5 Considerations for an Applicant Tracking System Vendor

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If your organization is exploring the use of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), or if your company has taken the first step towards internal efficiency by approving the investment of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), it might seem like a daunting challenge. Many questions resonate as implementation can be a bit overwhelming even for the most seasoned tech users. What should I do next? Where do I go from here? How does this product work?

Don’t let fear get in the way of efficiency. Implementing an ATS into your organization is an investment of time and financial resources. As HR professionals explore the caveats of an ATS, it is essential to find the tool that works best for your organization with a support team that defines ongoing value.

 

When evaluating a system, here are five items to consider:

 

1) Applicant Tracking System Support

If you are asking yourself, “How do we use this new product?”, that’s an essential question that needs to be answered in depth, in addition to other questions centered on product support. What type of training will we receive from the product vendor? Is training personalized to meet our organization’s needs? After training, if we still have questions, will we be able to contact someone in the United States?

Best-in-class vendors offer personalized training by a Client Success team composed of professionals who are genuinely vested in your organization’s success. Training is provided to your team, and follow up questions, which are expected, are supported by the Client Success team. The Client Success team lives up to its name; they are a bonafide, dedicated team who wants to make your lives easier by using employment software solutions. Relationships are important, and those are built here. Tap into their wisdom and expertise to help guide your use of the ATS.

2) The Applicant Experience

Applicants won’t waste time. Can job seekers apply quickly on mobile devices? If a job seeker finds more than one job to which they want to apply, do they have to start over again?

Convenient for the job seekers you are attracting, look for an ATS that is mobile responsive so that your applicants experience a seamless application process. No passwords should be needed by the applicant; the applicant can use their contact information, such as an email or phone number, to access their applications.

More than one job of interest to your job seekers? Not a problem – top of the line HR Software will offer multi-apply where the applicant can apply to more than one job at a time.  And since the best HR Software offers an organization the ability to use different applications to collect data essential for screening, the applicant will complete the questions you specify in one experience without interruption even if the applicant is applying to multiple jobs based on different application templates.

 

3) ATS Job Board Integrations

Visibility of my jobs is important in this competitive job market. What type of boards are available? To which boards are my jobs automatically sent? Does the ATS offer diversity and niche job boards?

The best HR Software offers the ability to automatically push jobs to free boards like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Snagajob, Job Inventory and indexed for Google for Jobs. No effort needed on your part for those job boards. Interested in other job boards? Some of the best ATS software offers other options to automate job postings to various boards such as diversity boards, niche boards, and many other options.

4) Building Applicant Pools

An applicant today might be the fit for tomorrow’s opening. How can I search for applicants’ talents and skills for my current and future roles? When I find applicants that meet our requirements, how do I communicate with them?

As you screen your applicants, you can “tag” your applicants’ skills and talents using keywords of value to your organization. Best-in-class HR Software offers ways to navigate your view of applicants and jobs to filter to the criteria you are seeking at the moment.

As you find applicants you want to move forward, you’ll need the option to communicate with them via texting  (ideally without additional fees). But not all applicants will want to be texted, so integrated email with customizable communication templates will be required as well. Be sure that your vendor allows you to attach the files with your email communication as well.  Finally, you’ll want to find a software solution that provides communication history displayed on the applicant’s record; however, be sure that HR Managers can restrict access to this area if necessary.

5) ATS Compliance Reporting

Subject to Affirmative Action reporting? Compliance to EEO guidelines and internal company parameters is crucial. Will I be able to analyze data?

You absolutely should! Whether an organization is subject to governmental reporting requirements or simply if they want to keep track of data to fulfill internal parameters, Best-in-class HR Software will offer robust Affirmative Action Plan reporting and reporting compliant with Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines. Whether you are seeking reports for formal reporting, or if you are looking for data specific to particular job(s), top HR Software allows users the opportunity to delve into data using distinctive insights.

An ATS is meant to make HR, hiring managers, and other system users’ lives easier. ExactHire HR Software offers the ability to effectively screen applicants, communicate with those of key interest and identify the talent you seek to fill existing vacancies. ExactHire HR Software can save you time and money through automation and simple quick clicks to perform tasks confirming that an ATS is not an expense but an investment that yields a plethora of rewards.

To see a demo of ExactHire HR Software, click here.

 

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What Is a Recruitment SWOT Analysis?

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The Great Resignation, skills gap and increasing recruitment costs may have you wondering how you can improve your talent acquisition strategy.

The evolving economic and labor landscapes mean that what worked in hiring prior to the pandemic doesn’t work now. How can you systematically assess your approach to recruitment against these changing circumstances?

An old business standby, the SWOT Analysis, can be adapted to help you develop a recruitment strategy that uses your strengths to harness opportunities while reducing your vulnerability to those circumstances that make recruiting so challenging.

SWOT Analysis in HR

SWOT, meaning an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, was developed in the 1960s and is widely used today. A SWOT Analysis takes stock of all four factors in a business endeavor to create a strategy to ensure the endeavor’s success. Individuals and businesses can use a SWOT analysis to aid in planning and goal setting.

SWOT Analyses are effective when making decisions in business planning. Business leaders who use a SWOT analysis benefit from the balanced perspective it provides. Leaders can make decisions that build upon existing strengths without falling victim to uncalculated risks.

When performing a SWOT analysis, decision makers typically start by drawing a quadrant with four boxes. They then label each box beginning with the top left with one of the four factors: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In a business setting, it’s best if the quadrant is drawn on a large presentation pad or whiteboard for maximum participation from all stakeholders.

The best SWOT Analyses have the following characteristics.

  • Focus on the business activity in question.
  • Avoid complexity that hinders decision-making.
  • Prioritize specificity and honesty over vagueness and evasion.
  • Include input from several stakeholders to overcome the subjective nature of the analysis.
  • Perform the analysis in relation to top competitors in the business activity in question.

There are many benefits of a SWOT analysis in recruitment. It offers the organization an opportunity to reframe their recruitment challenges using a range of considerations not normally examined. Using this fresh perspective, hiring teams may see patterns previously missed. You may find it helpful to also perform an onboarding SWOT analysis and employee engagement SWOT analysis to gain further insight into your recruiting process.

Recruitment SWOT Analysis

Performing your own recruitment SWOT analysis can help you devise a talent acquisition strategy that will leverage your company’s unique strengths to overcome its particular challenges. It will help you identify the employers competing for the same talent and consider the recruitment process from the candidate’s perspective.

Before embarking on a SWOT analysis for the hiring process, gather relevant data and identify the people whose input will help make the analysis as objective and productive as possible. Recruitment areas to examine for SWOT analysis include things such as distributing an anonymous employee survey or performing a job search and researching your company from the candidate’s perspective.

When deciding how to do a SWOT analysis of recruitment for your own company, follow these tips.

