Streamline Your Recruiting Process

To streamline your recruiting processes you need to eliminate waste and increase effectiveness. Take a moment to document the steps, interaction, and points of frustration during the recruiting, tracking and qualification process.

Recruiting Management

• Can you store templates of job descriptions?
• Can an approval process be applied to the requisition?
• What is the process, and what rules can be applied?
• How quickly can a requisition start accepting applications?
• How do you post a requisition to job boards?

Applicant Management

• What applicant information is collected (e.g., contact data, sourcing information, resume submittal, work history, education, etc.)?
• Explain how your ATS works with various job types as well as internal and external applicants.
• Explain how your ATS tracks the source of the applicant.
• Does your system support conceptual search? What other types of search do you support?
• Does your system support Web mining and the sourcing of resumes?
• Is the applicant workflow configurable? If so, can I create automated email messages for each step?
• Does the system allow for inserting applicant notes?
• Can you upload documents into applicant records?

From here, you can determine what information you need to collect, how you want to collect it and what criteria you need.

Try AppliView for free and enhance your recruiting process.

How to Avoid Basic Recruiting Mistakes

Do you feel like it is impossible to build a team of strong, capable employees? If you are having problems with your current employees, then you need to consider how these people were hired in the first place. Your recruiting methods are the foundation to creating a good team, so you need to assess how you are recruiting new employees if you want to build a better team

Here are three of the most common recruiting mistakes:

1. Rushing the Hiring Process

When a job opening needs to be filled, it can be tempting to hire the first candidate that comes along, as long as they meet a few certain requirements. Don’t make the mistake of hiring the wrong person because you are too concerned about getting the position filled right away. Sometimes it makes sense to delay the hiring for a little bit if it gives you the opportunity to find the perfect candidate to match your needs.

There is always a sense of urgency to fill the position, but you need to be careful to avoid the situation where the urgency drives you to make a poor decision. If you rush the recruitment process, then it will be expensive and ineffective.

2. Turning Away an Overqualified Candidate

It is becoming more common for employers to turn away overqualified candidates because of cost concerns. This approach is short-sighted, especially if you fail to see the benefits that the employee could bring to the company.

Don’t get caught up only looking at the short-term strategy. Instead, it is important to consider the long-term goals of the company to ensure you are hiring people who will contribute to those long-term goals. When you are focusing on a longer time frame, then you will see that salary isn’t quite as important if that employee can contribute to higher levels of growth for the company.

3. Withholding Information about the Job

One of the best ways to naturally filter potential candidates is by fully disclosing the job requirements and qualifications. Sometimes companies make the mistake of posting vague job descriptions and not sharing enough information during the interview. This limited information can result in a situation where candidates are applying for the job when they might not actually be qualified or interested in the actual duties that will be expected.

Be clear in your job description and share as much information as possible during the hiring process. A natural result is that candidates will automatically filter themselves out if they aren’t a good match for the position.

If you are ready to improve your recruiting methods, then we invite you to contact us at Agile HR for more information. Our tools make it easy for you to track recruiting efforts so that you can see how recruiting impacts retention. Contact us today for more information!

Effective Recruiting Strategies To Hire Best Talent

In a highly competitive job market, the onus is on recruiters and HR professionals to think outside the box if they want to hire the best talent. Creative recruiting strategies are critical to source, attract and then retain the cream of the candidate crop. We will discuss some of the most popular creative recruiting strategies, and with good reason.

Self-selection Screening

Self-selection screening is a way of pre-qualifying applicants. Simply introduce an open invitation event to candidates, before the interview stage. Those who turn up are really keen – those who don’t, not so much. This also gives you an opportunity to assess candidates in a group environment while giving candidates more insight into who you are and what you do.

This allows you to cut down the time you spend sifting through resumes and conducting interviews, by identifying the candidates who are genuinely interested in the role.

Group Interviews

Working on the same principle as above, group interviews give you a chance to evaluate candidates without conducting time-intensive one-on-one interviews with every candidate who applies. You probably want to limit the numbers here though. While you might get hundreds of attendees to an open day (depending on your industry and the level you’re recruiting for, of course), a meaningful group session needs to give you a chance to really assess each person there.

Handpick and flatter

This is a strategy for when you’re recruiting for a more niche role, perhaps, or a senior-level role. Identify your dream candidates for the position, research them in as much detail as possible and reach out to them personally. This article gives the example of Red 5 Studios, who handpicked 100 perfect candidates and sent them all a personalized iPod with a message from the CEO. More than 90 responded, 3 left their current role and joined Red 5 Studios, and they raised their employer profile significantly from word-of-mouth buzz.

