Efficient people make for a profitable business. Most businesses want to recruit the smartest and the brightest, and you want to find them quickly. If your recruiting process takes a long time, you risk losing out the best candidates. The recruiting process which takes a long time to complete may become frustrating for both you and your potential recruits. In addition, leaving a job position open for too long may result in desperate hiring and poor overall return.
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Interactive and refined recruitment processes are productive and pleasant for both the candidates and the hiring team. Avoid losing out the best talent, and find the best candidate for the job with speed with these 7 ways of speeding up your talent acquisition process.
Select job boards wisely
Job portals are an integral part of any recruitment process but choosing the right job portals can help you translate your efforts into finding the right candidate. There are a plethora of options available when it comes to job portals, ranging from Glassdoor, Indeed, Monster to LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, etc. Experiment with different portals, and work with the top 2-3 which bring you the best quality of candidates.
With popular portals, you may get a lot of applications but you will have to spend time finding the quality applications. Another great way is to experiment with niche job portals which specialise in a particular industry or business function. Niche portals can help you find candidates with specific skills and experience.
Know what you want
Unless you’re clear about the role requirements, your recruiting process cannot be efficient. A clearly stated job description can help you evaluate candidates easily and find the qualities that are most important to you.
i) Job Title: Start by listing the job title and try to include key phrases to describe the role more accurately. If you want to get more applicants, then a generic title will attract more attention than a specific one.
ii) Duties and Responsibilities: Outline the key responsibilities of the position and emphasise on the duties that may be specific for that role. Indicate how the job role fits in the hierarchy of the organisation. Next, highlight the day-to-day activities so that the candidates understand what is expected of them. You can help them gauge if they would really like to do this type of work on a daily basis.
ii) Skills and Qualifications: Specify what education and job experience you’re looking for in a particular role. Do you require any technical skills or certifications for this role? List the key “must-have” skills and the “nice-to-have” skills. This will help you evaluate the candidate on the skills important for the role.
iv) Company Culture: Outline the key qualities of your company’s culture and describe what makes your company unique. This gives the candidates a compelling reason to apply if they feel that the company culture matches their expectations.
v) Job Summary: When you have completed your job description, briefly summarise it and add a summary to the top. This acts as a quick overview of the job requirements.
Streamline your technology
Technology has changed the way we work, and if the manual addition of data is still a part of your recruiting process then it’s time to automate your tasks with online software.
i) Candidates Pre-Screening: You can use innovative interview methods like video interviews, specific job assignments, case studies to pre-screen candidates. Nowadays, large organisations choose online assessment tools to find out if the candidate is a good fit for the company culture.
ii) Optimise for mobile: Most job postings are viewed by people on mobile on the go. Ensure that your job posting is optimised for mobile viewing and can be easily shared with other people.
iii) Scheduling interview: Reduce your labor in intensive scheduling and trying to find out a convenient time to schedule interviews. Use an interview scheduling software to add your availability and send the link to let the candidates schedule the interview themselves at a convenient time.
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Optimise your job posting
You want to increase the chances of your job posting reaching the right audience. Attract more applicants by using keywords in your job description. Keywords can help in increasing the visibility of your job posting. It may be tempting to use all relevant keywords, but don’t overuse your keywords because the search engines get suspicious and you may end up getting penalised for overuse of keywords.
A good way to find out if you’re overusing keywords is to read out the job description aloud and see if it feels unnatural. You can also add the link to your company’s website and allow the candidates to find the relevant links to look for information about your company.
Network constantly and use social media
The market has a lot of passive candidates who may be working at the moment, but will still be interested in knowing about new job opportunities. You can increase your chances of finding a great candidate by actively networking and using social media channels to reach out to many of the passive candidates.
i) Attend networking events: Attend networking events to reach out to more people, and actively look out for talent. Share information about your company, describe your company culture, use the opportunity to invite them to future company networking events, but don’t overdo it. People like to work with people you like, and over-promoting will only leave a negative reputation for your company.
ii) Referrals: Any company’s biggest assets are their employees and using their network to find the new recruit is not only faster but also a less expensive way. A study by Job Vite also revealed that people hired via referrals are more likely to stay longer with an organisation. So, create a friendly portal and request referrals from your existing employees to speed up the process.
iii) Follow conversations on social media: Start tracking and following conversations on social media channels, forums, and blogs to discover new insights and stumble across talented people. Build new relationships and generate brand awareness to attract talent.
iv) Use boolean search: Boolean search is a complex query that can be used across multiple search platforms on social media. A boolean query can be formed by adding the words “AND” and “OR” with your search query to make it more specific. If you’re looking for certain skill sets specific for the job, you can use a boolean query to narrow down your results to more specific skills.
Consider flexible interviews
Candidate interviews are important in the recruitment process and coordinating interviews with multiple candidates can be time-consuming and frustrating for both you and your candidates. Instead of going back and forth via emails or trying to connect via phone to set-up the interview time try using an automated interview scheduling tool like SuperSaaS.
In automated scheduling, you can determine your team’s availability by setting up a schedule for your team, then send the schedule to candidates to schedule an interview time on the dates and time which work for them. With some interview scheduling tools, you can also sync your personal Google calendar which ensures your personal appointments are also accounted for in the schedule. The appointment scheduling tool will send you as well as the candidates an automated reminder via text/email so you don’t forget. In addition to saving your and your team’s time, automated scheduling improves the candidate experience and helps you cut down the time you need in hiring.
Implement a long-term talent management strategy
Recruitment is an important part of your business, and you should create a long-term strategy for hiring along with your corporate strategy. Start by looking at your business plan and your expansion strategy. If you predict the needs for hiring, you can be prepared well in time with candidates suitable for the role.
When you want to attract the best talent, start by creating brand awareness for your organization. Participate in active discussions and tailor your communication to reflect your company’s values and motto. Defining your core values clearly can help you narrow down on candidates which are more suitable for your company. Develop a talent pool via social media and look to your own employees for referrals. When you create a long-term recruitment strategy, you’re ensuring you discover and attract the best talent to help your company’s growth.
This article was originally published on HR Gazette