  • Clearly identify your recruitment goals, including unofficial goals that the hiring team may not have expressed yet.
  • Identify organizations competing for the same talent, even if they are not a competitor within your industry.
  • Consider candidates’ perspectives when reviewing opportunities and threats.
  • Gather information from outside sources, such as employee reviews on Glassdoor and anonymous surveys from employees and previous candidates.
  • In addition to considering the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, take stock of those factors specific to the HR department.  
  • Consider only those factors which are relevant in the present or the very near future.
  • Think about aspects of your organization that are unrelated to HR but still relevant to the recruiting process, such as company brand and core competencies.

Recruitment Strengths and Weaknesses

The recruitment strengths and weaknesses you list on your SWOT analysis are factors within your organization. These are the factors you have the most control over, but they are also the items about which you’re least likely to be objective. Again, having multiple stakeholders contribute to the SWOT analysis for recruitment will produce the best results.

Recruiting strengths are those items that positively impact your candidate search or make your company appealing to job seekers.

Common strengths of the best recruitment process include:

  • Pay scale above industry norms
  • Tuition reimbursement program
  • Executive buy-in for the importance of recruitment in relation to the company’s goals.
  • A strong team in which members feel valued and cared for
  • An applicant tracking system for talent recruitment that ensures the most qualified applicants are at the top of the interview list
  • A mobile-friendly job application

Recruiting weaknesses are those internal factors that make your candidate search more difficult or cause applicants to view your company as less desirable than your competitors.

Common weaknesses in the recruiting process include:

  • A benefits package that is more costly and less comprehensive than your competitors
  • Lack of insight about which job sites for recruiting job seekers reliably produce the best applicants for your company
  • An online application that takes longer than 15 minutes to fill out
  • A physically demanding or uncomfortable work environment
  • Lack of advancement opportunities

Recruitment Opportunities and Threats

Recruitment opportunities and threats are external factors over which you have little or no control. They may include an influx of recent graduates, lack of candidates with the necessary skills or widespread crises such as the pandemic.

You may have difficulty deciding which quadrant to use as you’re finding opportunities to recruit better. Some factors, like your employer brand, begin as an internal element, but then become an external factor subject to independent opinion. Rather than getting caught up in placing a factor in the “right” box, focus on the insights arising from the discussion about your SWOT analysis for recruitment.  

Examples of opportunities include:

  • The city in which your company is headquartered just appeared on a list of best places to live.
  • You can recruit from almost any geographical region for newly remote positions.
  • A competitor is downsizing and laying off employees.
  • The local university offers educational programs in line with your industry needs.
  • Your brand enjoys a good reputation in your community.

Examples of recruitment threats include:

  • A recent court case just increased personal liability for employees in key positions.
  • There aren’t enough graduates in your field to fill the open positions across your industry.
  • Your recruiting competition has switched to a fully remote workforce.
  • When performing internet research from a candidate’s perspective, you find that your organization has a poor employer brand.
  • The big job sites don’t work well for your highly specialized open positions.

Overcome Recruiting Challenges with SWOT Analysis

When you’ve finished your SWOT analysis, you should have around five, but no more than 10, factors in each quadrant. Your aim is to develop a “strategic fit.” Internal factors should complement external factors. And strengths and opportunities should effectively overcome weaknesses and threats.

For example, perhaps an external threat to your recruiting efforts is that your local area lacks enough candidates with necessary skills. Ideally, a strength or opportunity would exist to mitigate this threat. Your organization could develop an opportunity by partnering with local schools to develop a curriculum to teach students the in-demand skills. Or you could bolster your recruiting strengths by offering an in-house apprenticeship program.

A recruitment SWOT analysis can help you analyze the factors that lead to both your recruiting challenges and success. It’s an effective way to gain insights into the circumstances that affect your recruiting efforts. Whether you’re addressing the changing landscape of talent acquisition in general or looking for solutions to challenges unique to your locale or industry, a recruitment SWOT analysis can offer much-needed perspective.

 

Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash

What Is Good Employer Branding?

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In 2021, as the pandemic continues, and the Great Resignation upends the labor market, and the reckoning with the country’s decades-long skills gap arrives, companies are pulling out all the stops to fill positions with the best talent possible. If you’re like most recruiters, you’ve researched the best jobs sites and you’re capable of writing killer job ads that get job seekers’ attention. And if you’re like the smartest recruiters, you’ve invested in an applicant tracking and onboarding system that simplifies the hiring process and lets you focus on the big picture strategies to attract high quality applicants, like good employer branding. But what is employer branding and how will an employer branding strategy help you hire the best candidates?

 

Download ExactHire Company Culture E-book

Why Your Employer Brand Is Important

Good employer branding in recruitment is the blueprint for attracting the attention of and creating a relationship with prospective candidates.

In the digital noise of the current post-information age, companies have to work harder to stand out. I say “post-information age” because, apparently, the experts haven’t quite figured out what to call the emerging age. The “Era of Innovation” is one contender. Then, there’s the rather pessimistic “Age of Reckoning.” Or the straightforward “Age of Automation,” as coined by a self-described former Mechanical Engineer on a Quora forum.

All of this is to say that everything is changing. Really fast. Which is why you may have had trouble figuring out how to develop your employer brand or even why you need an employer brand in the first place.

The speed at which everything is changing is also exactly why job candidates need you to have a strong employer brand. Your employer brand helps candidates know what employees can expect from your company. In the Age of—Something—candidates are looking for assurance that your company can successfully navigate current and future changes. In other words, is your company a steady ship?

That isn’t to say that your employer branding is all about easing your candidates’ anxieties. It’s actually quite the opposite. It’s about proving you’re adaptable and resilient.

It may seem like the key elements that affect an employer’s brand is a lot like your overall brand. To a degree, the character you present to your customers should extend to your employees. Also, after reading your job description, prospective candidates will familiarize themselves with your overall brand. But the benefits of employer branding will help candidates imagine whether your company will support their professional and personal goals—or not.

Assess Your Employer Brand

The importance of employer branding lies in attracting and retaining talent in the modern corporate world.

Do you have a strong Employee Value Proposition? Or is your mentality stuck in the Great Recession, when prolonged unemployment shifted power to employers?

If the employee push to remote work tells companies anything, it’s that employees want work and life balance. Today’s workforce simply isn’t willing to sacrifice their personal life for their career. Flexible schedules, remote work opportunities, and childcare stipends all help employees achieve that balance.

Are your company’s values well-defined? And do those values extend to how you treat your employees?

Your value statement probably talks about things like integrity, trust, and accountability. If your company thinks about your employees as highly as it does your customers—and it should—then those values should also apply everything from your benefits package to your discipline policy.

