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It’s a candidate's market! This fact is very well known to us all, therefore recruiters need to pull up their socks and make sure they hire the best candidates out of the talent pool.

However, the traditional methods won’t take the recruiters ahead of their competitors, therefore, now the recruitment process is all about data and pre-employment skill testing. But, a lot of companies are running numbers in order to grab the best talent out there! So what can you do to improve your recruitment process and stay ahead of your competitors?

The answer is to follow certain recruiting hacks! Hacks that will help you accelerate your recruitment process in the year 2020!

Why Do You Need Hacks To Improve The Recruitment Process?

Recruiting drives are one of the most hectic parts of any business that has to go through! Finding an ideal job-fit candidate who would also turn out to be a cultural fit for the company is really difficult.

An organization spends a certain amount of money in hiring and training a candidate, therefore, the recruiter has to make sure the candidate is worth it.  Therefore, you need to make sure your staff is always present and on their toes. You also need to make sure your recruitment strategies are in place in case your staff is on long leave or falls sick unexpectedly.

Some businesses have their own in-house HR departments and others prefer to use recruitment agencies to find the right candidates for them. No matter which method you use your techniques must be effective enough to attract the right candidate.

Also, staying up-to-date with the latest recruiting trends will also provide you an edge with your competitors.

10 Recruiting Hacks to Implement In The Year 2020 To Improve Your Hiring Process

  1. Optimize Your Social Media

 As per a Linkedin survey, 70% of the global workforce comprises passive candidates, candidates who aren’t looking for a job change. And, only 30% are considered to be active.

The recruiters source both active and passive candidate pools so that they don’t risk losing out on the top talent. As per an Indeed survey, 86% of recruiters find it hard to look for tech talent as the majority of the industry is supposed to be passive.

The challenge here is since most of the candidates are passive they aren’t available on job boards! So, how can you make sure that the job vacancy reaches the candidate? By making sure that all your social media channels are optimized.  The recruiter needs to make sure that their reach is maximum across all social media platforms so that it reaches the passive candidate and the organization doesn’t miss out on any of the best candidates out there!

Promote new roles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Instagram. This is how you will appeal to a much larger audience. Make sure to add a CTA so that the interested candidate can get in touch with you almost immediately.

2. Use Pre-Employment Skill Testing Software

Pre-employment skill testing is the future of recruitment and to a very extent has become the present too. Automating the recruitment process is very important right now taking into consideration how agile recruitment trends have become. 

Candidate assessment tool has many benefits, they help you automate your entire process, let’s you know about the deserving and undeserving candidates before-hand, it boosts your efficiency and productivity as a recruiter. It also automates sending emails to the candidates and cuts your screening time into half.

A new feature called a one-way video interview has also been introduced in which a link is sent to the candidate with a set of questions and they have to submit a recorded video of themselves answering those questions. This helps the recruiter to know the candidate better and determine whether they will be a fit for the organization or not. This also saves the recruiter from the hassle of scheduling a F2F interview for non-deserving candidates.

3. Use Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

Even though it is challenging, the recruitment process is pretty repetitive. The same procedures are followed from hiring until onboarding a new candidate. Creating an advertisement, shortlisting candidates, syncing up with the candidates for interviews, completing interviews, etc. 

An ATS will save you from the monotony of the process. It will help you streamline your recruitment process in a better way. It is a software application that takes care of your recruitment and hiring needs. It can be implemented at any organizational level. An ATS can filter applications based on given criteria like skills, keywords, experience, etc. Due to ATS practices like resume optimization have come into the picture.

You can feed all your needs into the ATS and it will filter out the required candidates for you.

4. Have a Structured Interview Process

Most of the time the interviews that take place are very spontaneous in nature which is a big no-no! Taking an interview is no “cakewalk”. They are as hard for the interviewer as they are on the interviewee.

The interviewer should always have some predesigned set of questions for the candidate in order to standardize the interviews. This will also help you to compare two candidates interviewing for the same role. This benefits the organization as well because having a structured recruitment process helps you find the best candidate for your organization.