Look in unexpected places

Step away from LinkedIn, this piece recommends, and head to the unexpected places. For example, try going out to local stores and offering interviews to anyone who really stands out. Obviously this is less relevant if you need specific skills for your role, but if you’re hiring entry-level then personality traits are likely to be just as important.

Attend events (not job fairs)

Similar to the above, the piece recommends attending unusual events if you want to find unusual talent. Look for relevant Meetups, for example.

Use non-traditional media

Instead of relying on plain text job adverts, why not think outside the box and make your company stand out? Podcasts, videos, graphics – anything that your competitors aren’t doing is fair game.

Active search

Recruiters have been doing this for decades, but it’s worth a reminder if your sourcing efforts fall a little on the passive side. Stop waiting for resumes to fall in your lap and develop a proactive sourcing strategy. You can keep track of your new clients using our free online recruitment system. Keep reading to learn more

Savvy advertising

Recruiters must become marketers if they want to succeed, and this point exemplifies this. Try investing in online advertising on online forums related to your skills, or targeting relevant keywords.

Don’t ignore past applicants

It makes sense, in a talent-tight market, not to ignore talent that’s already shown an interest. Use an online recruitment system to effectively keep track of your candidates and ensure you can contact them again in the future.

Incentivize referrals

Referrals are one of the highest quality sources of hire, so it makes sense to try and increase the amount you get. Offering and publishing incentives can be a great tactic.

Difference Between Hiring and Recruiting :: Simplify it with AppliView

It will be nice to have a bench of talented candidates, all waiting to come work for you? Already interviewed, references checked, ready to go? Recruiting makes this possible.

Start looking at the hiring process from the recruitment perspective, and truly start running your business effectively. Follow these tips for strong recruiting and never be a victim of reactive hiring again.

The hiring mindset: “I’m sorry, we don’t have any openings right now.”

The recruiting mindset: “We are always looking for talented sales representatives to join our team.”

Now that you understand the difference between hiring and recruiting, let's talk about the interview process.

The Talent Bench: What is it?

Recruitment doesn’t start when someone leaves. It is a never-ending process that eliminates the need for the hasty hiring of lackluster talent and saves you time and money. Recruitment gives you control.  

Think it about it this way – would you be able to operate effectively if you solely depended on just your current accounts alone? No way! The same philosophy applies to your sales team.

Recruitment should be happening every day as a part of your weekly activity. Even if you think you have the “perfect” staff in place, you never know when that might change. The business may grow which will drive you to need an additional seller onboard. Someone might unexpectedly take a position elsewhere. Or even worse – one of your current employee might plan to stay but perform below par! Strong recruitment ensures that you don’t have to settle for the disappointing performance. When you fill the bench with quality, talented candidates, you are always prepared with someone ready, willing, and able to join your team when the opportunity arises.

Highly talented people usually have a pretty successful career already, so they aren’t looking for a job. You have to find them, and you need to give them a reason to talk to you – even when you don’t have an immediate opening. Plan to sell them on your company (which can take time!), and make sure you to have these conversations consistently. 

Finding quality candidates is easy when you look in the right places.

• Talent loves talent, and a great place to start is with the talented people on your current team. Ask them for referrals, and if your company doesn’t have an employee referral program with a monetary incentive, create one.   
• Find networks of people in relevant field are great lead sources for you.
• Ask your clients for impressive reps in the market that they think highly of and learn why.
• Search LinkedIn for profiles of candidate in your industry that stand out.

Proactively select the right people for your team … even when you don’t have an opening.

The Process

After you have identified the candidates that YOU want, you must have a process in place and never skip steps. I will share my process with you because I feel it’s a good one with proven results.

One of the things that I like most about following these guidelines is that it eliminates the personal bias that can get in the way of a good hiring decision. Most good recruiters will agree that your lens becomes foggy when interviewing someone that has a sparkling personality – you don’t see their true talents as clearly. You also can have what many call “glare” if you have a lot in common – like you went to the same high school or college, or you grew up in the same neighborhood. Just because you share these common experiences, does not mean they will be the right salesperson to perform in your job. Always begin with a clear understanding of who that person is at their core, and how they are innately wired to behave. In other words, know their talents.

Follow This Process Every Time:

1. Initial Contact

Remember to state the reason you are calling. For example, “One of our clients recommended I call you because he said you are an outstanding marketer, and you have helped his business tremendously. We currently have opportunities that may be of interest of you. I would love to set up a time to give you some more information about our company and get to know you better as well.”

2. Initial Meeting and Phone Screen

This step will depend on the candidate’s level of interest. If there is more information to exchange, or a comfort level needs to be established, a quick meeting over coffee or lunch is a good idea. The next step should be a recorded phone interview.