Is your mission inspiring? And do your new employees have an opportunity to participate in the mission so that their individual roles have meaning?

We all have a basic human need to feel like we are doing something meaningful. You can motivate even entry level employees by connecting their daily duties to the company’s overall mission.

Does your company value social justice? Do you have strong programs aimed at increasing diversity in your organization?

Candidates recognize the importance of diversity, and not just for the value it brings to marginalized groups. Companies with a diverse workforce benefit from fresh ideas and new perspectives. Prospective candidates will be looking for evidence they’ll find inclusion in your workplace.

Does your company have meaningful social responsibility initiatives?

Candidates, as well as your consumers, understand that only strong collective efforts can solve big problems, like climate change and poverty. They’re looking to support businesses committed to contributing solutions.

Make Employer Branding Important

The best employer branding ideas of 2021 start with creating a composite of your ideal candidate. You may have several ideal candidates across multiple positions and departments. But all of your profiles should have common values that drive your business’s success. You will measure employer branding strategy alongside this representation of the model candidate.

Next make an honest assessment of your current work environment. Is it the kind of place your ideal candidate would want to work? The questions in the previous section are a good place to start. But, also gather feedback from your current and former employees.

Check review sites such as Glassdoor and LinkedIn to find out what people are saying about your workplace. Consider conducting an anonymous survey of your current employees. Review your notes on exit interviews with parting employees.

Take stock of your current recruiting results. Applicant tracking software can help you gather important data, such as the most effective jobs sites for your open positions and what percentage of your new employees stick around past their first anniversary. Using assessments to quantify the strengths which make your best employees shine will help you create a recruiting strategy to attract more individuals with the same qualities.

You can begin to develop your employer branding strategies by sorting the information you gather. Make lists of what you’re doing right and what you could improve upon. Strategies for improving the employee value proposition are accessible to even small businesses.

While some important employer branding examples, such as pay and benefits, may require a sizable investment, other less-costly strategies can also pack a punch. Items such as improving your culture, creating a more equitable discipline policy or promoting from within can improve your employee retention while also attracting talent to your organization.

 

Download ExactHire Company Culture E-book

Employer Branding Ideas

After taking stock in what makes your company a great place to work and implementing strategies to improve shortcomings, you’re ready to create a game plan for communicating to prospective candidates the mind-blowing awesomeness that is your workplace.

Your website is fertile ground for growing your employer branding strategies. Microsoft demonstrates that they value their employees’ unique talents, even if those talents are not work-related. Their Microsoft Life page features employees’ passions outside of the office. From bakers to farmers to disability advocates, employees open up about their personal lives, which is a powerful indicator to potential applicants that Microsoft expects and encourages the kind of life balance they’re looking for.

You probably already use social media to post job openings. Go beyond job posting and news releases when developing employer branding strategies. Include photos of employees at work. Highlight the company picnic. Congratulate employees on promotions or other milestones. Share stories about causes your company supports.

Your candidate experience is an important part of your employer branding strategy. Even candidates that don’t get the job can become powerful brand ambassadors if you take steps to make their experience positive. Communicate with candidates. Let them know the next steps. Always provide a respectful review of the reasons they didn’t get the job if you decide to hire someone else. Even better, ask them for a review of their candidate experience in return.

Involve your marketing department. Employer branding ideas require quite of bit of marketing. Candidates have a wealth of information at their fingertips. The best candidates also have a wealth of options. Your marketing department can help you craft a branding strategy that gets in front of your ideal candidates while also persuading them that your company fits well with their professional and personal goals.

Employer Branding Strategy

Your marketing department will also let you in on the secret to codifying your employer brand and attracting the best talent: storytelling. When you incorporate storytelling into your employer brand, you achieve several important goals.

First, you convey a consistent message. Great stories can be summed up one sentence. Authors call this sentence the hook, and it succinctly and enticingly conveys what the book is about. As the hook relates to your employer brand strategy, it tells potential applicants what your company is about.

Take the single line at the top of Charity: Water’s branded careers site: “Quit your day job and come change the world.” That one sentence tells the story of what Charity: Water’s employees do every day. All of the copy on career’s page expounds on that story.

Storytelling has another very powerful function: it inserts the reader into the story. On Charity: Water’s careers page, applicants begin to imagine themselves joining the company on their mission to solve the water crisis.

Which brings us to the most important job of storytelling: eliciting emotion, which your marketing company would happily tell you is the key to selling. From the perspective of employer branding, eliciting emotion accomplishes another crucial task: helping candidates qualify (or disqualify) themselves from the job.

Charity: Water’s careers site tells a compelling and pointed story. Applicants can insert themselves into the story and tell right away if they want to be part of it. And if they don’t—then, the company saves themselves the expense of a bad hire because job seekers who are a poor fit move on.

Final Thoughts on Employer Branding

In the Age of—Something—recruiters have their hands full with hiring tasks.  While the internet helps recruiters reach more candidates, it also makes it more difficult for companies to attract their attention. If you’re ready to take a wider perspective on recruiting to create employer branding strategies that will help you hire the best talent, an applicant tracking system can take care of the mundane details such as tracking and sorting candidates. Schedule a demo today to find out how you can free up time to create an amazing employer strategy and reduce your time-to-hire metrics.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Are the 5 C’s of Onboarding?

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Onboarding is the critical first impression that you only get one chance to make. Prior to the pandemic, many companies skated by with a basic onboarding process involving a few forms and an employee handbook. Companies making a nominal effort may have treated their new hires to lunch on their first day.

A lackluster onboarding process isn’t cutting it during the “Great Resignation.” With many companies struggling to find enough employees to provide fundamental customer service, they need to do everything they can to hold onto the new hires they’re lucky enough to get.

An outstanding onboarding process is the proven first step to lowering employee turnover, improving engagement, and boosting productivity. Small and mid-sized businesses are learning in 2021 what the most successful corporate giants have known for years: great onboarding is a key component of your company’s success.

But why is onboarding so important?

And what makes an outstanding onboarding program?

Download ExactHire's Employee Onboarding Checklist

Benefits of a Robust Onboarding Process

When your onboarding process checklist has got game, your new employees fall in love with their jobs. The fact is, your company needs employees that are fully engaged to compete in the new economy. According to this Gallup study, employee engagement is a key factor in nine performance outcomes, including customer service, profitability, and turnover.

Engaged employees are passionate about their work and they feel a strong connection to their company’s culture and values. Employee engagement is all about the emotional bonds people form with their work. These employees will always outperform their peers who couldn’t care less.

You want your employees to show up on time, every day, and do their best work. You want them to go the extra mile for the customer. When they’re on the manufacturing line, you want them to care—really care—about the quality of the goods they’re producing.

