How to improve your current recruitment strategy?
Dreaming of fast and efficient recruitment? Stop dreaming and start taking action! See how to improve your recruitment strategy to attract better candidates, do it faster, and avoid overpaying.
Article outline:
- Recruitment strategy – do you have one at all?
- Your recruitment tools
- Solving your problems: What are the key benefits of using an ATS system?
- Improving recruitment: Summary
1. Recruitment strategy – do you have one at all?
A recruitment strategy is a defined approach or plan of action that a company uses to attract candidates for employment. It is developed based on the company’s needs and business objectives, considering the company’s stage of development and the specificities of the industry in which it operates.
Every company should establish a recruitment strategy to avoid organizational chaos when the need arises to search for new employees. Typically, it includes:
- Requirements for candidates specific to each position.
- Types of channels through which candidates will be sourced.
- Methods for processing data and selecting candidates.
- Range of benefits offered and negotiable options regarding compensation.
- Communication methods with candidates, including obtaining feedback on the recruitment process.
- Scope of onboarding activities.
2. Your recruitment tools
Companies are constantly growing, so they conduct recruitment cycles to attract the best talents who meet most, if not all, of the required qualifications. But how do we sift through stacks of documents to identify a few individuals from a pool of 1000 CVs who will be a perfect fit for our company? That’s where the mentioned recruitment strategy comes in!
Before posting a job advertisement anywhere and being inundated with CVs, it’s good practice to consider the technical details of the entire process, including:
- Creating a detailed job description that defines the required competencies and skills of the employee (let’s call this our first screening criteria).
- Determining where we want to advertise the job opening – many job boards and portals are ineffective because they are unattractive to users.
- Streamlining the CV review, processing, and selection process by utilizing appropriate recruitment software, such as an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), which offers screening tests, language assessments, and other tools for candidate evaluation, or networking platforms and video interviews.
- Defining the tone of communication with candidates that aligns with the company’s tone of voice, organizational culture, and values (this standardization is also a screening form – the job offer should not appeal to everyone, but only to the chosen ones).
- Selecting tools for automating correspondence can be the aforementioned ATS or other solutions like email platforms.
- Choosing tools that facilitate candidate assessment, such as ranking systems, n-box matrices, etc.
By refining the above-mentioned actions and selecting the right recruitment tools, recruiters will enhance their capabilities. They can work more efficiently, manage large volumes of recruitment documents, and effectively identify suitable candidates for specific positions.
3. Solving your problems: What are the key benefits of using an ATS system?
Let’s now focus on the selection of tools. Technology is advancing and enabling better results in the recruitment process. An excellent example is the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) – a system designed to track candidate applications and manage every step of the recruitment and hiring process. ATS can function as standalone software or be part of a company’s HRM system.
What are the key benefits of using an ATS?
- Automation of repetitive tasks: ATS automates various tasks such as collecting documentation in one database, processing applications, sorting them, evaluating candidates, and more. This allows for efficient process management and saves recruiters’ time, enabling them to focus more on candidate interviews.
- Time savings leading to financial savings: Companies save time and financial resources by automating and streamlining the recruitment process through an ATS. Less time is spent on manual CV screening and sorting, resulting in reduced overtime and labor costs.
- Improved communication with candidates: ATS facilitates coordinated communication from one platform, utilizing templates, and maintaining continuity and correspondence history. This leads to more efficient and effective communication with candidates.
- Complete control over the recruitment process: ATS enables monitoring of each step from a centralized platform, providing a comprehensive view of the entire recruitment pipeline. Recruiters have full control and visibility throughout the process.
- These benefits contribute to enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the recruitment process, ultimately leading to better hiring outcomes.
- Adhering to legal guidelines: Eliminating human errors, maintaining procedures for protecting confidential and private candidate data, and securing data in a database with restricted access.
- Ability to analyze actions: Generating reports and visualizing data through charts, allowing for process optimization in the future.
- Data integration with other HRM modules: If the ATS is part of an HRM system, it facilitates the flow of employee information and enables a comprehensive analysis of their career path within the company.
An ATS system helps address many challenges that arise when acquiring new talent. However, it’s important to remember that for the system to fulfill its role effectively, the company must identify its needs and choose a system from a specific provider. If you don’t have an ATS yet, consider testing demo versions from different vendors!
4. Improving recruitment: Summary
If you want to improve your recruitment strategy, check if you are actually implementing the steps from this list:
- Clearly define the requirements for candidates (competencies, knowledge).
- Specify the job requirements in each job posting.
- Use various candidate sourcing channels, but focus on the most effective ones.
- Create job offers with competitive appeal – understand the needs of employees, and ensure that your list of benefits and offered salary reflect that.
- Aim to provide candidates with the best possible recruitment experience, so ask for their feedback after each completed recruitment process.
- Ensure that your communication with candidates matches the company’s voice and values.
- Build your employer brand through recommendations from current employees, involving the team in the search for new candidates.
You always evaluate every completed recruitment process. You analyze the gathered information and implement changes if necessary.
Have you checked off all the above points? If not, it’s high time to introduce some improvements. Don’t waste recruiters’ time and resources during future recruitments – strive for greater efficiency!