Hiring Process Tips: Building a Strategic Hiring Process

Research by The ManpowerGroup found that in 2018, 45% of global businesses were unable to find the skills they required. The research also found that the global skills and talent shortage is at a 12-year high. Whether you own a restaurant, retail store or a franchise, companies just like yours are struggling to get the right candidates to fill positions. Competition is tough to identify and secure the right candidates. Therefore, you need to give yourself the best advantage by making continuous improvements to your strategic hiring process.

Improving the hiring process steps makes recruitment easier and helps to source the right candidates for your company. The use of smart devices and appliances are on the rise. Job applicants are comfortable with using smartphones, smart fridges and other forms of technology. Consequently, it is important to embrace new technology and implement smart hiring to avoid losing the best candidates to your competitors. Improving your strategic hiring process should be an aspect of your business development strategy, as it underpins one of your most vital business assets – your labor.

Fit for purpose employee recruitment involves identifying the best hiring process tips for your company.  These hiring process tips must be constantly reviewed to determine how to make them better for you and the candidates.

Here are seven hiring process tips for improving your recruitment process.

1. Define the strategic hiring process for different roles

Take some time to think about the different types of roles and workers your company needs. The stages of recruitment will differ according to the type of worker you are hiring. For example, an important hiring process tip is tot differentiate your strategy for hourly workers and people who perform gig economy jobs. Different roles will need to be filled by candidates with specific experience and qualifications. A single hiring process strategy for all your roles will lead to confusion for you and the candidate.

Most companies state the differences in roles when creating job descriptions. However, they fail to follow-through during the entire strategic hiring process. The hiring process for most companies is made up of the following stages:

• Planning to hire.
• Attracting the right candidates.
• Reviewing candidates.
• Making an offer.

You should aim to define and personalize the strategic hiring process for the different stages of recruitment listed above. Your application form should be tailored according to the level of the skills required.

Having separate hiring process methods for different roles is necessary but can also be time-consuming. This is especially the case if you operate a small business and take care of hiring needs yourself. Fountain removes the confusion of managing separate hiring processes for different candidates. Our workflow feature ensures every job that is posted is allocated its own workflow. This functionality makes handling different roles easy and simple.

2. A simple hiring process tip is to create clear job descriptions

The job description is the step in the hiring process that will introduce your company to future employees. Although it could be tempting to add every detail of the role to the job description, this may be counter-productive as it could turn-off potential candidates.

Here are some hiring process tips for writing a job description that will engage and entice the right candidates to apply for your job opening:

• Update previous job descriptions - If an existing employee is leaving, ask them to create a list of the actual duties they perform. Compare this list to the old job description and make updates where necessary. You may find that some duties have been made obsolete because of new ways of working. Additionally, there may also be new duties that have been added to the role.
• Use simple job titles – Your job title should indicate what the job is about. There are many jobs vying for candidates’ attention and some will not take the time to figure out what job titles like ‘Marketing Wizard’ mean.
• Keep details specific – Talk about only the most important aspects of the role. List the different projects and duties the candidate will be working on.
• Differentiate requirements – Separate requirements as ‘nice-to-have’ and ‘must-have’. This approach will help to attract candidates who have the core skills to perform the job and are willing to learn secondary skills while working.
• Avoid jargon – Unless you are recruiting for a highly specialized role, you should stay away from using jargon in your job descriptions. Avoid acronyms and use the second person as this language communicates directly with potential applicants.
• Sell your company – Promote the positive aspects of your company to encourage candidates to apply. You should include details of your achievements, employee development opportunities, benefits and perks.

3. Focus on enhancing the candidate’s experience for your strategic hiring process

According to Capital H Blog, candidates are becoming more demanding and have expectations that recruiters are highly responsive and provide customized information about the role and the company. We refer to this fast growing trend as the new service economy.

To improve your strategic hiring process, you will need to shift from company-centred recruitment to a candidate-centric approach. Candidates rightly perceive the hiring process as an extension of your company. A smooth and seamless recruitment process that prioritizes communication will result in less candidates dropping out before they are eliminated or offered the job.

The following hiring process tips will help you increase the number of positive interactions between your company and candidates:

• Streamline the application process – A survey found that 60% of applicants abandon online job application forms because they were too long and complicated. Reducing the time required to complete your application form will help you to gain more candidates.

[Read our e-book for five ways to improve the performance of your application process]

Refresh your careers page as part of your hiring process strategy

Ensure that the careers page on your website is updated with the latest jobs. Your careers page should be user-friendly, informative and portray a real image of your company. Use employee stories, images, videos and describe the advantages of working with your company to encourage candidates to apply.