Companies are constantly looking for that special combination of skilled talent, soft skills, and work ethic that make a great employee. But they leave their new hires to fend for themselves as soon as they are finished filling out their W-4. A poor employee onboarding process flow contributes to the massive national turnover rate that costs U.S. companies $1 trillion each year.

A robust onboarding process, on the other hand, can make your employees almost 70 percent more likely to stay with your company for at least three years. And your new hires can be 50 percent more productive when your onboarding process steps set clear expectations while also providing crucial support early on.

Your new employee’s onboarding checklist pdf covers four areas known as the “4 C’s.” The 4 C’s are listed in order of importance to company growth. However, every stage of the 4 C’s is essential to a comprehensive onboarding plan.

Onboarding: The 4 C’s

Most companies stop with the first two C’s: compliance and clarification. Successful companies pay careful attention to the last two C’s: culture and connection. And our team likes to add a fifth C (shhh…don’t tell anyone!).

Compliance: Companies interested in avoiding discrimination and harassment lawsuits, i.e., every company, should start their onboarding with a thorough run-down of their policies and rules. To be most effective, you should implement a clear process by which employees can report discrimination and other issues. Earn your new employee’s trust by making it clear your company takes these issues seriously.

Clarification: This is the stage during which your new hires learn about their role, their duties and their responsibilities. Take this time to set your employee up for success. Establish a support network and ensure she has the tools she needs to complete her work.

Culture: More than a buzzword, culture has a tangible effect on a company’s success. A strong and positive culture gives you a recruiting edge. And clear values keep individual behavior in line with your company’s ethics. Make culture a strong aspect of your onboarding process by inserting it throughout your new hire’s experience. Include your company’s history and mission in your onboarding process.

Connection: Often overlooked during the onboarding process, connection is a key driver of employee retention. When workers form friendships with their coworkers, they’re more likely to enjoy being in the office. Positive relationships between your employees also mean less drama and conflict. You can foster connection during your onboarding process by finding creative ways for your new hires to spend time with coworkers.

We like to add a bonus C: check-in. New hires are most likely to quit their positions within the first year. By checking in with these new employees throughout that first year, companies can address brewing problems.

New Hire Onboarding framework

These 5 stages of onboarding create a framework companies can use to improve employee engagement and its associated outcomes. By adopting a more formal, vs an informal, onboarding process, companies can boost their customer ratings, improve employee retention, and increase their profits. Onboarding software can help companies keep their improved onboarding process organized and efficient.

Onboarding software can help you improve all 5 stages of employee onboarding. New employees can fill out their paperwork more quickly and accurately during the compliance portion of the 5 stages of onboarding with the help of auto-populating fields. Legally binding electronic signatures for all of your important onboarding forms will always be easily accessible, even years down the road.

Create training modules for every position within the company. Use training videos, how-to guides, and assessments. A simple checklist and triggering feature ensure your new employees won’t feel overwhelmed.

Include information about your culture, mission, and values in your training modules. By making culture a key component of your new employee’s experience, you’ll encourage behavior that aligns with your values. You can foster connection by assigning roles to team members to assist in the onboarding process. Each team member will receive email reminders so you know your new hires won’t fall through the cracks.

Incorporate the bonus C, Check-In, by assigning tasks to supervisors at intervals throughout the new hire’s first year. Over time, the data you collect in your onboarding software will help you improve your overall onboarding process.

Final Thoughts About the 5 C’s of Onboarding

The pandemic underscored the high cost of employee turnover, low engagement, and an uninspiring culture. When your employees are unenthusiastic, they’ll be less productive and less innovative. You’ll need more people on the payroll to get the same amount of output.

Beefing up your onboarding process is the first step to creating an inspired workforce. The investment you make in onboarding will pay dividends by creating a strong, cohesive team. Learn more with our webinar, How Effective Onboarding Boosts Your Bottom Line.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

How Do I Create an Online Job Application?

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If you’re like most employers, the current worker shortage has you rethinking your hiring strategy. This is especially true in industries like construction, restaurant, and home service. Perhaps in the past you’ve been able to avoid implementing an online job application without sacrificing the quality of applicants you attract. But if you’re one of the thousands of businesses forced to shorten hours or reduce the number of customers you can serve because you don’t have enough workers, you can’t afford to not have an online job application.

But how do you go about creating an online job application? Even after you create an online job application, you’ll have other difficulties to puzzle out. You need to get the application onto your website. And as long as you’re going digital, isn’t there an easy way to capture all that candidate information and sort it to find your best new hires?

Benefits of Online Job Application Forms

Considering how complex creating an online job application seems to be, it’s understandable if you’re still handing applicants a paper form. But you’re missing out on great new hires if you don’t give job seekers a chance to apply online.

According to Pew Research, 77 percent of Americans own a computer. And 85 percent own a smartphone. Digital access means a majority of job seekers go online to find their next job. Online resources outpace other, more traditional ways to look for work, including personal or professional networks, job fairs and employments agencies.

You risk losing out if you require job seekers to open their email application, paste an email address, and attach their resume. The best candidates won’t bother hopping in their cars to drive to your location to fill out a paper form, either. Including an easy-to-complete online job application within your job ad will help you hook the right talent before they click over to your competitor’s job ad.

You’ll see the most benefits from your online job application form if it’s mobile-friendly. Pew Research also says that more than half of young adults use a smartphone during a job search. Overall, 41 percent of smartphone users have used their smartphone during a job search. Smartphone owners are even using their mobile devices for complex tasks. Half have used their smartphone to fill out a job application. These smartphone-wielding job seekers will pass over your job ad if you don’t create a mobile-friendly job application.

Job seekers prefer online job applications for obvious reasons. They don’t have to travel to your location to fill out a paper application. Applicants can take their time answering the questions on your online job application. And if your careers site is mobile-friendly, they can fill out the application almost anywhere. Workers who have multiple jobs or children can fill out applications more easily online than in person.

Simple Employment Application Form

Now that you’re convinced of the benefits of an online job application, how do you go about putting one together? A simple job application form format is your best strategy to get more job candidates. The online job application you create should take no more than 15 minutes to complete and should include fewer than 20 questions. Your online job application should be easy to find within your job ad with a link that says “apply online now.”

Just like with your paper application, you should examine your simple job application form for potential legal liabilities. Education requirements that go beyond the knowledge necessary for the job or questions about criminal history may make you vulnerable to discrimination claims.

Your online job application must be mobile-friendly to attract young people or candidates without computers. You can create a mobile-friendly online job application by including drop-down menus or check boxes where possible. To create a truly mobile-friendly form, you’ll need to understand tech-savvy issues such as responsive design and programming.

Simplicity isn’t just for your job applicants. An online job application should be easy to create and should make your hiring process easier. That inexpensive solution may be prohibitive if your team struggles for hours to understand it. Or a blank job application form in a Word document may not be all that convenient if you’re printing it and throwing in a stack just like your old-fashioned paper applications.

