The candidate market has exploded. Yet the time you have to source, screen, vet and nurture talent hasn’t. Typical networking events are canceled. Meetings for coffee and career fairs are indefinitely on hold. Facetime, text and email are in play. But you’re still dealing with the same number of hours in a day — even if you’re saving a few working from home. Here’s how automation and referral management can help.
No matter which way markets turn, candidate and employee experiences count. They’ll make or break a person’s impression of your organization, whether they want to work there or ever refer qualified candidates for other jobs.
Yet, while today’s market demands a customer experience (CX) mindset, delivering better experiences takes time. Enough time that the math looks tricky. But AI and automation can help make things add up.
Automate Responsibly
Automation isn’t delegation. The future of recruiting shouldn’t be mistaken for delegating candidate relationships to a robot. But you can think of automation (i.e., that robot) as your “assistant” – one that follows your directions, but never takes the lead. That’s where responsible automation begins.
When you design your hiring process with a CX mindset, you’re taking the time to understand what candidates need to know, when and where it needs to be delivered.
Even after you set up workflows with your robot assistant, you’ll need to check your stats, collect feedback, experiment and iterate on delivering better experiences each time.
Automating elements of candidate engagement, which we’ll get into below, helps you create the time and space needed to iterate on the experience you’re delivering and be able to scale that experience to every candidate in your talent pool.
Harnessing that particular power is how to stay on the responsible side of automation.
Four Automation Efficiencies to Scale Your Recruiting Operations & Manage Referrals
1. Application Process Updates
Ever copy-pasted the same application process update from one candidate email to the next? You’re not alone. Ever copy-pasted the wrong update to the wrong candidate? You’re not alone there, either.
Repetitive tasks, like communicating the same basic status update from one person to the next, can feel tedious – but can make or break a candidate’s impression of you and the entire experience. Monumental significance aside, these updates don’t need to take up so much of your time (at least not as much as they are now).
Using a candidate engagement platform that integrates with your ATS or HCM can automate email or text updates to candidates across the hiring process.
Afraid of losing ownership or control? Consider this: if copy-pasting updates normally takes 2 hours a day, automated workflows could get you to your perfect candidate 10 hours earlier this week than the recruiter who’s still typing out emails. That’s the very essence of owning and controlling your day.
2. Interview Scheduling
Landing an interview can be a thrilling prospect for candidates. But the back-and-forth of finding a time that works or making sure everyone can get onto Zoom can slow the process and suck the enthusiasm right out of a hiring process that’s moving at an inspiring clip.
If you’ve ever spent half a day scheduling interview slots (right after a morning of copy-pasting those status updates!), automating this process is for you. Talent moves at the speed of light, and the recruiter who’s still manually comparing calendars won’t keep up in the long run.
Candidate engagement platforms help here, too. Using a tool that pairs with your existing ATS or HCM, you can wrap interview scheduling and calendar coordinating into your process. Calculate the time you’ll save nixing that back-and-forth from your day-to-day, and add up how many more minutes you’ll spend getting to know candidates and measuring for right fit.
3. Referral Management
Now more than ever candidate referrals will be one of your most significant channels for finding talented people. Managing your referral program efficiently, sharing updates and even making your referral sources feel appreciated is pivotal to your referral strategy’s success.
That success rises and falls with the effectiveness of your communication.
While referred candidates might be swept into your candidate engagement workflow, overlooking your referral sources is like shooting yourself in the foot.
According to ERE, neglecting to update referrers for more than 1-2 days can make them question their referral and get nervous about what’s going to happen with their friend. Even worse: it may stop them from ever referring candidates to you again.
Consider referral source engagement as powerful an opportunity as candidate engagement. Investing in referral management technology can automate these touchpoints and make referral status updates accessible on-demand.
4. Advanced Techniques: Resume Screening
Undercover Recruiter reports that manually screening resumes continues to be recruiters’ biggest time-suck. What’s worse: up to 88% of those resumes aren’t even qualified for the job.
Imagine how much faster you could reach your top candidates if you only had to review the 12% of resumes that actually fit the bill.
Landing top talent relies on the recruiter’s ability to automate their workflow and maximize their efficiencies in serving candidates. While resume-screening can be a heavy lift if it’s your first foray into AI and automation, it’s a function that will be essential to success in the future of recruiting.
By future, we mean the next 1-2 years, at the latest.
Creating the Time and Space To Scale
Automation efficiencies and AI aren’t fulfilling their potential in your business if they’re plainly replacing human interactions. And they won’t help your business flex with whatever turns are headed our way next.
But if you use them responsibly – with an understanding of how, when and where you can automate to deliver a better experience – you’ll create something your business can grow on.
Research shows referred candidates make better hires. Are referrals part of your recruiting strategy?