your ROI. In fact, you can drastically reduce your onboarding time investment by up to 50%, thus reducing costs for your company by:
- Filtering out unqualified resumes
- Finding candidates
- Scheduling interviews
- Sorting through profiles
- Verifying credentials
4.Mobilize your social media team
Social media amplifies your audience for free. It’s a wonderful recruiting hack to add to your arsenal, in large part because it’s effective when leveraged appropriately. If your company has a strong brand identity and a healthy social presence, you may find promoting and/or advertising roles on your chosen platforms will bring in quality applicants.
One of the benefits of using social media in this way is that followers may share your job posting with friends who they believe match the requirements. You may also reach qualified individuals who are not necessarily actively searching but are already following you and have an interest in what you have to say and share.
5.Create a user-friendly application process
As with job ads, it’s important to keep the ideal candidate in mind when designing your application process. Though it certainly is a good idea to use software to screen candidates, don’t create a cumbersome process in which job seekers are required to fill out page after page of fields and forms. You only have the candidate’s attention for so long, so the quicker the process the better for all parties.
Candidates consider your hiring process a reflection of your organization. If your application requirements are too complex or irrelevant information is being requested, that potentially perfect candidate may develop the perspective that your company is mired in red tape and is behind the times.
Create simple-to-use forms, allow for resume and cover letter attachments, and use your HR software to send automated emails to all applicants.
6. When possible, offer remote positions
Even in 2019, too few companies adopt a modern recruiting hack – opening positions up to remote workers. Telecommuting and working remotely is not all about staying home lazing about in your pajamas. In fact, many remote workers are even more efficient than those in an office.
It’s time to start considering hiring remote workers for positions that don’t require in-office tasks. Not only does remote work open up the candidate pool, but it’s more cost-effective for employers and the candidates they hire. Remote work options are likely to attract many top-tier candidates from across the United States you otherwise might not have access to. Whenever possible, weigh the option for your advertised role, even if telecommuting is only permitted a couple of times per week. Long commutes, family responsibilities and other facts of life can make in-office commitments a challenge.
7. Make use of evaluations and tests
The best talent management professionals are making use of tests as a recruiting hack in the hiring process. The reason is simple: when done well, evaluations help you sort out who is worth calling and who isn’t. Tests can be used to assess certain abilities, personality traits, or skills.
Be aware, however, that many candidates are not willing to invest too much time in these forms of testing, so keep them short and simple. If you decide to use these, let job seekers know from the get-go that this task should be expected to be performed. Provide details on how many questions are involved and how much time the evaluation will take. If the evaluation exceeds one hour, candidates may feel you’re asking too much.
8. Carefully plan and strategize interviews
After you’ve received applications, create a shortlist of candidates to assess for the first round of interviews. Reach out to them and schedule each person with consideration for their schedule and yours.
Before you begin the first round, have a plan in place for the types of questions you’ll ask and how they meet the end goal of hiring the right person. Be prepared as candidates know when an interviewer is winging it without an agenda, and this can come off as unprofessional. Job seekers may see such behavior as a red flag and will immediately withdraw their candidacy.
Once you have your questions and plan ready to go, begin meeting with candidates or screening them over the phone. Make sure that, should they be visiting your office, everything is tidy, and that the reception staff is prepared for their arrival. Never forget that candidates are also assessing you.
Ensure your questions are insightful but friendly. Aggressive questioning has no place in most interview situations. Include a bit of small talk at the start of each interaction to calm the job seeker’s nerves and show them your professionalism. By doing so, you not only create a more comfortable environment, but you’re more likely to coax out the candidate’s true personality and honest responses.
Don’t drag the interview process out longer than it needs to be. In most scenarios, two to three full interview sessions (with one or multiple employees) will suffice. If you require more time than this, your organization may come across as disorganized, inefficient, and even disrespectful of the candidate’s time.
9.Document everything
As a staffing manager, you’re in a role that consists of many moving parts, and unfortunately, this makes it easy to forget things. It should go without saying that taking notes and documenting every step as you move through the recruiting process is critical to learn from experiences and have a better idea of what topics to revisions, questions to follow up on, or what to do differently next time.
For instance, if you had a difficult time filling a position and then finally found a good candidate, make note of why the process took so long. What worked? What didn’t work? What were the hurdles? What engaged the candidate? Reference your notes, share documents and files with the department to help improve best practices, and the next time the position, or a similar one, becomes available you’ll be better prepared to find the right candidate faster.
