4 Tips To Optimise Your Recruitment Process

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

The recruitment industry is changing quickly. Recruiters and HR professionals who are still following the old ways of recruiting talents will gradually lose out to those who have jumped on the technology bandwagon.

Having a recruitment process that is lengthy and tedious may provide extensive information about a candidate. But a high chance a competitor who has a shorter process may swoop your potential candidate. Do you know that an average human being’s attention span today is only eight minutes? Imagine having to key in every single subject results of your higher education plus personal details like address, bank account number that would take at least 30 minutes just for a job application.

Being in an era of the talent war, top candidates can opt for various jobs easily. They get to learn about an organisation with just a click away. Also, they can share a bad candidate experience ruin the reputation of an organisation in a matter of minutes. Hence, now is the time to start identifying and switch out outdated processes. Here are four tips that could help your organisation to improve the efficiency of your recruitment process.

Tip 1: Streamline recruitment process

Prospective candidates may get turned off when they are required to perform too many steps to apply for an opportunity with an organisation. Finding a job is already stressful. The last thing candidates want is having to answer a long list of questions in an application process with a 50-50 chance of hearing anything from the employer.

A streamlined hiring mechanism results in a lower cost per hire. Are you aware that each year, as many as 95% of employers admit that they made terrible hires? And the actual cost can reach as high as five times the annual salary.

Follow these helpful steps to start streamlining your recruitment process.

• Quick & straightforward application process. Request for only essential information like an updated resume, name of candidate, contact details and their LinkedIn profile (a good to have). If the candidate fits the role, further information can be obtained during an interview.
• Reduce the number of rounds of the interview. Recruitment process gets draggy when there are multiple levels of interviews. Much of a candidate and recruiter’s time is spent on scheduling and waiting for the interviewer to respond. As a general rule, three is an ideal number of rounds of interview. It is sufficient to provide you with enough information to make a confident hiring decision.
• Only include the “Must-Haves” in job descriptions. Even though job description acts as a guide for candidates to gauge if they are suitable for the job, it plays a vital role in attracting the right candidate. An internal report by Hewlett Packard found that women will only apply for a job when they meet 100% whereas men will proceed to apply for the job when they are at 60%. Therefore, adding too many “nice-to-have” criteria may drive a potential candidate away.

Tip 2: Prioritise candidate communication

The term “ghosting” is a popular scenario in the recruitment landscape. Unfortunately, most job seekers have experienced it. It is a term best used when a candidate stops hearing from their recruiter during a job application—leaving the candidate lost and puzzled, not knowing what went wrong or what to do next.

Back then, poor communication with candidates will do little to no harm to the employer. But on this day, it will earn the organisation a negative review on Google, Jobstreet or any social media platforms the business is on. It notifies other job seekers about the possible poor candidate experience, leaving a dent on the employer’s brand image.

Steps to improve communication with candidates are simple. Just like handling a customer in a department store, they want to be informed and feel appreciated. Communicate clear expectations to candidates by setting-up standard operation procedures (SOPs) after each stage of the recruitment. For example: send follow-up messages to candidates who have applied to a job on what to expect next. It is natural to inform those who were successfully selected for an interview. As for those who did not, please don’t leave them out. Drop an email or a call to tell them the news. Keep in touch with them as they might be suitable for the next job opening.

Tip 3: Invest in your employer brand

The perks that today’s workforce seek is beyond monetary rewards. Candidates now look for everything right from a great work environment, culture, leadership, career growth and development opportunities to work-life flexibility, and many more.

Your employer brand is the organisation’s reputation that you communicate across channels including website, social media and word of mouth to attract talents. Having a positive and consistent reputation attracts candidates to want to work for you. How you speak to job applicants, treat employees, and how they talk about the organisation all contribute to your employer brand.

Employer branding is an extensive topic, and it varies from one organisation to another. For a start:

• Show candidates how innovative your company is by investing and optimising a seamless company website—not forgetting your career page.
• Invest in your social media and take control of the narrative. Utilise the platform to showcase the positive work environment, culture and employees wellbeing.
• Seek help from employees of the various department to bump up the reviews on sites like Google, Jobstreet and Glassdoor.
• If you are in the service line, request testimonials or reviews from clients, customers or partners and shout it out on your social media. Positive vibes always help in attracting positive attention.
• Update existing and create new promotional materials that help promote your improved employer brand.
• Align the employer brand with the overall brand strategy to ensure a consistent messaging is shared.

Tip 4: Rely on experts’ help to fill time-consuming positions

The knowledge and skill gained by being a recruiter are invaluable. They are required to know not only about the business operation but also expected to learn the function and purpose of each position available in an organisation. Though, it is acceptable that not all recruiters have the knowledge and expertise in hiring talents from all industries and functions. It takes time to gain such experience.

When it comes to technical hiring, employers have the option to expand the recruitment team, rely on internal resources or outsource the search to a third party. More often than not, the first two options would result in higher expenses and a more extended period. Reason being, newly hired recruiters, require time to familiarise with the organisation and business operation. There is a high chance that other factors such as company culture, working environment, workload or peers may affect their performance.

As for relying on internal resources, with a proper incentive plan in place, it may attract employees to help. When the position is too technical and has strict requirements, internal staffs may feel confused and lose interest in helping.

Instead of losing more precious time and money, the option of seeking help from recruitment could help fill technical or challenging roles more accurately and quickly. For example, Adecco Malaysia provides various services, including mid-senior level permanent search, contract/ temp staff search, and various outsourcing HR solutions. Our consultants are specialised and work on industry-focused talent searches. If you in need of an extra pair of hands to help, we are more than happy to serve you. Contact us now to learn more.