Often small and medium-sized clients of ours have no dedicated HR staff to manage their staffing. This leads to owners or managers having to source, screen, interview, offer, and draft new hire paperwork. As some of you already know, that can be VERY time consuming and difficult to juggle with the normal day-to-day of running a business.
Every organization has its own unique approach to this recruitment process. It can involve multiple interviews with management, or a simple phone call followed up by an in-person meeting. To each their own, right? Well, what if the process for your organization is not actually effective? Being too long and complicated can lead to candidates dropping out of the process altogether. While being too lenient and quick may lead to multiple poor hires before finding the ideal candidate. So, when you look internally at your own organization, can you say you are leveraging the most effective system for you?
The recruitment process should be a pleasant experience for both your candidates, and the ones internally doing the recruiting. For this reason, you should look to automate your process as soon as possible. If you were to look up “How to make recruiting more efficient”, this is going to be common across all sources. As Workable.com states; “Applicant tracking systems (ATS) can help you manage your hiring stages, keep candidate profiles in a searchable database and collaborate with your team”. Automation will allow for a complete streamline of your recruiting process from sourcing to onboarding.
Say you are already utilizing an ATS, such as isolved’s iHire, or another service, how else then can your process be more efficient? The next step then will be utilization of checklists for a standard process. You make lists of chores and groceries, so why not do the same for your business process? A checklist could help you organize your hiring and onboarding steps. You can also build checklists to help structure and prepare for interviews or phone screenings. Things can get off topic often in conversations, use a form to ensure you get all the information you need from the candidate.
Speaking of standard operating procedures, you should look to start utilizing email templates as well. You would be amazed the amount of time owners/managers can waste trying to type up some communication to a candidate. Having these templates stored away and ready to pull when needed will save you precious minutes (if not hours). You may ask; “How many templates do I need?”, and that answer depends on your process. An email should be sent greeting and scheduling any initial screenings, as well as communication between every step of the hiring process, and concludes with a welcome or orientation email. You may find down the road you need an additional template, at which point you can create or refine a past email to fit your needs. Just make sure you leave spots to annotate specifics based on the candidate. While this is meant to streamline your process, it should still come off as genuine and look like it was typed by a human.
The human element is an important thing to show in our technologically run world. AI chat applications are the latest trend in not just social media, but also resumé typing. You will never know which resume was methodically typed out by hand and appropriately reflects one’s credentials versus the AI creation that’s only checking the boxes of your ATS. For this reason, you must be prepared to review work samples and assignments of your candidates. This goes together with having your interviews structured. Do not be afraid to ask questions about a candidate’s prior experience. Dive deep on these topics with well thought out questions that cut the fluff out. How else can you be sure a candidate will be a great fit? The best thing you can do is be fair in your administration of your recruiting process. Making it more efficient means adhering to it step by step with little to no deviation. If you have a process, then trust the process.
Recruiting is a daunting task, especially for businesses seeing new growth. We have personally helped clients navigate these waters before. It can be time consuming and often demoralizing. Rest assured however, as improving your recruiting efficiency will lead to better staffing outcomes. Candidates appreciate a streamlined process just as much as you will. A quick, but thorough turnaround can be all the difference you needed in landing a key candidate before a rival.
As always, if you would like more advice on how to best improve your recruiting process, do not hesitate to reach out to our team at empact hr. We can help you build the process from scratch using best practices or refine an already existing one.
Alex Vial
HR Advisor, HR Services
Alex obtained his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a focus in Human Resource Management from The University of New Orleans. He has worked in a variety of industries, including not-for-profit organizations, Telecommunications/IT, and Solar/Renewables. In his career, he has focused on human resource and legal compliance for companies operating in multiple states, Professional Development and employee trainings, employee engagement, onboarding, offboarding, and conflict resolution. Alex believes the best part of HR is helping companies create pro-employee cultures, increasing retention and reducing recruiting costs. Alex loves tackling new challenges on behalf of his customers at empact and Crescent.
His personal philosophy is “The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.” – Ryan Holiday