Online Employment Application Software

You’ll reap the most benefits when you choose the right online employment application software. Look for these benefits and capabilities.

  • Flexibility. Your company is exceptional, and you’re looking for a standout new hire. Run-of-the-mill application questions won’t cut it. You want the ability to create custom questions to find candidates that fulfill your unique needs.
  • Mobile-friendly. You’re missing out on a major benefit of a paperless job application if it isn’t mobile-friendly. A free online job application form may seem attractive until you try to complete it on your smartphone. Remember, a third of applicants—and half of young adults—will pass over your online application if it isn’t mobile-friendly.
  • Data-capture. What’s the point of going digital if you’re printing applications and sorting them by hand? When you capture applicant data and store it digitally, you’ll be able to sort applicants and find the people with the skills you need.

This final point is key, and the benefits of data-capture don’t stop there. Over time, you can build a talent pool to draw upon for future open positions. When it comes time to file compliance reports, a few clicks of your mouse will gather the required data. Pairing your online application with applicant tracking software will also help you hone your application process. You’ll know which sites net the best applicants and which online application questions most effectively narrow the field.

 

Choosing the Right HR Software

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Applicant Tracking System or Online Application?

An online job application will improve the applicant experience and increase the number of applicants you receive. But without an applicant tracking system (ATS), you risk wasting time thumbing through applications or overlooking quality candidates altogether. When you use an ATS , you’ll easily be able to create an online job application and much more.

Create multiple applications with an ATS. Some positions only require a one-step application, while other positions should have multi-step applications. You can even create an internal application for current employees.

Work within an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. Our applicant tracking system allows you to choose from a library of application questions or create your own. You can also choose the best format for the answers, such as text box or multiple choice.

Direct applicants to a branded careers site. Don’t require your applicants to download a job application form or a Word document. Instead, improve your applicant’s perception of your brand with a careers site in which they can fill out your online job application.

Make it easy for smartphone users to find and apply to jobs. Chances are, at least a few of your positions are generally filled with a demographic that primarily uses their smartphone. ExactHire’s online job application is always mobile friendly, without any of the compatibility problems you’ll find with free online employment application software.

Easily sort candidates. With your current paper system, are you able to know at a glance why a candidate wasn’t hired? Using an applicant tracking system, you can create a list of applicant codes. Using these codes, you can always know what prompted a candidate’s advancement to the next step in the hiring process. And you’ll always know the reasons candidates were disqualified.

Final Thoughts on Creating an Online Job Application

Up until now, you probably considered digital job applications a costly addition fit for larger companies. But the current worker shortage has probably shown you that neglecting online job seekers is far more expensive. Don’t waste your valuable time trying to figure out complicated free online employment application software. Instead, let ExactHire create a customized, scaled solution for your hiring needs.

 

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev on Unsplash

 

 

What Is Programmatic Job Advertising?

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Have you ever wished your recruitment advertisement strategy could target your ideal job candidate with as much precision as Instagram when it showed you that goat-shaming Farmers Insurance ad? After all, if the internet can know you go ga-ga over baby goats and you’re insuring two teenage drivers, then why can’t it deliver your job ad to experienced IT candidates in the local area who know SQL?

The targeted ads you’ve been noticing—the ones that seem tailored-made for you—are the result of a thing called programmatic advertising. These nifty algorithms are traditionally the domain of tech giants and commercial marketers. But in recent years, the recruitment industry has been taking notice. Hundreds of job boards, along with crappy candidates crowding out the champions, leave recruiters wondering if there’s a better way.

There is, and the better way is called programmatic job advertising.

Programmatic job advertising brings targeted ads to job seekers. Using programmatic job postings, companies can create job advertising campaigns that zero in on the best candidates, wherever they may be on the internet. Job ads appear on the right site, at the right time, just when the right candidate will see it. But programmatic job advertising does so much more.

Programmatic Advertising

Advertising on the Internet is nothing new. We all remember the flashy banner ads on Myspace. What is new is programmatic advertising that uses big data, machine learning, and predictive analytics to target the right audience.

When your grandfather told you “Nothing in life is free,” he might as well have been talking about all those free apps on your devices. It’s no secret that everything we do digitally is stored in a cybernated profile. Programmatic advertising uses this information, collectively known as “big data,” to target consumers.

Don Draper and the rest of the “Mad Men” only had standard demographics to work with when creating audience profiles. Big data adds hundreds of input fields to create a complete analysis of an ad’s intended audience.

All those factoids are too much for humans to interpret and act upon. Enter machine learning. Software can analyze the data and match ads with users most likely to convert. The software will always make the best choices using algorithms that analyze all that big data.

The ad’s performance metrics are fed back into the algorithm. When this performance data is factored into the big data, the software can make better matches in the future. Predictive analytics is what happens when machine learning produces increasingly better results.

But the software doesn’t stop there. Programmatic advertising completely automates the purchasing and managing of advertising space. Programmatic advertising software can find sites and purchase or bid on space within a spending budget set by the user. Humans can always step in and make adjustments. Programmatic advertising platforms take the grunt work out of marketing campaigns while making them more efficient and effective.

Programmatic advertising is why you see an ad from REI for a mirrored sighting compass after you purchase “A Walk in the Woods” from Amazon.

Recruitment Advertisement

Despite the advantages of programmatic job advertisement, most companies still use traditional recruitment strategies to place job ads.

Traditional recruitment advertisement operates a lot like those old Myspace ads. Recruiters hand-select the job boards to which they wanted to post. They log into each one individually, then purchase space and upload their ad. They cross their fingers and wait.

Traditional recruitment advertisement doesn’t have the advantage of big data. Recruiters can’t know which job board has the most forklift operators or which ones have the most active users in their area. Traditional recruitment advertisements are basically a crap shoot in which recruiters hope they’re posting to the right jobs site at the right time.

Aptitude Research, a Boston-based advisory firm, estimates recruiters waste 40 percent of their advertising budget with traditional job advertising. According to Aptitude’s founder, Madeline Laurano, “Traditional job advertising is expensive, inefficient and, at times, ineffective.”

Applicant tracking software can help improve the efficiency of job advertising with one-click posting and single screen analytics. Recruiters who use an ATS can increase job seeker conversion with a branded careers site and a multi-step application. ATS can also streamline other recruitment-related tasks such as HR compliance reporting.

Pairing applicant tracking software with compatible programmatic job advertising software can help companies zero in on the best candidates, wherever they may be. The result is a recruitment juggernaut that finds and converts the best candidates, then streamlines and optimizes every step of the selection process.

