Changing Times Call for Advanced Hiring Practices

The recruiting process for most companies needs to move lightning fast but elements of that process, like reference checking, add an extra layer that slows down many companies. Did you know that the average length of the job interview process stands at about 27.5 days? Eight out of 10 recruiters use references to screen candidates and lose as many as 89% due to prolonged process.

If your business is stuck and needs a streamlined recruiting process for faster hiring, you should look into automating solutions for parts of your process including automated confidential reference checking as well. Here’s the latest on what companies are doing to speed up their hiring process.

Tips for a Streamlined Recruiting Process

If you are one of the companies trying to hire talented people right now, you have probably noticed the talent pool is very competitive, and it’s difficult to find skilled employees who have great resumes and references.

42% of companies have said their biggest priority is investing in tools that speed up the hiring process, which is one of the reasons why these methods have become very popular.

Cut the Red Tape in Recruitment

There are a few things that companies can do right now to improve their processes. One way to establish streamlined recruiting is to cut out any unnecessary steps. Where are the bottlenecks?

Most HR professionals say that reference checking has become a troublesome, time-consuming process that requires scheduling and documentation. However, most of the time, they agree that reference checking is done solely as a “company policy” and since candidates are only going to provide positive references, not really necessary. Why would a potential candidate provide a terrible reference?

In addition, you should stop with pdf-based or other talent-based questionnaires that take several days to complete and document. Instead, you should look for an automated, quicker process or tool that can make this process even faster.

Start with Direct and Referral Based Sourcing

In today’s digital world, hiring managers and recruiters in professional and highly sought-after industries only invite problems by blasting a job post online. Generic sites like Indeed, Monster and ZipRecruiter may lead to some results, but top talent doesn’t always use these job boards. Instead, you need to proactively search for them on social media sites like LinkedIn.

Another way to source top candidates and expand your talent pool is by tapping into high-caliber passive candidates through references and referrals. One way to do this is with automated technology from companies like SkillSurvey. By using reference-based automation technology to check references and generate referrals, you tend to find talent with similar skill sets to your top performers.

It’s also important that you track your success and see how many qualified recruits you actually receive for the cost. In many cases, employers pay a lot for job listings that don’t target the right talent and end up receiving 50 or more resumes from applicants who don’t match what you’re looking for.

Ask Better Questions on the Application

To qualify candidates for your position, start with a strong application that helps answer some of the questions required to assess a job seeker’s skill set. Many services now offer specific qualifying questions that you can use for insights into a candidate’s skills, experience, management style, and knowledge.

Some of the top questions to ask on applications include:

• Why do you want to work for our company? This is probably the most popular question but that’s because a candidate can share their knowledge of your company and what features appeal to them. This lets you know how they view the company and what’s important to them.
• Why are you the best candidate for the job? Many job seekers will talk themselves up, but you’ll want to look at candidates that answer by offering ideas and evidence that they can meet the role’s demands.
• What’s your favorite achievement so far? This question is twofold as it shares expertise as well as psychology. What the candidate picks as an achievement shows their personality and creativity.
• What’s a challenging experience you have had to overcome in your career? This is a great question for Sales Professionals to answer and a good question to ask candidates to see their ability to overcome adversity and objections during their career.

There are several questions for different industries and management positions. For example, you may want to ask a challenging question that pertains to a specific IT programming language or ask for examples of working as a team or leading a team.

Try an Automated Recruitment Solution

Small businesses are suffering right now as they try to get top talent, but the competition is so high that it can take forever to find the right person to fill a complex role. What would it be like to simply send off your candidate’s information and get back all the data you need to hire? With Treeline’s modern techniques and tools, this is now possible, and it’s more affordable than you might think.

A typical recruitment process spans from searching resumes and vetting experience to checking references and scheduling interviews. There are so many pieces that go into hiring a new employee, why not utilize technology to speed up this process? For example, SkillSurvey offers an automated and confidential reference checking solution to assist companies in streamlining their recruiting process and getting better data to make hiring decisions. This tool takes care of reaching, organizing, and documenting references and their feedback to keep your interview process running smooth.

