Leveraging Technology to Speed Up the Hiring Process
You are recruiting for a forklift operator. Applications have come in and hung around HR for a while before being forwarded to the hiring manager. When contacted, two of the four applicants have already accepted jobs elsewhere...Leveraging Technology to Speed Up the Hiring Process
Consider this scenario. You’re recruiting for a forklift operator. Applications have come in and languished in HR for a while before being passed along to the hiring manager. The hiring manager, juggling multiple other job responsibilities take a week or two to get to the applications and resumes, finally selecting four candidates to interview. When contacted, two of the four have already accepted jobs elsewhere. The hiring manager finds some other potential candidates—not quite as experienced—and proceeds with interviews. But the schedule is tight and it takes several weeks before interviews can be conducted and an offer finally made. At that point in this hiring environment odds are good that the company will have to go back to the drawing board.
Delays in the Hiring Process Can Be Costly
Hiring can be costly. Both in terms of the actual time spent in the process by HR and administrative staff as well as hiring managers and interview teams—but also in terms of lost opportunities.
In an era of The Great Resignation when top talent is at a premium, companies can't afford to take too long during the hiring process. Candidates, inevitably, are considering more than one potential employer. And, all else being equal, in most cases they’re likely to accept the first competitive offer that comes their way.
According to Harvard Business Review while the average hiring process lasts about 43 days, most applicants say they lost interest in two weeks if they don’t hear back from the employer.
Even though the hiring timeframe for temp jobs is less than when hiring permanent, full-time staff members, iIt pays to be prompt. Technology can help.
Technology and the Hiring Process
Blue collar job openings have increased more than any other type of job over the past 18 months according to The Economic Times. Employees today have choices and they’re becoming increasingly selective about the jobs they decide to take on.
According to Recruiter.com, there are four things that job candidates typically hate about the hiring process:
- Job ads ignore the needs of candidates.
- Employers aren’t responsive to job applications.
- The hiring process takes too long.
- Candidates are forced to go through too many interviews.
Technology can help minimize, or eliminate, all of these dissatisfiers. Technology can help at every stage of the hiring process, reducing administrative burden on staff and shortening the time to hire to ensure you can get top candidates hired and on board quickly.
- Applicants can be tracked and saved in databases that can be searched to find the perfect match.
- Communication and scheduling can be automated and tracked, with reminders generated to ensure that follow-up is prompt and ongoing.
- Offers can be generated and accepted and new hire paperwork can be completed entirely virtually saving time while minimizing the potential for errors.
- Onboarding and training can be fully automated offering new hires the opportunity to access materials when and where it’s convenient for them, and allowing employers to track progress and proficiency.
Of course technology is not a replacement for—but an aid to—the hiring process.
The High-Touch/High-Tech Balance
People need to be part of the hiring process—after all, the “H” in HR stands for human. Technology is not intended to be a replacement for human-to-human interaction, but an aid. Using technology, as we’ve seen, can both streamline the hiring and onboarding process and provide a documented record of the process.
Technology can speed up the tedious and administratively burdensome aspects of hiring to allow HR staff, hiring managers and others more opportunity to address the high-touch aspects of the process.
Technology can also reduce costs and the administrative burden of the hiring process, while also providing up-to-date, real-time access to information, documentation, and data that can be used to continually streamline the talent acquisition process and increase the odds that you’ll be able to find, hire and onboard the best talent for your available positions.
GoJob’s cutting edge technology and sophisticated algorithms match your job openings with an extensive database of contingent worker profiles, validating their interpersonal skills and motivation before an interview. Our processes and digital tools mean employers get access to the right candidates for them five times faster than through traditional agencies. Technology makes the difference during—and after—hiring. Learn more about our work and how we’re using advanced digital technology to connect individuals and organizations in Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.