3. Face-to-Face Interview

After the phone screen, jot down your areas of concern and formulate specific questions to address them. Then, set up another meeting in person to dig deeper and learn more. The face-to-face interview is a great opportunity to introduce other managers to your candidate and, if things go in the right direction, you should be prepared to address salary requirements and fit of the position.

4. Talent Interview

At this stage, you will ultimately determine if this person has the right combination and intensity of talents to be successful in your open position. The detailed analysis will provide you with a hiring recommendation as well as specific information on the behaviors you should expect if you were to hire them, and the type of coaching they will need to be successful. And you will always learn WHY. 

5. Talent Bench

At this point, you can add the candidate to your bench or extend an offer.

Talent is everywhere. You just have to look in the right places. The larger your funnel, the better because you need to talk to a large number of candidates to find those select few with the talent you need. 

It takes time in the front end, but it is much easier than speeding up the process, hiring the wrong person, and getting stuck in the hiring cycle when that person leaves (or is helped to the door).  

AppliView will be an value adding tool when comes to hiring and recruiting.

Quick Tips for Recruiters To Get Promoted

No matter what position you work in or what company you work for, chances are you want a promotion. Unfortunately, many of employers say bad attitudes hurt an employee’s chances of getting promoted. While you may not love the position you’re in and dream of having a little more responsibility, sticking it out and proving to your employer you’re ready to move up can be the kicker that helps you get the promotion you’re looking for. Let's dive into these quick tips for recruiters.

                 When it comes to the field of recruiting in particular, you may wonder what you need to do to get promoted. You aren’t alone, and there a few things recruiters need to have in order to start climbing the mountain.

Know the whole organization

Recruiter, know thyself and everything else. Talent leaders have a grasp on just about every part of the company they work for, including performance, engagement, organization development, succession planning and personnel management. Knowing what’s going on at your company will not only make you better at your current job, but also pave the way for new opportunities.

                    Most of executives say their HR talent needs to value business more than the average HR skill. Knowing these ins and outs will allow you to have the vision to know what decisions you need to make now and with authority, and which you can take your time on. As you start to take interests in other parts of the company, your manager will eventually notice you have an eye for the inner workings of the organization and not just its results.

Remember to look at the big picture

Many companies are now investing in big data and Applicant Tracking System in order to help make their HR departments more data-driven. Data allows recruiters to look at the needs of the organization and align them with market realities; the more a recruiter understands the market they work in, the better they can help their business make the right calls.

                   Having a knowledge of everything within and outside the organization, and being able to ask questions like, “is this the best move for my company in the long-run, or just now,” can set you apart from other recruiters. It shows you’re capable of connecting the dots between disparate areas, and that you have the company’s best interest at heart.

See yourself as a Talent Advisor

Another number recruiters should pay attention to few HR employees are locked into a mindset and lack commitment to deliver real value. Recruiters and talent advisors are seen on two completely different levels; recruiters are seen as taking orders from higher-ups whereas talent advisors are seen as partners with a more respectable level of talent insight.

                   When you begin thinking of yourself as a talent advisor, even if you aren’t officially one yet, you’re preparing yourself for the position; it will show your boss that you take yourself seriously and have committed yourself to advancing within the organization. The more you can show your boss that you’re not afraid of responsibility and can educate yourself in every position at the company, the better you look when it comes to time to fill the position you’re gunning for.

                   

                    Following all of these steps can show your boss that you are educated, you care about the organization and have the chops to not only run your company’s hiring efforts, but excel far beyond that with your company. That’s exactly what companies want in a leader, and it’s what you should aim for if you want that promotion.

                     Ready to reach the next level of productivity? Then try a demo of AppliView that will make sure every one of your employees is up to par.

Advantages of Choosing a Great Applicant Tracking System

Recruitment process is often entirely dependent on the quality of the applicant tracking system that the company uses. What is great applicant tracking? And more importantly, how does a great applicant tracking system really make a difference?

The benefits listed below will provide you with the insights necessary to help you pick a great applicant tracking platform for your environment.

Modern Approach

It’s the 21st century, and savvy applicants will be taking notes on your hiring process. From the candidate’s viewpoint, being on the receiving end of a modern applicant tracking system helps them grow confidence in your company, and increases the chances that they’ll accept an offer. Product features such as an easy and mobile-friendly application process, automation in follow-up emails, social engagement and above-average communication from your team will go a long way toward making an impression on potential candidates.