Programmatic Job Advertising in Recruitment

Programmatic job advertising by definition will help you reach the right candidates, wherever they may be. With the help of programmatic job advertising platforms, your job ads will appear on the job boards where your ideal candidates are hanging out. Glassdoor and Monster cater to different types of job seekers. Your job ad will appear on the best choice, whether you are looking for an operations manager or a forklift operator. Your best job candidates aren’t spending all their time on job boards. Programmatic job advertising software will place your ads on sites you may not have considered.

HGS, a business process management company, pivoted to mostly programmatic job advertising from traditional job advertising in response to the pandemic. To keep their workforce safe and healthy, HGS closed their call center doors. Their newly remote workforce meant that HGS could recruit from almost anywhere in the U.S. and Canada, rather than the few physical locations they previously operated. Casting a wider net in a larger talent pool meant their job advertising costs ballooned. Programmatic job advertising helped reign those costs in while improving time-to-hire.

According to Trish Robb, the General Manager of North American Recruitment and Talent Management at HGS, “With some of the time that we’ve gained back, our team has been able to focus on other recruitment marketing strategies, like engaging with talent through our social media channels, creating virtual job previews, responding to employee reviews and improving our reputation as an employer.”

Affordable Programmatic Job Posting

In the aftermath of the pandemic and the current labor shortage, HR teams are looking to programmatic job advertising to save money and find great candidates. According to Aptitude’s research, companies that use programmatic job advertising improve their time-to-hire as well as the quality of their new hire. Filling open positions quickly with top talent is the first step to improving employee retention.

With hundreds of job boards available, both you and your advertising budget can get overwhelmed. Programmatic job advertising software will help you effectively branch out to the most effective niche sites without wasting money on ineffective job boards. The algorithms written into programmatic job advertising software will use real-time data to adjust the software’s recruitment strategy.

When you use programmatic job advertising in recruitment, you can rely on predictive analytics and algorithms to make the most efficient use of your recruitment budget. You can avoid wasting money purchasing paid advertising on sites or for open positions that perform well through less expensive posting options. Programmatic recruitment marketing platforms will identify the open positions that aren’t receiving enough applicants. The programmatic job posting software will then your recruitment spending into those positions by purchasing ads on the optimal sites.

Final Thoughts About Programmatic Job Advertising

Whether you’re hiring hundreds of high-turnover positions each year or searching for a unicorn with mad JavaScript skills, you can use programmatic job advertising to reduce your costs and free up your time for other recruitment activities.

After all, posting job ads are just one part of a comprehensive recruitment strategy. Rather than spending your time analyzing your recruitment ROI across dozens of job sites, let programmatic job advertising software send your job ads to platforms where your best candidates are hanging out. You can focus on boosting your employer brand and selecting the best new hire.

Are you ready to dive deeper into the cost-saving possibilities of programmatic job advertising? Contact our solutions team for a personalized demonstration.

 

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How to Write a Job Description

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Indeed.com, just one of many jobs sites, is home to more than 16 million job postings. How can yours stand out? How can you avoid underqualified applicants? Most importantly, how can you persuade the best candidates to apply to your company?

The answers to all of these questions begin with your job description. That small post of just a few hundred words has to do some heavy lifting. Your job description must be optimized for search algorithms. It must be clear and honest to help candidates self-qualify. Your job ad has to subtly communicate the awesomeness of your company to a small pool of coveted, well-qualified candidates.

Your job description must accomplish all these goals for one purpose: to convert only the best job seekers into a manageable pool of applicants. How can you write a job description packed with that much power?

Job Description Writing Guide

When thinking about how to write a job description, there are two things to keep in mind. First, you’re writing for the search engines. Second, you’re writing for the job candidates. Each of these “audiences” requires a different approach.

Search engine writing elevates your ad near the top of search results where applicants can find it. Writing your job description with keywords will guide algorithms to your ad. Keywords should appear in your job title and the description, especially the first paragraph. The meta title and meta description should also include keywords.

Keywords will get your ad in front of the applicant. But only clear and compelling writing will persuade readers to complete the application. When asking yourself how do you write a good job description, start by identifying your ideal candidate. Then create a job ad that appeals to that person.

Sometimes, a boss will ask employees to write their own job descriptions. Ideally, several stakeholders should be involved in crafting job ads. HR professionals should seek input from the supervisor overseeing the new hire and also the position’s co-workers. A marketing professional or content writer can craft a job description that is both SEO optimized and compelling for applicants.

 

Mobile Recruiting Guide

Best practices for Writing Job Descriptions

The best practices for writing job descriptions seamlessly weave SEO writing with persuasive writing. If you’re learning how to write your own job description, start by crafting a job description that clearly identifies the role. This description becomes the blueprint to which you add keywords. Finally, you’ll rework your description to persuade job seekers to apply.

What do you write in a job description? Things like the job title, pay range and shift should appear at the top. Next, include a brief summary of your company. Follow this by a summary of how the job fits into the goals of the company. You’ll want to include the most important or time-consuming duties and responsibilities for the position. Identify the minimum qualifications. Finally, identify unique requirements for the job, such as heavy lifting or repetitive hand motions.

Identify what words job seekers are using to find your position. These become your keywords. Use both general and specific terms. The first paragraph of your job description should contain all of your keywords.

Perhaps you’re writing a job ad for what your company calls a project manager. But many industries employ project managers. Someone searching for a position as an IT project manager would not be a good fit for a litigation support project manager. If your job description is for an industry-specific position, then include that information as a keyword.

Include keywords that specify required skillsets. “Java-Script Computer Programmer” or “B2B Content Creator” act as longtail keywords. They are more likely to appear at the top of results for applicants searching these terms. Being specific with your job titles will also help applicants self-qualify.

A Good Job Description Template with Job Responsibilities

When wondering how do you write an effective job description, consider your ideal candidate. What does this person want? For example, perhaps you want someone who works well with a team. This person wants to feel like a valued team member. Perhaps you want someone who can work independently. This person wants to feel trusted and empowered.

Notice that you’re writing to appeal to your ideal candidate’s emotions. In this way, writing your job description is much like writing content for customers. You want your candidates to feel good about applying to your company in the same way you make customers feel good about purchasing.

The best practice for writing the duties and responsibilities section of a job description will tap into a candidate’s desire to support a larger cause. Any job duties list can be written to tap into the applicant’s desire to contribute to something bigger than themselves. If you already track employees’ roles and responsibilities in an Excel or Word template, you can rewrite them from this purpose-centered perspective.

A job seeker’s decision to apply to your company is largely an emotional decision. In this way, applicant conversion is similar to customer conversion. However, you’re only hiring a few select applicants. Effective job descriptions will increase the number of preferable applicants while discouraging undesirable or unqualified applicants.

