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Is your recruiting process disorganized? Are your recruiters frustrated with outdated technology and tired recruiting methods? Do candidates drop out of your process because it takes too long? If you answered yes to any of these questions, your recruiting department could use an overhaul. Here’s a checklist with ten ways to amp up your recruiting game!
Evaluate your company’s current application process
How do you keep track of applications coming in? How long is your current process? Do you know where applicants drop off or get bored in the process?
75% of recruiters and hiring professionals use a recruiting or applicant tracking system. Are you wasting time on a disorganized process?
75% of recruiters use an ATS. Are you wasting time by not using one?
To Do: Track how long it takes to identify, source, contact, screen and schedule an interview with a potential candidate. How efficient was the process overall? How long did it take? Were you ever confused or bored in the process? Take that information into your next career site overhaul.
Simplify the process
How easy is it for potential employees to apply for your position? Is your application process easy to understand?
60% of applicants quit an online application because it was too complex or too long.
To Do: Time yourself going through the application process, see how long it takes you to do it. Now time a friend who may not be familiar with the industry or your company to see how a potential applicant might experience your interview process. Keep a record of both times to see the gap between an industry insider versus a skilled contributor who may not be familiar with the industry.
Read why 60% of applicants quit an online application and how to fix it:
Look at your recruitment technology options
Is your recruiting team struggling under Microsoft Excel to keep track of applicants and interviews? Consider how much time and energy a free or low-cost Applicant Tracking or video interviewing system would save.
94% of recruiters and hiring professionals say their ATS or recruiting software has positively impacted their hiring process.
To Do: Explore easier recruitment tracking methods. Make a pros and cons list of your current applications process.
Keep in contact
Invest in a CRM (Candidate Relationship Management) platform to keep the lines of communication open between you and candidates or applicants.
Job seekers are looking for communication from employers and it’s good business for employers to maintain communication. With the average application to placement cycle at 43 days, if you want to keep qualified candidates prepped for an offer, communication is crucial. About 90% of job seekers said they at least want an automated response from the potential employer, although 40% feel that is too impersonal.
To Do: Look over your past communication records with onboarding employees. What is your average time to respond once a jobseeker applies? If more than 24 hours, invest in a free CRM or ask your ATS vendor if they provide CRM within their platform.
Laser focus your job advertisements
Are your requirements and ads too general? Are you using a contact form as a de facto ATS?
30% of employers say they have too many applicants to manage individually.
To do: Add something specific to your job advertisement. Examples include a specific email to respond to with a certain subject line, an automated message with an assignment or additional parameters in the job advertisement itself (like software programs or years of experience).
Here's what to do when you have too many applicants to handle alone:
Ease up on applicants
Does your ATS have too many gates and hoops for applicants? If you find yourself scraping for 1-2 applicants for every open position, you may be setting your recruiting department up for poor retention numbers.
75% of job seekers' chances of landing an interview are killed by errors in the ATS or by too strict SEO parameters.
Your ATS could be killing your recruiting potential. Here's how to fix it:
To Do: Send a fake almost perfect resume through the hiring ranks of your company. Did your dummy resume get a timely response? Many perfectly qualified candidates get rejected by the bot. Now, it’s a matter of tailoring your job ads to popular keywords your candidates could be searching.
Build an internal candidate experience coalition
Hiring managers may not understand just how your recruitment process works, for applicants OR recruiters.
Almost 40% of recruiters and hiring managers have not gone through the job application process on their own website to test it.
To Do: Ask a laid back hiring manager and a finicky hiring manager to go through the process with one of their own job requirements. Ask them to time themselves.
Go mobile with your careers
Google now penalizes websites that don’t have a responsive or mobile-friendly component. Don’t lose your ranking!
51% of recruiters plan to increase mobile recruitment investing. Be one of them, the investment will pay off in search ranking.
To Do: Take this Wall Street Journal article about the April 2015 Google search penalties to your boss or CTO.
Get ahead of the game
Fire up your recruiters competitive edge with contests and deep competitive intelligence. Recruiters are hunters, so give them something to hunt!
Two-percent of technology workers at seven Silicon Valley companies that released staffing numbers are black; 3% are Hispanic. But last year, 4.5% of all new recipients of bachelor's degrees in computer science or computer engineering from prestigious research universities were African American, and 6.5% were Hispanic, according to data from the Computing Research Association.
To Do: Start a diversity hiring initiative in your company by going after the great talent that seemingly no one else is focusing on.
Stand out with a reliable ATS service, do your research.
Read our special trick to kickstarting your diversity hiring initiatives:
Help yourself out
An astonishing 94% of HR professionals who use recruiting software said it has improved their hiring process. Only 5% of software users replied that their hiring process has been hurt by software with just 1% claiming no impact at all.
To Do: Do your homework. Look into an ATS service, decide if you need help in efficiency and hiring.
ClearCompany is ranked among other top ATS companies, with over 160 million talent profiles, that help you filter through mountains of incoming resumes.
94% of HR pros using recruiting software say it has improved their process. Read more:
To Do: Take the ClearCompany demo to see if ATS services are for you.
From diversity to internal advocate groups, tech to home-grown testing, these actionable steps will have your recruiting department humming in no time. Get recharging!