This doesn’t mean the structure has to be immensely detailed and labeled out. But, have a basic outline as to what all questions should be asked to the candidates and what are the topics of discussion.

5. Career Site: Updated 24*7

Most of the businesses don’t update their ‘careers’ page and some don’t even have one on their website. This is a total crime in the recruitment industry. Most candidates first check the website of a company to seek job opportunities and then move on to the job portals. 

Organizations mostly reflect “no current jobs” status on the careers page, however, if you check job portals or LinkedIn, you will find many job positions in the organization. You don’t want to be that organization as it doesn’t create a very positive image of the organization. It can also hamper your employer branding. Therefore, make sure your career site is always updated as an organization.

6.    Use One-Way Video Interview Question To Assess Candidates

The one-way video interview is on the rise and a great way to screen the candidates. It makes the recruiting process so much easier for the recruiters. It is more efficient to view a pre-recorded video when comparing two or more candidates.

For job roles that require good communication skills, a one-way video interview drastically decreases the time to find the right candidate. It’s also an advisable way to make sure that the candidates called for a face to face interview stand true to their resume.

And, not just for the candidates, you can use ‘video’ as a tool to connect with a larger audience with a touch of personalization. You can promote videos of your work culture on social media to attract candidates and promote your organization. Also, putting a face to your HR team is a great hack to improve your social media outreach and for employer branding purposes.

7. Adopt Recruitment Marketing

In the present recruitment scenario, as a candidate (a potential employee) engages with your organization, they get to know your brand, organization’s culture, opportunities. Candidates who get involved in your recruitment process get a deeper look inside your organization rather than a customer. 

This is exactly where you can put recruitment marketing to work for your organization’s benefit.

It is a way to attract talented individuals using traditional ways of marketing. Treat your hiring process exactly the way you would treat a sale. Right from the rejected candidate experience to an employee’s exit interview, make your HR team stand out. This will help you attract the top candidates with less effort because word of the mouth spreads really fast.

8. Understand the Talent

One of the most effective recruitment strategies includes getting it right the first time with every hire. As a recruiter understanding what the candidate wants can be extremely helpful for you. Global Talent Trends study by Mercer in 2018 identifies three key areas that candidates look for in an organization.

  • Flexible working option: almost 0 out of 10 applicants look for flexible work timings when they look for a job. It is no rocket science that a highly qualified candidate will get a lot of job offers, however, providing the candidate with flexible work timing will help you transform your potential talent pool.
  •  Commitment to health and well being: A large chunk of candidates are also attracted by the efforts taken by an organization to keep their mental and physical health intact. Gallup found that a positive culture like this attracts the top 20% of the candidates from the talent pool.
  • Meaningful work: Mercer notes that employees were three times most likely to work for a company which gives them a sense of purpose. Employee experience is enhanced when the employees are provided with meaningful work at the workplace.

9. Optimize the Mobile Experience

Staying technically ahead gives you an edge over your competitors. In an age where smartphones are used the most, it is very critical to have a digital presence that appeals directly to people you wish to attract.

Therefore, make sure your recruiting software is available through a mobile app. Apps are the most used method of interacting with the public and keeps the attention going. Therefore, making sure that the services of your organization keep up with their busy lifestyle. People are always on their smartphones, therefore, having a system that lets candidates apply for job roles via the mobile site will help you stay ahead of your competition.

10. Employee Referral Program

It is proven by researchers that employee referrals programs provide a better quality of hire. 

As a recruiter try to make employee referrals your most effective way to source candidates. This will not only help you source better candidates but also boost the morale of your employees.

Focus on the job types where talent is harder to source initially and make sure with the help of your ATS you enable social sharing options for those job openings. Also, make sure you share the feedback on why a referred candidate didn’t make it to the list to maintain quality in the referral program. With an automated hiring process you can make sure you track highly qualified referred candidates fast.

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Pankaj is a digital marketing professional at Interview Mocha. He produces highly informative and actionable content for topics ranging from recruitment, social media hiring to candidate assessment. Pankaj believes in continuously learning & being updated with latest trends in content marketing.

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