How Employers Can Optimize High-Volume Hiring Process

Ensuring your company’s talent pipeline meets the demand

When organizations hit milestones like rapid growth, expansion into new markets, or seasonal peaks, their normal hiring process can be disrupted. In times like these, high-volume hiring techniques are essential to ensure the company’s talent pipeline meets the demand. 

How to Optimize the High-volume Hiring Process

High-volume hiring is the process of hiring many employees in a short time and it can be challenging – especially when filling several different roles simultaneously. 

To successfully manage the high-volume hiring process, companies need to utilize automation tools while still providing a personalized and engaging candidate experience. Here are some strategies to help your company optimize the recruitment process as you delve into the world of high-volume hiring. 

Incorporate Company Culture in Job Descriptions

Job descriptions are often a candidate’s introduction to a new potential employer. They offer a valuable opportunity to showcase your company’s culture, mission, and values. Go a step further than simply including your company’s mission statement in job descriptions by using language that reflects your values through the text. 

Help potential employees envision themselves at your company by providing a glimpse into a typical workday. Give examples of how employees collaborate, various benefits, and how achievements are celebrated. Showcasing your company’s culture helps candidates self-select. Writing in a voice that reflects your company’s culture will also help your job descriptions stand out from similar positions offered by competitors. 

Use Automation to Your Advantage

When hiring at scale, there’s simply not enough time to follow the typical recruitment process of reviewing each applicant, conducting skill-screenings, and scheduling multiple interviews. Automating some steps of the recruitment process is the only way to feasibly fill large-scale vacancies.  

Tools like an applicant tracking system or talent management platform enable companies to automate tasks like compiling applications, screening applicants for key skills and competencies, collecting paperwork, and scheduling interviews. Automating these tasks enables your talent acquisition team to focus their efforts on the small pool of candidates that’s identified. 

Find The Right Tools

There are so many recruitment management tools on the market, evaluating various options can be time-consuming and challenging. Here are some criteria to consider when evaluating whether a tool is the right fit for your needs. 

● Sourcing and screening capabilities 
Knowing whether a candidate meets the minimum requirements for the role is a critical first step in the hiring process. Advanced technologies can aggregate information from a variety of sources, like different recruitment websites, to give you a more holistic view of candidates’ potential fit. 

● Candidate engagement functions 
Keeping track of a candidate’s engagement with your platform using metrics like open rates, click rates, and response time is a helpful way to monitor their interest.  

● System integrations 
It’s important to confirm the tools you choose can seamlessly connect with any software programs your company already has in place.

● Reporting metrics
The continued success of any talent acquisition team, especially with high-volume hiring, depends on data. Key metrics like time to fill, average number of candidates, and offer acceptance rates provide helpful insights into what’s going well and opportunities for improvement. 

● Customer service  
It doesn’t matter how many features a tool has if you get stumped. Ensure you will get the most out of whatever tools you implement by confirming they provide stellar customer support. 

Create a Personalized Candidate Experience

After getting the right automation tools in place, integrate personal touches in the process so candidates feel like your company is interested and invested in them personally. Creating an engaging, personalized experience, especially as candidates approach the final round, is essential to securing top talent. 

Providing a team member’s contact information so candidates can reach out with questions is a great way to incorporate a personal touch in automated messages. Providing flexible scheduling options for skill-screenings and video interviews can also go a long way towards establishing a positive relationship, even before they’ve had direct contact with someone in your organization. 

Analyze Data, Refine, and Repeat

Data collection is another significant benefit of automation tools. Reviewing factors like source of hire, time to hire, and conversion rate will help you understand what worked well and what could be improved.

Direct feedback from candidates is most valuable of all. With so many individuals in the pipeline, it is easy to not follow-up after rejecting candidates. Sending a message thanking people for their time and requesting feedback can lead to big returns. This feedback will help refine your company’s high-volume recruitment process moving forward. 

Requesting feedback also reflects well on your company. Rejected candidates may talk about their application experience with their peers and colleagues. Furthermore, their qualifications are in your system and may just pop up as a fit for the next vacancy. Start building a positive relationship with individuals now – your paths may cross again sooner than you think.

Trevor Bogan is the Regional Director of the Top Employers Institute in North America. With over 20 years in Talent Acquisition, he’s a proven leader in the space delivering world-class insight across industries such as banking, financial services, staffing, and recruiting.