Traditional hiring methods follow a tried-and-true process that may have room for improvement. It’s easy to stick with what works, but consider some of the following ways to help streamline your hiring process – and still find the quality candidates your company needs to succeed.
The Traditional Hiring Process
When your company is ready to hire, it may look something like this:
- Determine hiring needs
- Crowdsource job description content
- Write and edit job descriptions
- Post jobs to boards
- Sift through responses
- Contact possible candidates for the first round of interviews
- Coordinate schedules with hiring managers
- Coordinate schedules with potential hires
- Conduct multiple rounds of interviews
- Extend offers
- Wait for responses
- Officially hire
- Onboarding and training
If this feels familiar and laborious, it may be time to interject a dose of efficiency into these steps.
4 Tips to Streamline Your Hiring Process
Follow these tips to improve your hiring efforts and create a more seamless process.
Evaluate Real Hiring Needs
Rather than sticking to past hiring schedules, department sizes, and positions that have traditionally existed, take the time to determine what your company needs going forward systematically. The recruitment professionals at Sheer Velocity suggest some of the following criteria:
- Define your business goals
- Evaluate current staff skill strengths and note skill gaps
- Analyze technology and workforce trends in your industry to consider future growth
- Consult key stakeholders to open lines of communication about current and future needs
- Develop a hiring plan that aligns with your overall business strategy
Reconsider the “Bureaucratic Hiring Method”
This term, coined by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross, describes a “consensus-oriented hiring culture” where multiple colleagues and hiring managers are part of a lengthy interview process. In companies where new hires will work with multiple people, it can seem respectful to solicit their input on potential candidates. Add hiring managers into the mix, and hiring becomes a dance where people don’t always feel free to express their true opinions.
It all feeds into a culture with the potential for “loss aversion, the well-established bias that often the pain of losing or doing a mistake is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining or doing the right decision,” say Atta Tarki, Tyler Cowen and Alexandra Ham. “In reality, the bureaucratic method of hiring destroys a lot of value by missing out of stellar candidates while adding little value.”
They suggest a few measures to counteract these tendencies:
- Reduce the number of interviewers: More than four or five interviewers in the process probably costs you more than it benefits.
- Assign someone to the final decision: Additionally, determine who has veto power and emphasize that not everyone will have final approval.
- Establish a numerical rating system: This helps the committee see an overall view rather than focusing on negatives. Ask for ratings privately to avoid groupthink.
- Remove the “Dr. Deaths”:Track committee members who reject the most candidates, and remove them from the process.
- Reward those who recognize great hires: Change your culture away from penalizing the occasional bad hire and focus on good outcomes.
Scrutinize Recruiting Practices
Though job boards are the path of least resistance, consider the volume and quality of responses you’re getting. How much time do you spend sifting vs. offering interviews? Do you find that you mostly attract underqualified applicants? Does it always feel like you’re missing out on a valuable segment of potential hires? If you use an AI-powered screening tool, is it catching the right candidates or could it use some additional personalization to help you connect with top talent?
Consider, too, how the potential candidates interact with your hiring system. Is your application process cumbersome and repetitive? Does the technology all work properly, with no dead pages or broken links? How quickly do candidates receive a response?
There is usually no one-size-fits-all tool for recruiting. It may require a multi-pronged approach of job boards, networking, referrals, and recruiters to fill the entry- and manager-level positions in your company.
Implement an Applicant Tracking System
Goals, adjustments, and culture changes give you the “why” of your recruiting efforts. An applicant tracking system like ApplicantStack gives you the “how.” The approach of gathering applicants and responding within the software means nothing gets lost in the inbox of a hiring manager on vacation, or sent to a spam filter and discarded. Applicants can chose if they would prefer emails or text messages, which helps keep communication current and active. A thorough record of each applicant’s place in the process is available at a glance for each member of the hiring committee, ensuring timely interactions.
It’s easy to follow traditional approaches to hiring. People feel comfortable doing things the way they’ve always been done. It takes some effort to reimagine the hiring process at your company, but taking some active steps can help you streamline and acquire the best possible candidates. Implementing ApplicantStack can help you take the first step and get access to the tools you need to streamline recruiting.
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