The new year is fast approaching, meaning you’re likely in the process of assessing your organization’s strengths and weaknesses from 2020, and opportunities for continued improvement in 2021. One area you should make sure not to overlook as you prepare for 2021 is your hiring process.
There have been a lot of challenges this year, but 2021 brings hope. With the distribution of the vaccine, businesses will be able to get back to work, and that means hiring more people will be a necessity. Top talent will always be in high demand, so focusing on what works and what needs some tweaking in your hiring process is essential to building your best team.
Your people are your main source of competitive advantage, but without the right hiring process in place, you won’t secure the talent you need to drive success at your organization. Below, we’ve outlined a few ways for you to improve your hiring process before 2021 kicks off.
Follow a standardized hiring process
Setting expectations for job applicants from the start will improve your candidate experience immensely. This year, Hireology users averaged around eight days to initially review a job application once it was submitted. This is an average of four days faster than 2019. Reviewing applications as quickly as possible and alerting candidates of when they should expect to hear back from you will help keep candidates engaged and keep you from losing out to your competition.
Think about it. You wouldn’t let a customer lead go unanswered for two weeks — or longer — and you should take the same approach to hiring. In many cases, the reason it takes so long to review applicants — and complete other hiring steps — is because some organizations don’t have a set hiring process in place. By following a standardized, proven process, you can reduce your total time to review applicants and, as a result, your total time to hire.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) and recruitment CRM platform like Hireology can help hold your team accountable to following a standardized hiring process. Rather than relying on paper applications or receiving an influx of email applications in your inbox, an ATS and recruitment CRM platform centralizes all candidate information in one location and makes it easy for you to follow the same hiring steps each time you have an open role.
By following a standardized, repeatable hiring process, you can also keep candidates engaged every step of the way — boosting their excitement about joining your team. The right recruitment CRM will enable you to seamlessly interact with candidates throughout the entire hiring process.
For example, candidate text messaging is one capability that makes communication much more seamless. Candidate text messaging can be used to schedule interviews, share directions to your workplace, remind candidates of steps they need to complete in the hiring process, and more. Beyond keeping candidates engaged, as an added benefit, hiring managers who have used Hireology’s text messaging solution have decreased time to hire by eight days, ultimately increasing productivity that’s typically lost when roles remain open.
Streamline hiring steps
Hireology data found that for each day a profit-driving role is open, employers lose an average of $1,000 in gross profit. For each day a dealership has an open sales role, fewer vehicles are sold. And for each day a home healthcare agency has an open nurse role, fewer clients are seen, leading to lower profits for the business.
You can streamline hiring steps and reduce time to hire by automating some steps in the hiring process. Prescreen surveys, for example, can be automatically sent to applicants, helping your team save time instead of reviewing each applicant individually. Other automation tools that can help your team speed up the hiring process include: interview guides, integrated assessments, and automated background and reference checks.
Another way to streamline your hiring process is by taking your candidate review process on the go. With Hireology’s mobile app, you can review candidates, move them through the hiring process, and connect with top talent from anywhere. You can download the Hireology app right now from the Google Play or the Apple App Store.
Seamlessly move from candidate to new hire
It takes time for each new hire to get onboarded and fully productive at your organization. And the sooner you can get new hires up to speed, the sooner these employees will start driving profitability at your organization.
To boost new hire productivity, your team should consider integrating your hiring platform with your other HR systems. This enables you to move quickly from the hiring process to onboarding and other critical onboarding steps.
By integrating your hiring platform with your onboarding system, you can kick off digital onboarding before an employee’s first day. Digital onboarding enables new employees to fill out paperwork once their offer letters are signed and kick off their day-to-day work right away, rather than focusing on administrative tasks. Onboarding tasks that can be completed before the first day include: filling out direct deposit information for automated payroll, completing tax forms, filling out benefits paperwork, and signing the employee handbook.
In addition to onboarding, your team needs to have the right technology and processes in place to make HR processes as easy as possible. To do this, you can integrate your hiring platform with your payroll and HR platform. This will enable employees to easily set up their payroll preference and log into one centralized system for all things HR — including payroll, benefits, and time and attendance. Centralized payroll and HR will ultimately save time and boost productivity at your organization, and ensure employees don’t get frustrated with tedious HR processes.
Measure and improve your hiring efforts
As you assess whether or not your hiring process is working for your team, actionable data can help you make more informed decisions to improve your hiring going into 2021. Hireology customers have access to Insights, actionable Q&A analytics that answer questions such as: How fast am I hiring? Is everyone following my hiring process? Which recruitment marketing channels are driving the most quality candidates and hires?
Armed with this data, you can better understand what necessary steps you should take to make your hiring process more efficient. If data shows candidates keep getting held up in a certain hiring step, you can identify ways to speed up this step. And if you notice a recruitment marketing channel — such as a specific job board — isn’t driving many quality candidates and eventual hires, you can eliminate this channel and only invest in those that drive results.
Your people can make or break your overall business success. By preparing for 2021 now with a proactive strategy to improve your hiring process, you can build your best team, and drive profitability as a result. If you’re interested in learning about how Hireology can help you hire your best team in 2021, you can schedule a demo here.