Simplicity and Usability

A great applicant tracking platform is, by definition, simple, streamlined, and easy to use. It hides the complexity of its rich and sophisticated functionality by presenting a simple user interface that makes everything seem easy to do. The platform should enable your team to do much more than store applicant information and resumes. A great applicant tracking platform will enable your team to build and manage a recruitment funnel and serve as collaborative hiring platform streamlining the process for your entire team.

Team Collaboration

A great applicant tracking platform like AppliView serves as an interface between all stakeholders involved in the hiring process. The platform should help burnish the company’s employer brand, attract candidates and make the application process simpler. It should also simplify the process of working with external recruitment agency partners, as and when needed. When utilizing the right applicant tracking platform with great access control functionality, different stakeholders can be working on their own tasks from anywhere and at any time, while leveraging all the collaborative capabilities of the platform.

Flexibility

By choosing a modern, cloud-based solution, you will ensure that your team can effectively utilize the applicant tracking platform from any device. Over the past decade, the number of online employment listings has surged, ads must be mobile friendly, and social media now plays a key role in employee recruitment as well as in building an employer brand. Fast response times are expected and modern cloud-based technology is a must-have for the kind of fast-paced applicant management that is needed for companies to compete for top talent.

Detailed Functionality

A great applicant tracking platform will enable you to keep track of the recruiting performance of different sources that you work with in finding candidates. It will give you access to multiple sourcing channels such as job boards, social media as well as employee referrals in an integrated applicant tracking platform. A great applicant tracking system that is easy to scale will allow you to quickly respond to unexpected changes such as a surge in hiring activity. Analytics will provide you with the insights necessary to understand your recruiting performance so you can make the right adjustments to improve your processes. Access to advanced features and the ability to speed up your recruiting process will give you the competitive advantage you need to turn your recruitment into a successful and sustainable process.

Data Driven

At every stage of the hiring process, a great applicant tracking platform will use a data-driven approach to keep users fully informed about relevant activity in the hiring process. With a modern data-driven approach to applicant tracking, candidate activity is not only tracked well, select events can be configured to send out notifications as and when needed. A great applicant tracking platform uses a data-driven approach that makes it easy for everyone involved in the hiring process to take action as soon as an important event takes place.

Structured and Organized

One of the most important characteristics of a great applicant tracking platform is also a pretty basic need. Getting a company’s recruitment activity organized is hard to do without proper technology infrastructure. The best HR team combined with hiring managers will find themselves wasting their time when staying organized and keep track of hiring activity are hard to do. A great applicant tracking platform makes sure that all the actions taken on candidate applications are tracked and recorded properly eliminating the need to maintain such information in emails and excel spreadsheets. Never again will a great applicant go missing in the system. A great applicant tracking platform will enable your entire hiring team to house applicant data under one system, and generate scoring and rankings for quick, easy reference. Hiring is a time-sensitive, collaborative environment, and the right recruitment software get a company’s hiring organized and streamlined.

Get Your Great Applicant Tracking Platform

AppliView combines simplicity and scalability with enterprise grade functionality in an easy-to-use and modern cloud-based environment. Leave average processes to your competitors, where it could take months to bring on a new hire. A modern applicant tracking and recruitment platform can help you can reach and engage top talent where they are most likely to be found, before your competitors can get to them. Request a demo today.

Major Recruiting Mistakes and Tips to Avoid Them

There’s something therapeutic about empathizing with others over shared awful experiences while recruiting for talent – especially if you can also share solutions to prevent those experiences from recurring.

Below, you will find some of the major recruitment mistakes that are often committed out in the field, along with some approaches to fixing the mistakes. If you’re experiencing a turbulent recruiting operation – or you just want to take a few minutes to learn about the solutions to costly and common recruitment mistakes – then read on.

1. Not Planning Ahead

Regardless of the industry you work in, strategic workforce planning is critical to any successful recruitment strategy. Workforce planning is not an easy task, but you can’t afford to disregard its importance to your organization’s bottom line as a whole.

To back this notion, Corporate Research Forum conducted a survey and reported that nearly half of firms polled had not conducted any recruitment forecasting for 12 months in advance. Failure to properly plan can result in a number of problems: overspending, inefficiencies leading to longer-than-necessary hiring processes, an inability to adapt to changing market conditions, a tendency to make rushed decisions, and – most importantly – a negative impact on the productivity and success of the organization.

The Solution

• A way to remedy mishaps like these is to first understand that you can’t always predict exactly how your hiring will pan out. However, by taking the following steps, you can better develop proactive recruiting solutions and strategies in order to prepare for changes in the market:

• Utilize the company’s historical recruitment data to understand where volumes lie within particular departments, business units, countries, and regions. This data also gives an understanding of candidate ratios required to fill a position and how long the hiring process is likely to take.