In fact, you can choose from a variety of pre-set survey based on the specific requirements of the job your company is filling (they have a library of hundreds of surveys). If you typically get stuck in a reference roadblock, this tool could free up time for you to focus on other tasks until you’re ready for the interview. These tools gather significant data, which aids in hiring the right talent for the position. You simply need to set it up and let SkillSurvey do the rest.

“At Treeline, we use SkillSurvey to gather more accurate data when hiring for our team internally and as a free service to all of our hiring clients. It helps to speed up our process, look at more consistent data, refer more candidates to our firm and make the right hire.”

Communicate Quickly with Top Candidates

In a streamlined recruitment process, communication can be scheduled and organized using automated tools. This allows you to send interview invitations and follow-ups with ease. As soon as you have more information to share, you can immediately let your client or candidate know.

Since you’ll be working as a liaison between candidates, hiring managers or client if a recruiter, you have to be able to communicate efficiently. Everyone knows how important it is to follow-up and stay in touch, especially if you want to hire top talent. Leveraging automated texting and email tools for follow-ups help encourage action and urge decisions. These can be helpful if you have a busy boss or client who isn’t getting back to you on a candidate.

Check References at the Start

Have you ever done all the work with a candidate only to check references and find they’re not who they said they were? Checking references at the finish line, or after an offer has been made, may be becoming an outdated process. With automated tools, checking references quickly can also be done at any stage of the interview process.

You should ask your candidate for references as part of the application process, then using an automated confidential reference checking tool, you don’t have to worry about taking the time to schedule the reference interviews. Tools like SkillSurvey do all the work for you and guarantee great results by providing all the data you need, not only to confirm whether a candidate’s going to be a good fit, but also to see how they compare to benchmarked candidates.

Here’s what SkillSurvey’s Chief Sales Office John Routhier had to say: “Prior to SkillSurvey, reference checking was not a useful step when hiring sales team members as I never got very useful, actionable data. I found companies like DocuSign use SkillSurvey’s science and analytics to identify candidates with the job-specific skill sets. They found that candidates that met that profile were 5x more likely to achieve quota.”

With the right data, recruiters and hiring managers can make better decisions about candidates, and they don’t have to wait weeks in order to do so – the average time to reach five references and have a detailed report is less than two business days. This is why it’s so important to use automated tools in the hiring process if you want to save time while still collecting the best data to hire the right people.

If you have ever gotten stuck in reference checking, you may leave this until the last task. However, you might also miss an important step that will make all of your work null and void anyway. It’s best to hand off these tasks so that you can keep moving down the pipeline on other candidates, too.

Be Choosier with Candidates

For recruiters, the right candidate is everything. You want to find someone with talent, great communication skills, and the right experience. However, you also want to be picky when it comes to their skills.

Experts say it’s best to create a list of top tier candidates and “okay” candidates. Instead of sending all candidates for reviews, you’ll spend more time on the exceptional candidates who are more likely to fit the role.

Phone interviews offer some insights, but it’s also about the initial questions you ask to ensure that a candidate has the experience and knows what they’re talking about. Most hiring managers say they can tell when a candidate doesn’t match the resume’s experience just by a quick phone interview.

Recruit from Social Media

Social media gets a bad reputation for taking too long, when actually you can use a recruitment profile on LinkedIn or Facebook to offer specific jobs within the industry. It’s also mostly free unless you choose to boost your posts and add targeting, which can be beneficial if you’re looking to acquire talent from other companies.

Social recruiting leads to more passive candidates as well, which can be beneficial as these candidates are typically highly qualified and knowledgeable. While they may need more persuasion to jump into a new role at a different company, they’re also typically more likely to be open for phone and video interviews.

Final Thoughts: Save Time with Streamlined Recruitment

Hiring doesn’t have to take weeks. Just by utilizing a few tools and allowing highly qualified services to handle recruiting with automated reference checking tools, you can instantly shave days and weeks off your hiring time.

SkillSurvey offers more actionable data and speeds up your reference checks, allowing you to gain insights into candidates quickly. SkillSurvey has been a game changer for our firm and is a great tool to share with our clients to help them make the decision on which candidates are best for their organization.

[Learn More About SkillSurvey Reference and SkillSurvey Source]