Around 75% of the recruiters use recruitment software for automation. Of those, 94% agree that it improves their hiring process (Capterra). How efficiently you recruit suitable candidates determines the growth of your organisation. A slow manual process can negatively impact team-building efforts. Hence, automation at these 8 stages of the recruitment process is essential to save time, effort and money and still get good hires.
Introducing automation: 8 stages of the recruitment process
You can automate your organisation’s recruitment process at multiple stages:
1. Recruitment Planning
Begin with recruitment planning. Determine the start and the end date for the recruitment process. The planning will include:
- Identifying the requirements
- Determining the available positions
- Determining the best strategy to fill those positions
- Targeting the group of potential candidates
- Deciding the best recruitment panel
- Budget to complete the recruitment process
If you have been using recruitment softwares and tracking metrics, it can help you in planning things like the best strategy, recruitment budget, best recruitment panel, and candidates to target.
2. Candidate Sourcing
The next step is to look for potential candidates. It would generally include sourcing candidates through job boards, social media, recruitment consultants and referrals. Preferred job boards are:
- Naukri
- Indeed
- Monster
- IIM Jobs
- AngelList
40 million people search for jobs on LinkedIn every week. Over 250 million people visit Indeed every month looking for a job. Millions of job seekers use Naukri, Monster, IIM Jobs and AngelList. However, browsing through job boards, downloading CVs and maintaining a record on a spreadsheet remains unsatisfactory. Today, you can automate candidate sourcing using recruitment softwares like the PyjamaHR applicant tracking system (ATS). With its candidate sourcing feature and integrations of popular job boards like LinkedIn, Google Jobs, and Adzuna Jobs, you can easily source and import resumes of candidates looking for a job.
3. Candidate screening
Telephonic and video screening have been the conventional methods HRs would use for screening candidates. If the candidates meet basic requirements like location, gender, years of experience, qualifications, and skills, they are shortlisted for further assessment. Manual candidate screening has always been hectic and time-consuming.
Automated screening: You can save time spent over the telephone or video screening. You can frame screening questions to be answered during the application process and assess those hundreds of candidates. Later, you can filter and review the candidates to match the required qualifications, experience and relevant skills.
Also, you can maintain a talent pool for candidate rediscovery. You move candidates to the talent pool for the future:
- When you find two great candidates but require one
- The candidate is a future-fit
So, when demand for candidates comes up, you can use the PyjamaHR “Talent pool” for candidate rediscovery. You can review those old resumes in the talent pool instead of starting from scratch.
4. Candidate assessment
Traditionally, candidate assessment involved general questions over call. Candidates who could establish their ideas and communicate well would be shortlisted for further rounds. There are chances that you would miss out on qualified candidates just because they could not communicate well.
Automated Assessment: You can send a set of questions specific to their subject. You can also evaluate a candidate through assessment tests with time limitations. It will help you better understand the candidate’s expertise and knowledge of the industry. An automated candidate assessment rates candidates based on their responses to questions.
Also, there are pass/fail questions that immediately reject a candidate. An automated candidate assessment will help you efficiently determine the candidates’ eligibility for further hiring rounds.
5. Interview scheduling
A speedy interview scheduling means good management. As recruitment evolved, progress was seen in the way interviews were scheduled.
Informing over call: Scheduling and managing interviews have always been a task. Previously, communication used to be established over call, telling the candidates about the scheduled date and time. Informing over call reflected a rigid approach to conducting interviews.
Using Calendly: It took a while before we progressed to more convenient and flexible methods like scheduling interviews over Calendly. On Calendly, candidates can choose from the free slots of time and date.
Using ATS: Later, ATS integrated the automated interview feature to further their offer and ease recruitment automation.
Also, you can schedule an interview through ATS instead of manually typing invitation emails. You can send the email template or edit it as per your needs.
6. Background verification
Background verification can still be a tedious task. You would never appreciate sending out questions to the previous employers of hundreds of candidates. Recruitment software with an integrated background verification feature can help you automate the process and save ample time.
7. Sending offer letter
So far, HRs have been writing and sending the offer letters to the selected candidates. It negatively impacts the hiring process. It could be difficult, especially if you have several open positions. A simple solution to it could be an editable copy of the offer letter that you can change for information for each new hire. And if you use automated software, it may have the feature to auto-generate offer letters. You can customise them as needed.
8. Generating reports
Making reports on a spreadsheet right from the planning stage to onboarding is time-consuming. With an applicant tracking system, generating reports on multiple stages would be an event of a few clicks. Also, you can view charts and graphs to look through and analyse what works and whatnot.
If you want an efficiently managed recruitment process, automate it at multiple stages. Select an ATS with the features that you need. It will save you ample time by automating things at stages that could otherwise be hectic and time-consuming. You can use the time saved in doing things that require human intelligence, assessment and brainstorming. PyjamaHR is one such free applicant tracking system you can use to streamline your hiring process.
