Maybe you are having difficulty retaining your staff or looking for the most effective ways to hire employees. However, during the hiring process, you must always consider that your new hire needs to be just as passionate as you when they join.
Nevertheless, it can sometimes be challenging, but you need to know that your company can easily stand out from the rest during the hiring process.
Unfortunately, most companies fail during the hiring process, making it complicated rather than simple.
No matter how your recruitment process is right now, in this article, we will show you ways you can improve it.
Let's dive right in!
How can you improve your recruitment process this year?
Use an Applicant tracking system(ATS)
If you are a recruiter, it’s difficult to say that you haven’t heard about Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). However, the real question is if you need to use one or not?
Especially if you are a large company looking for top talents, you know that the competition has never been more demanding. The evolution of technology has made companies and recruiters 'fight' for hiring the best talents.
Before social media, job applications were made by paper, and fewer people had the chance to apply compared to today. Now, you can just go on job-seeking or even social media apps and apply from there.
Thus, there are more applicants because it has become so easy to apply for a job. Let’s not forget that the online world has removed geographical barriers too!
Knowing that makes it difficult for recruiters to scan each application manually, especially if hundreds or thousands of applications are coming in. That is why we have Applicant tracking systems(ATS).
The ATS does the work for you and will determine who is the right fit. While many won’t trust the AI, you can customize the way it operates and what you are looking for. This gives recruiters the time and energy to focus on hiring top talents rather than scanning hundreds of applications to find the right fit.
Note: You can learn more about Applicant Tracking Systems here
Use a Microsoft Word test assessment
A Microsoft Word test assessment evaluates candidates' abilities of how well they can use Microsoft Word for business. Of course, no matter which industry you are in, Microsoft Word can be used for multiple purposes. Nevertheless, you can use this test to assess how proficient candidates are in using Microsoft Word and the entire Microsoft Office suite altogether.
The test takes around ten minutes to complete, and the covered skills are:
- Saving, opening, and printing out a document
- Using the proper formats and page layout features
- Using Word’s collaborative editing tools
- Knowing how to use graphs, tables, images, page numbers, and other essential parts of Word
Microsoft Word’s test allows you to hire personal assistants, content writers, marketers, executive assistants, administration workers, and other job roles that require you to know how to use Microsoft Word proficiently.
There are many online companies like TestGorilla that offer these types of tests. In addition, you can use the TestGorilla Microsoft Word assessment to assess your candidate's abilities further to use Microsoft Word for business purposes!
Write the ideal job description
A job description is just as important for attracting top talent. If you aren’t stating that you need qualified candidates, you’ll have juniors applying for your job position. Poor job postings possess a considerable risk and shouldn’t be the reason behind low application rates.
In the UK alone, there are, on average, 56 applicants for high-skilled vacancies. However, there are more than 250 applicants for medium-ones and more than 500 for entry-level vacancies. Now, let’s be honest, you need to have something standing out from 500 applicants, right?
Most companies won’t pay much attention to job descriptions, but this is just as important as other factors. Let’s not forget to include some inspiration in your job description too. Every job description should be able to answer the same question, and that is, “Why is this company the right fit for me?”
Also, if you want to attract top talent, you need to include the mission statement of your business, what your goals are in the future, how you would influence change in their careers, and last but not least, the salary range. Poorly written job descriptions are one of the main reasons why you may attract the wrong talent.
Use recruitment tools
If you aren’t investing your time and money in recruiting tools, you are wasting your time. Your recruiting process will significantly depend on the type of tools you use.
Furthermore, this can help you save an extraordinary amount of time and money. Whether it’s an ATS (as we said before), a video interview platform, a people search engine, these tools can automate your daily recruiting tasks, so you can entirely focus on the more essential things you have to do.
As more workplaces adapt to a hybrid or remote workplace, your company must have the tools to conduct remote interviews. In fact, over the past year, 56% of respondents claimed to have been working remotely in the UK.
Maybe you are working remotely, which is just as important for you, and you need to consider using a set of recruitment tools. For example, if you are thinking about which video platform tools you should use, here are a few we recommend:
- Zoom
- Google Meet
- Slack
- Skype
Don’t hire on your own
Sometimes hiring on your own isn’t the brightest idea. Maybe you might not be feeling so good the day you are supposed to hire someone, so having another recruiter help you out is always a good idea. One way to do this is by creating employee referral programs.
An employee referral program is an excellent recruitment strategy to inspire your staff to refer potential candidates who are the proper fit for your open position. In response to this, you can reward your employees for referrals that turn out to be successful hires.
Alternatively, you can hire employees by including them in your interview process. For instance, some top-performing employees can join you in your interview or the other managers, whatever works best for you. This way, you can get more opinions and see if you are making the right decision or not.
Try internal recruiting
Internal recruiting is a process recruiters undergo to recruit job-seekers within their organization. But, you may ask, how is this done? For instance, let’s say you want to hire a marketing manager and find out that one of your marketers is worth being promoted. You could employ them much faster than you would hire some externally. Let’s not forget that it’s easier to gather insights from an internal hire than from an external one.
Not only does this cut hiring costs, but it also saves you significant time. Internal recruitment can reduce employee turnover rates. This way, recruiters don’t need to waste time researching and setting up interviews.
Simplify the hiring process
Everything we mentioned above contributes to simplifying the recruitment process. However, something else you can do to simplify it even more is by not including too many interview rounds. Some companies have more than three interview rounds, but this isn’t something practical.
This isn’t anything wrong, but it does make the hiring process seem long and might even demotivate the candidate throughout the process. According to statistics, the ideal number of interview rounds should be between two and three.
It can be pretty challenging to conduct more interview rounds when you have many candidates, and it can also look challenging for your candidates. Now, let’s be honest, you have many ways to learn about your candidate in the first and second interview, so it’s best to stop at three. More than three interviews will only make things harder for you and those who want to join your job position.
Wrapping it up
That’s about it for this article. These are the ways you can improve your recruitment process this year. Nevertheless, the recruitment world has changed in 2022; since most companies are now starting to work online, hiring managers have changed how they hire.
Above all, it’s essential to stay with the trend and use the power of technology to the maximum. Many new hiring technologies like video platforms, applicant tracking systems, and more have made it easier for recruiters to process applications and help them hire the right candidate.
Last but not least, don’t forget to focus on writing a good job description. Your job description will determine what type of talent you attract and whether or not potential candidates see if they are the right fit for you.