You can do this by highlighting the emotional benefits that the company values. For example, perhaps your open sales position requires travel. Enticing someone who “wants to see the world” may not attract the type of candidates you want. But you’ll appeal to more desirable applicants if you highlight the opportunity to “work with some of the most innovative and culturally diverse software clients in the world.”

Good Job Description Examples

Rework the key components of a job description to highlight the benefits applicants may enjoy.  The best job descriptions for 2021 will highlight benefits in relation to a purpose-orientated mindset.

Good job description examples of the duties and responsibilities for a receptionist may include answering the phone. A compelling description may be, “Be the friendly first point-of-contact for Esperion Therapeutics. Ensure a great customer experience by correctly determining callers’ needs and identifying the person or department best suited to meet those needs.”

Perhaps you’re wondering how to develop a job description for a service technician who will travel to repair equipment for clients. A persuasive job description may read, “Use your mechanical know-how to ensure a consistent customer experience. Keep client productions running smoothly when you travel to client locations nation-wide to diagnose and repair equipment or perform maintenance.”

What Job Descriptions Should Not Include

Now you know your job ad needs keywords and compelling writing. But what should not be included in a job description?

Overwrought Job Titles. Don’t include words like rock star, ninja, connoisseur, or anything similar in your job titles. Rather than creative, these words seem dated and desperate. Candidates aren’t using these terms to search anyway.

Unrealistic Qualifications. Ask yourself if you really need a branch manager with a Master’s degree. Or a receptionist who speaks Spanish. Or an assistant who can write Excel macros. Some qualifications aren’t as important as you may think.

Too Much Positivity. You also want to realistically assess the job. Is there something about the position that may be a deal breaker for some people? If the job requires overtime or working weekends or excessive travel, then clearly say so in the description.

Jargon and Abbreviations. Your words should be clear to a general audience and spelled out completely for search engines. Don’t use terms that only people in your industry or company would understand. Don’t use abbreviations.

Complete List of a Role’s Tasks. Your job description should not be an exhaustive list of the position’s duties. For legal purposes and to avoid wrongful termination suits, include phrasing that allows supervisors to expand responsibilities for the role.

Final Thoughts

Recruiters need to do more to attract top talent. With more than half of job seekers going to online job boards, the work of getting noticed by quality applicants begins with your job description. This small block of text must appeal to algorithms as well your ideal candidates.

But what happens when your amazing job description spurs a candidate to apply? The best job descriptions will fizzle if they end with email instructions. You can keep the momentum going when your job ad directs clients to a branded careers site where they can learn more about your company. You can sort and manage the data from the influx of awesome candidates when your branded careers site feeds into an applicant tracking system.

Do you want to know more about how to connect with job seekers online? Download our free guide, Connecting with Job Seekers in the Digital Age.

 

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How Text Messaging Fills Positions Faster

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Move over Zoom. The pandemic has bumped up another mode of communication: texting. Overall, 50 percent of the population is using text more often since the pandemic began. And if you’re one of the few recruiters not using text messaging for hiring, I might be SMH (shaking my head) at you.

Texting has been on the rise since the first 10-year old Millennial received a cell phone—check that—since the first two 10-year old Millennials received a cell phone. Businesses have been marketing with text for years and have seen huge results. Success with text marketing is no surprise considering a read rate of 97 percent within 15 minutes.

Okay, so maybe every American sends and receives about a 100 texts per day. But does that really make text messaging effective for recruiting and hiring?

 

Leverage Text Recruiting

Text Messaging Is Effective

Just ask Home Depot. The home improvement giant saw a 50 percent increase in response rate for texting applicants versus other methods since implementing a robust text recruiting strategy.

Like working from home and Zoom calls, text messaging in business recruiting is here to stay. There are just too many benefits of text recruiting, including speed and efficiency.

Both the hiring manager and the applicant save time composing a text versus an email. And unlike email, nearly everyone reads their texts, oftentimes within 15 minutes.

And if you’re still wondering is email or text messaging more effective for response rates, 82 percent of people turn on notifications from their text messaging apps. That’s probably much more than email considering only 27 percent of those who primarily use their phone to check email do so as the emails arrive.

Busy recruiters can manage multiple conversations in less time. That kind of efficiency is especially helpful for positions that typically have a high turnover rate. If you hire for these high turnover jobs often, then pre-screening may become one of your favorite benefits of text recruiting.

Pre-screening applicants over the phone can be time-consuming. But what if you could start winnowing down your hiring choice with a text conversation? You could get a lot of common deal breakers out of the way, such as verifying the candidate is still looking for a job and has reliable transportation.

The speed and efficiency of texting can reduce your time-to-hire metrics, especially for your high turnover, hourly positions. If you’re still wondering is text messaging acceptable, just ask the 86 percent of Millennials prefer texting during the recruiting process.

Hiring Problems That Text Messaging Solves

Text messaging has grown from a vehicle for informal teen chats to a commonplace form of communication in all areas of life. Texting efficiently relays information without the time-consuming small talk of phoning. It’s only natural that texting has made its way into the recruiter’s toolbox as an effective solution to several problems.

Text messaging applicants is more efficient than phone interviewing. Phoning potential interviewees is time-consuming. You’re unable to do anything else while you’re dialing, waiting for an answer, and actually talking to the candidate. Multiply the process by the several calls required for each open position and you’re easily losing hours in the first step of the interview process.

When you text message job candidates, you can quickly narrow down your choices. Save time by text messaging screening questions concerning a candidate’s availability and access to transportation. When you’re ready, you can schedule candidate interviews with text messaging.

Text messaging will reduce applicant ghosting. Increasingly, job applicants don’t respond to traditional communications. Most email messages—80 percent—remain unread. Entry-level job seekers do not always have email. Most people don’t answer calls from unknown callers, and many voicemail boxes are full or not set up.

On the other hand, nearly all texts are read within 15 minutes of being sent. Millennials, especially, are open to responding to texts from unknown senders. Typing away on a smartphone doesn’t deter applicants who already use their phones to apply for jobs.

Phone calls and emails can’t match the speed and effectiveness text messaging offers. But if you don’t have applicant tracking software to manage your text messaging efforts, you risk appearing unprofessional.

How to Text Message Professionally

If you didn’t know what SMH meant before reading this article, don’t feel bad; I didn’t either. Luckily, neither of us needs to be as fluent as a teenager in texting slang. If you’re recruiting via text, then you want to keep it as professional as possible. Adhering to professional text messaging etiquette while recruiting will reinforce a positive impression of your company.

  • Ask for permission to text during the application process. While it may be convenient for you, it may be a hassle for your applicant. Think of asking first as the golden rule for any business wishing to communicate via text.
  • Identify yourself, your company, and the reason for your text. Candidates have probably applied to multiple companies. Clearly identifying yourself and your purpose prevents any confusion. Using a text messaging template for recruiting will help you keep it professional.
  • Avoid texting slang. Always spell the word rather than rely on acronyms. Use proper punctuation and capitalize the first letter of every sentence. Never, ever use emojis.
  • Be personable. Don’t let your applicant feel as if she is talking to a chatbot. Address her by name and thank her for her time. Remember, your text is her first indication of how the company will treat her if she becomes an employee.