• Study recruitment spend and where it is attributed (e.g., advertising, agencies, employer branding, social media, etc.).

• Identify hires that are critical to the business (i.e., hires that have a significant impact on the overall business strategies and objectives).

• Identify hires that are painful (e.g., hires that are known to take longer to fill than normal).

• Identify periods of the year when recruitment could spike (e.g., before Christmas in retail organizations).

No matter the industry in which you work, reactive recruiting will only lead to a lack of the right people with the right skill sets at the right time. Get into planning mode instead and be ready for unexpected demand using the data you already have.

2. Insufficient Employer Branding 

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” 

Employment branding should be treated like marketing, and your candidates should be treated like consumers. People now research their potential employers the same way they research products before buying them. With unemployment rates and the fact that we are in a heavily candidate-driven marketplace, well-paying, “good” jobs are no longer enough to attract great talent. Companies need to be engaging and transparent, and their employer brands need to be on point.

A study revealed that organizations with strong employer brands attract at least 3.5 times more applications per job posting than other companies in the same industry, and LinkedIn found that strong employer brands can reduce a company’s cost per hire by about 50 percent. This supports the idea that investing in your employment brand will save you money, make you a more desirable place to work, increase the quality and volume of your hires, and reduce turnover rates.

The Solution

• To build a best-in-class employment brand, please consider these points:

• State clearly your mission and values and share employee stories about your company. Do so using videos, images, and graphics for greater resonance with candidates.

• Utilize website video content to depict jobs, culture, and departments. By 2018, an amazing 84 percent of Internet traffic will be from video content.

• Offer targeted messaging for candidates (e.g., use custom branded strategy pages for finance, sales, technology, and operations positions).

• Launch a talent community (TC) and leverage a recruitment management platform that gives people the ability to sign up for your community on your career site. Managed TC communication engages members and encourages reapplies.

• Implement a mobile-optimized application process for millennials and Generation Z candidates.

• Leverage social media. Job seekers are increasingly going to social media pages to research companies before applying for jobs. Use platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Instagram (if appropriate) to promote a consistent message about your organization.

3. Candidate Rejection and Feedback

This is an aspect of the hiring process where many hiring managers can unsuspectingly cause serious damage to their employer brands simply by neglecting to give candidates due feedback. Understandably, hiring managers are incredibly busy and just want to find “the chosen one.” Still, all candidates that have been interviewed should be contacted and given feedback – even if they are no longer being considered for the role. This should be done as a courtesy to candidate and for the sake of the company’s brand.

The candidate experience is one of the key drivers of your employer brand. Should the feedback process be carried out incorrectly, word will spread. According to survey more then 70% of candidates would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed.”

The Solution

• If your organization is guilty of not giving candidates the feedback they deserve, you can address the problem immediately by simply allocating a dedicated resource to coordinating and communicating with candidates at all points in the recruiting process. This should be a structured process – and a timely one, too. Candidates shouldn’t be waiting for weeks before they receive feedback.

4. Looking for the Perfect Candidate

The perfect candidate is a myth. Making a hire is always subjective, in the sense that you are interviewing people in order to uncover attributes that assure they are a good fit for your company.

Metaphorically speaking, let’s use a plate of food as an example. There is no such thing as a perfect plate of food, because everyone has a different taste. A dish that may taste great to you may be just “good” to others. Nonetheless, the dish is good enough for everyone to enjoy.

Waiting around to find a candidate that ticks off all the check boxes will cause delays in the recruitment process, and that ultimately slows down your business’s progress toward its goals. Consequently, the quality candidates you passed on will get hired by more decisive companies.

The Solution  

• As mentioned before, rarely will you ever find a candidate that meets every requirement. Still, you need to screen for both personality and skill set.

• First, you want to make a judgement on whether a candidate’s personality would fit into the team and culture that is already in place. It is extremely important that you tackle this question before any others. You can always work on molding a skill set to fit a role, but the task of molding a personality to fit a team is almost impossible. Identify specific personality characteristics that are important to your team so you know what to look for in a new hire, and then make sure that all parties involved in the hiring process are consistently looking for the same traits. Once you have identified candidates with the right characteristics, you should then further screen for skill sets and competencies that are important to the role.

                   Do any of these mistakes sound familiar to you? If so, your recruiting process could probably stand to be overhauled a bit. The good news is that you are now ready to tackle any and all of these problems head on and make some major improvements for a better recruiting process. Apply these solutions to your next interview round, and you’ll see the difference they make in recruiting the talent your organization needs to remain competitive. Apart from this you can have AppliView which will reduce your efforts and enhance the recruiting.