Tag Archive: hr automation

  1. How to Improve Candidate Experience in a Tight Talent Market

    Engaging top candidates today isn’t easy. Blame Millennials or Gen Z if you like, but the fact is, the candidate market is completely different than is was 10 years ago. All of us (yes, you included) now have incredibly high standards for the experience we have when doing something, be it streaming TV or applying for a job.

    Whether your candidates are ‘digital natives’ or ‘digital immigrants,’ everyone in today’s workforce expects and appreciates a simple, personalized hiring experience. If you want to be a competitive employer, you need to give them that.

    Your next challenge is to find a way to get the data you need for sharp, unbiased decision-making without sacrificing the experience. Do that, and you create a win-win for everyone. Here’s how:

    Tell a good story

    You can’t expect candidates – who enjoy rich, vibrant experiences online and nearly everywhere they go – to raise their hand for a less-than-exciting job opportunity. Generalities, like saying, “This is a great place to work!” won’t cut it anymore. (Did it ever?) To get candidates to click APPLY, you must first give them a taste of your company, the job, and the team they might be working with. Do this by telling stories.

    First, craft a narrative about your company’s history, vision, or culture, and weave it into every experience through the hiring process. Then, look for ways to spotlight company wins and employee success stories. A video about an employee’s growth within the company, a great relationship with a client, or a community outreach event are just a few ideas. Whatever it is that makes your company interesting or unique, that’s the story you should tell.

    Make it feel easy

    Because everything is on-demand, the days of applying and waiting are nearing their end. Candidates need to be nurtured, gratified, and kindly escorted from one step in the process to the next. Your job is to make the job of applying for a job easier than ever.

    That means all the great storytelling videos you create should be accessible and easy to find up-front. After than, think about how to architect a seamless workflow that will keep candidates engaged and moving forward – such as, auto-launching an assessment at the end of the application, or providing the option to schedule a video interview immediately after the assessment.

    It goes without saying that everything should be mobile-optimized. And, the more flexibility you give candidates to complete steps when it’s convenient for them, the better.

    Improve your interviews

    Interviews are your chance to get to know candidates on a deeper, more personal level. They’re also a chance for candidates to get to know YOU. So make sure your interviews give back to the candidate as much as they take – which can be easy to forget when using technology.

    For example, if you use pre-recorded video interviews, you can help make the experience feel two-way by having real employees on screen, introducing themselves before asking an interview question. This way, candidates will have ‘met’ a handful of team members in your company, and will be able to put faces to names.

    Ask the right questions

    Candidates can tell the difference when hiring managers are prepared with questions, and when they’re winging it. By providing on-demand interview guides with questions that are tailored to the candidate and job, you ensure the interview is a good experience for busy managers and potential hires.

    Ideally, you want interview guides to be structured and align with your company’s core values, and at the same time, be relevant and personalized to the candidate. Asking the right questions leads great job-related conversations, and makes the most of everyone’s time.

    Add a personal touch

    If you’ve implemented a good hiring workflow, then you’re nurturing candidates throughout the process. It’s important to have built-in touch points to let candidates know they’ve successful completed a step and what’s coming next. Much of this can be automated. But, you don’t want your process to be completely robotic.

    Make sure at least some of your candidate outreach or follow up comes from a real recruiter or hiring manager. Savvy candidates know the difference and will appreciate a little undivided attention. Your goal should be to automate the mundane, repetitive tasks so that hiring teams have more time to personally connect with candidates.

    To learn more about innovative recruitment…

    See how Verisk, a Forbes’ Best Employer, is attracting and engaging top college grads.

  2. HR Automation and 3 Things Recruiters Could Do With Extra Time

    HR automation is not a new concept, but it’s certainly top of mind in the modern economy. Software solutions are getting smarter, and the workforce is buzzing with concern that technological advancement will result in a colder, less personal touch, especially in the recruitment process.

    But what if automation means keeping things more human as opposed to less?

    Take email, for example. We all spend a ton of time sending and reading email. How much time exactly? A recent webinar on HR tech automation asked:

    How much of your work week is spent on email?

    For the average worker, the answer is 35%. So, assuming you receive 50 emails a day, you’ll spend 229 hours on email each year. In that time, you could have:

    • climbed Mount Everest twice
    • taken 21 road trips across the U.S.
    • or, read the entire Harry Potter series 12 times

    Spending this much of the week on email leaves less time for other meaningful work. For recruiting teams, many of these remaining hours will be spent screening and interviewing job candidates. Another poll asked:

    How much of your work week is spent on phone interviews?

    For a recruiter working 10 recs and interviewing 10 candidates per rec, the answer is 30%.

    HR automation can give you back the equivalent time it takes to climb Mount Everest twice in one year, just by reducing the amount of time you spend on email or in phone interviews.

    Of course, your teams can’t go cold turkey email or the phone, but you can adopt technology to help reduce the time they spend doing things the old fashioned way. TextRecruit, for example, is a tool that helps recruiters communicate with candidates at scale through text messaging and live chat. Reaching people in real time is more efficient and more engaging, plus your teams will spend less time slogging through email. 

    To reduce time spent phone screening, video interviewing is a great solution. Companies like Walmart, Colgate, and Virgin Atlantic have replaced the traditional phone screen with pre-recorded video interviews to reduce candidate screening time by up to 70%.

    What can your teams accomplish with all that extra time?

    In How to Keep Your Hiring Process Human in the Age of Automation, Imo Udom, co-founder of the video interviewing tool Wepow, walks us through how automated solutions can help teams reclaim much-needed time to build stronger relationships, increase performance – or even climb a mountain.