Hello and welcome to the IHR – Talent Acquisition Series for Recruiting: High-Volume Hiring for Recruiters.
Welcome to the Lesson.
Hi there, I’m Meredith and I have over 8 years of recruiting and management experience in the RPO industry. Primarily working with Fortune 500’s to identify solutions in high volume and niche hiring markets. I currently work at Monster, a global online employment solution for people seeking jobs and the employers who need great people. We've been an influencer in the space for more than 20 years, and have expanded from our roots as a "job board" to a global provider of a full array of job seeking, career management, recruitment and talent management products and services. At the heart of our success and our future is innovation: We are changing the way people think about work, and we're helping them actively improve their lives and their workforce performance with new technology, tools and practices. I work in the Talent Fusion™ division of Monster providing comprehensive recruiting and sourcing solutions and delivering top talent to fulfill many company’s business and talent demands.
The following are Key Learning points from this lesson.
Please note the lesson objectives and suggested lesson time length. Refer to these objectives when you have completed the lesson to ensure your transfer of learning.
Typically high volume hiring occurs when you have a need to fill multiple openings of the same position. Often you will target hiring a number of candidates at the same time so you can bring them onboard for a group training class. Some common examples are:
Call Centers (customer service, sales, help desk)
Seasonal Retail Hiring (Halloween Superstores, Department Stores over the Christmas Season,
Company expanding into a new vertical (through acquisition or expansion)How
High growth organizations (startups)
Hiring a sales team for a new product (sales organizations)
There can be a number of challenges involved in recruiting in high volume scenarios including:
Lack of interested candidates
Candidates falling out of process
Improver interviewing (too strict or to open)
High turnover
Before you can begin any sourcing or recruiting activity, it is essential to gather the necessary details of your high volume roles from your organization. These details will be pivotal to your success in meeting and exceeding your hiring goals.
Meet with your hiring managers to determine not only the qualifications, but also selling points beyond typical compensation and benefits. Look for insight into top performers (what constitutes a top performer, what do skills/qualities to they have in common, what are their backgrounds, etc.).
Click the “Additional Questions” button for key questions to ask to help build expectations of the position.
Gaining insight into the culture of the department can be extremely valuable to understand and can share with the candidate relevant details about the work environment. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this is to spend 1-2 days on site with the high volume departments for which you recruit. Understand their culture for yourself, so you can share it with potential candidates.
Interview current employees and get a wide array of experiences.
Interview New Employees and ask why did they want to work for your company?
Ask Tenured employees why they have stayed?
Reach out to Top Performers , and get an understanding of their background (education, work experience, motivations, volunteer) are all helpful to determine what defines them.
Having a deep understanding of your top performers in each department you are recruiting, will ensure your advertising strategy attracts these high potential candidates to apply. For any high volume recruitment effort to be successful and cost effective you must be able to attract potential candidates to apply. Here are 3 key areas that are necessary to ensure you attract the best talent.
Once you have this level of detail, you’ll use it initially to attract candidates with your job advertisement (yes, job ad not description!). Keep this information ready though, because you will be using it throughout the hiring process. Candidates will likely read the bolded type, the first sentence of the description, and the first 3-4 bullets in the requirements section. Keep this in mind as you write your job ad.
Bold: Company Name, Job Title, Location, Hours, Compensation (if possible)
First sentence: Use your post attractive selling points– culture, growth, fun,! Then add no more than 3-4 additional sentences about the job if you want to keep them reading. Share the basic details, but save the in depth details for your phone interview once the candidate has already been pre qualified.
Qualifications: use your bullets as knock outs in order of importance – relevant experience, years of experience, driver’s license, Drug Test and/or Background Check, etc.
To develop an effective Posting Strategy, post on your own website first and foremost, potential candidates interested in working for your company should be able to easily locate the position on your website and understand the application process. Use details from your top performers: where did they see the job posted, what resources did they use in their job search: utilize these sites.
Post on high volume generating sites like Monster. Review metrics on job ad performance to determine what high volume site generates the most traffic for your individual postings. You’ll likely be able to track this at a high level from your ATS.
Utilize Social Media. Create a fun post to attract new talent and let your followers and clients know that you are growing.
Post on local sites that may have qualified and interested candidates: unemployment offices, local schools, chamber of commerce.
Consider posting physical job ads in your town hall, and recreation centers.
Be creative. To illustrate the return on new ideas, here is an example. I worked with a client hiring in a very rural town where many residents didn’t have access to a computer. I identified a local resident who sold flowers door to door and partnered with her to hand out job descriptions. We were able to generate a 50% increase in applicants by getting physical job ads out in the community.
Often if candidates are not applying to your job, it is because they can’t find the link to apply, have technical issues, or your application is just too long.
Apply to your own job on a few different sites and using different web browsers to determine any potential hiccups in the process.
You may need to escalate issues to your IT department or ATS implementation team to improve the overall apply process.
Test your knowledge of the key points discussed with this question
After posting your job it can be beneficial to source additional candidates to ensure that you have enough overall and that the most qualified candidates have been reached. There are 4 key initiatives that you should be putting in place to identify the best candidates for the position. Click on each of the initiatives listed to understand next steps.
Once you have been able to collect resumes and social media profiles review alongside your hiring managers’ information regarding shared competencies and backgrounds for high performers.
Education
Prior Work Experience
Goal Achievement
Team Player
With a high volume of candidates it may seem easier to send an e-blast (and in some cases this can be effective), but it is still most effective to call potential candidates.
If it seems like someone is already employed, call early or late in the day to increase your chance of reaching them at a convenient time.
Texting can also be beneficial for high volume hiring if you have the technology available, but note, texting like e-mail can have higher drop off rates than connecting via phone for high volume hiring.
Once you have a candidate on the phone use your hiring managers and current employees’ input to sell the job.
Use your own experiences as selling points for the company and overall culture. Always ask early in the conversation what the candidate is looking for in a new role and tailor your pitch to those specific points.
Test your knowledge of the key points discussed with this question
Filling high volume roles always offers unique challenges, but with the right plan and follow through you can speed up the hiring process while feeling confident you are bringing the right talent onboard. Click on each of the actions and match them to their hiring initiative. Click submit when complete.
This concludes the lesson, I hope you have found the information valuable. If you have any additional questions, please contact me.