You can use applicant tracking software to create a professional texting strategy. A custom online application can ask the applicant for permission to text. From there, you can create text messaging templates for your hiring needs. You can even set the text messaging time of day using applicant tracking software.

Develop a Text Recruiting Strategy

Incorporating text messaging as part of your talent strategy can improve your time-to-hire metrics. Applicant tracking software that includes text recruiting campaigns will streamline and organize your efforts. Your strategy should develop text messaging cadences to avoid overwhelming the candidate with too many messages. You’ll reduce applicant ghosting significantly when you combine text messaging with email and phone. Finally, text messaging templates for hiring will help ensure your text recruiting campaign reflects your brand’s voice.

Text messaging was rising long before the pandemic. Now, social distancing means people are texting 50 percent more than before. Covid made texting mainstream, much like remote work and Zoom meetings. It makes more sense than ever to use texting in your recruiting campaigns.

Are you unsure of how to start engaging applicants on their mobile devices? Download our guide, Leveraging Text Recruiting to Engage Job Seekers. You’ll learn how to measure and maximize your mobile recruiting effectiveness.

 

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What are the Tools of Recruitment?

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There’s no doubt hiring managers face many recruitment method challenges as we work our way through 2021.

You may receive more applicants for your job openings as a consequence of the pandemic. But in the aftermath of one of history’s most turbulent years, companies can’t afford to bring on the wrong people just because there are more available. High employee turnover is simply too costly.

Additionally, recruitment methods, tools, and techniques are increasingly more sophisticated each day. Not only do you have to be on the right job sites, you have to get your job ad in front of your ideal candidates before your competitors. And that job ad has to be appealing and engaging.

Once you find a short list of people to interview, you need to create your strategy for choosing the best candidate. From coordinating your hiring team to administering employee assessments, the right tools can streamline and bolster your recruitment process.

Recruitment Methods

There are two primary types of recruitment methods: internal recruiting and external recruiting. Several innovative digital tools can assist you in every step of these recruitment methods. The right applicant tracking software (ATS) can help you manage both of these recruitment methods.

Both methods will use many of the same tools found in an ATS. These include hiring assessments and employment applications. You’ll also need a strategy and recruitment process flow for both methods. An applicant tracking system can help you find candidates and hire the best person whether you’re hiring from within the company or bringing in new talent.

If you’re searching for an external candidate, you’ll need to cast your net into the digital realm using job sites and social media. You’ll also need to engage your candidates where they are: on their smartphones. Your recruiting methods need to be mobile friendly, from the job application to text communications.

On the other hand, you’ll need some specialized tools for your internal recruitment methods. Ideally, succession planning is already part of your recruitment method process. Assessing your current workforce for qualities such as leadership potential and personality type can help you identify the roles in which they can excel.

You can use our Recruitment Process Content Scorecard PDF to analyze and rate your methods of recruitment. This checklist can help you identify areas for improvement from creating a description of your ideal new hire to writing a job ad that will attract the right candidate.

Whatever your recruitment method, you can use the latest recruitment tools and techniques to streamline your hiring process. Applicant tracking software can save you time with one-click posting to quickly advertise to multiple job search sites. You can also manage all of your communications from within the software and leverage customized assessments.

Recruitment Process Steps

Your recruitment process will go more smoothly if you break it down into stages. You can stay on track by assigning a deadline for each task and a stakeholder to bring it to completion. If you’re wondering what are the stages of the recruitment process, then check out our blog post here.

You can further kick the steps in your recruitment process into high gear by downloading our PDF Guide to Superhero Pre-Employment Screening.  This guide is packed with the best pre-employment screening tips to make your recruitment method a success.

Digital tools can streamline each stage of your recruitment method process. When choosing the right applicant tracking software, it’s a great time to rethink your hiring strategy and visualize your hiring workflow or flow chart. Think about the stakeholders who should be involved at different steps. You can then use the ATS to assign jobs, or candidates, to your hiring team from within the software.

You’ll also be able to measure your recruitment method results throughout the process as you zero in on the perfect candidate. A comprehensive applicant tracking system will gather data detailing your job ad’s performance across job sites.  Finally, an ATS can capture data over time so you know which recruitment methods are bringing the superstar candidates.

Digital Recruitment Methods

Digital recruitment methods, tools, and techniques can save time and improve the accuracy of your data. Directing applicants to a custom job site that has the look and feel of your company’s website can improve the applicant experience. A job site can also save data entry time because the content displayed there is automatically populated by your applicant tracking system.

A job site isn’t the only place where you can save time in your recruitment method and improve the accuracy of your data. With the right applicant tracking system which includes an employee onboarding platform, new employees can input their data into digitized employment forms. Much of this data can then be pushed to your payroll software.

Additionally, an ATS can take the place of redundant Excel files and paper trails by organizing all of your hiring information in one place. Your hiring team and other stakeholders can communicate and complete tasks from within the system.

External job boards are excellent resources when seeking external applicants. But multiple input screens and scattered passwords can prevent you from making the most of online job boards. An applicant tracking software portal will allow you to post your ad on all of your favorite sites with just one click.

The list of recruitment methods in the digital age will continue to grow. But you don’t want to waste time on the ones that don’t work. Tools such as applicant tracking software can help you keep track of the digital recruitment methods that yield the best results.

Regardless of the types of recruitment methods your organization uses, the digital age will extend your reach and make your results more successful. An ATS can make your entire hiring process more manageable.

Selection Methods

As you know, you need to carefully document your recruitment methods and selection process. An applicant tracking system can assist you with this and the associated compliance reporting.

An ATS can make your selection process easier in other ways too. You can use an ATS to rate each candidate. Once you have your short list of interviewees, you can communicate with each one from within the system and utilize integrated calendar scheduling to invite the best candidates to schedule interviews. You can even administer background checks and employment assessments.

Using employment assessment tools in your recruitment method and selection of candidates is an effective way to reduce the time it takes to find your new hire. If you have the right applicant tracking software, you can use custom assessments or choose from a list of industry specific tests.

Recruitment Methods And Savings

When you use the right recruitment method tools, you’ll save time and money whether you’re hiring within the company or bringing in a new employee. Your recruitment and selection process has a powerful impact on your company’s financial health.

It can cost upwards of thousands of dollars to fill each empty chair. Using applicant tracking software that addresses recruitment method challenges will save time and, ultimately, reduce employee turnover.

Download the Recruitment Process Scorecard | ExactHire

 

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