Accept applications via mobile to improve your hiring process

It is estimated that 77% of the U.S population owns a smartphone. You can improve your hiring process by keeping up with this trend and making your recruitment process mobile. As smartphones are already being used to search for jobs, it makes sense for your company to facilitate mobile job applications. Enabling mobile-based applications will allow candidates to respond to your job listing quicker.  

Fountain provides a mobile-optimized application process for a great user experience. As the whole recruitment process is built for mobile devices, you can also manage the various hiring process steps through your mobile device. This convenience means that your hiring managers do not need an app, desktop or login to manage and coordinate their candidates.

4. Prioritize communication as you build your strategic hiring process

Candidates feel entitled to be kept in the loop during the hiring process. Social media platforms provide instant gratification and the Gen Z and millennial generations in particular, expect to work for a responsive company. It is important to keep the lines of communication open during the hiring process. You should incorporate standard messages at different stages of the hiring pipeline. This communication could include confirming the receipt of an application. You should also dedicate resources to answering additional questions from candidates.

Given that most of your candidates have mobile phones, an easy and reliable method of communication is SMS. These messages are discreet and are a preferred way to communicate in comparison to phone calls, especially if the candidate is already employed. Fountain provides the functionality to keep in touch with your candidates using SMS messaging.

You can use SMS messaging to:

• Schedule interviews.
• Send prompts to upload documents.
• Follow-up after interviews.

5.  Enhance your candidate sourcing

The more sources you utilize to fill your job vacancies, the higher the chances that you will get quality candidates within your specified timeframe.

Use the following sources to widen the net of qualified candidates:

• Post to the best job boards – The results of a survey found that more than half (52.17%) of all applications come from job boards. Therefore, to improve your recruitment process, you need to include a strategy to post your job openings on the most relevant job boards.

Fountain has introduced Boost, which helps you to get more candidates in a shorter time frame. With Boost we recommend the best job boards and a budget to help you identify the right candidates.

Boost can improve your strategic hiring process by:

1. Saving time as you can access more applicants with one click.

2. Increasing efficiency because you are able to view all of your applicants in one place.

3. Reducing the steps in the hiring process because we post your application to all job boards.

• Ask for referrals – You should use your existing network to find out whether they know of suitable candidates. To incentivize people to make referrals, offer a referral fee when a candidate is employed 

• Use social media – One of the most obvious social media platforms to find job candidates is LinkedIn. You can include “we’re hiring” in your bio or write an update with the details of the role. If necessary, make use of LinkedIn’s premium service to better target your ideal candidates.

• Go to industry events – Search for events that are relevant to your industry to meet fellow professionals who may be interested in a new role. Conferences and informal meet-ups are ideal places to make contact with potential employees. 

6. Utilize analytics to improve your strategic hiring process

Analyzing all of the steps in your hiring process is key to improving how you hire workers.  The right analytics will enable you to identify what areas are working and the hiring stages that need to be improved. Using Fountain as your recruitment software provides you with insight about the hiring metrics that are important to your company.

 Hiring process analytics will help you to answer the following questions:

• What is causing blockages and delays?
• Which hiring managers are struggling to recruit?
• Which hiring sources are the most valuable?

Fountain’s analytics feature gives you the answers to the above questions and much more, including:

• How much each candidate costs your company.
• Where your candidates drop-off in the hiring process.
• The best time of the week for candidates to attend interviews.
• The length of time it takes for a candidate to move through your recruitment pipeline.

7. Improve overall efficiency of your hiring process

Making improvements to your strategic hiring process does not necessarily need to include big and expensive changes.

You can improve the general efficiency of the recruitment process in the following ways:

• Introduce recruitment software – Switching to recruitment software could make the biggest difference to streamlining and improving your hiring process. Using recruitment software like Fountain saves you time and money with features, like video interviews. You are able to reduce the steps in the hiring process when using automated software to handle time-consuming tasks, for example scheduling interviews.
• Record standard processes – Your hiring should be process-driven to ensure that all candidates receive the same experience. An easy way to record processes is to make a checklist of the relevant steps. You will need to delegate a manager to update the checklists when steps are added or removed from the process.
• Design templates – Personalized templates are an easy way of collecting information from your candidates. You can either design these templates in-house or find pre-designed templates by searching the web.

Improving your recruitment process is no longer just about a better experience for your hiring managers. Candidates are increasingly using the hiring process to make an assessment about whether they should proceed with the application.

Fountain is used by all different size businesses to improve their hiring process.   Sign up today to find out how we can make recruitment easier and simpler for your team and your candidates.