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Dealing with a sudden influx in applications is one of the major concerns in the recruitment industry right now as we have a very busy market again with application rates 106% higher than they were this time last year.
In June we saw a rise of 32% and July 38%, something which is set to only increase as time goes on.
Many candidates are now actively looking for positions irrespective of their experience and qualifications.
And although it is a great time for companies with plenty of talent to choose from, what proves difficult is managing them.
At Career Kinetics, this is something we offer our clients in terms of our solutions.
Dependant on the client’s needs, we can pick up all or parts of the process that need more time and attention, but where constraints and a lack of resources prove difficult.
Using our advanced technologies, EVERY candidate application is professionally and personally acknowledged immediately on submission.
Applications are sorted, ranked, and filtered, leaving you with a shortlist of interviewees. CVs are read, contents uploaded and in your database at a rate of over 3,000 CVs per hour. Volume is no longer a problem, and the ideal candidate is secured every time.
One of our most recent clients advertised a vacancy with us that they urgently needed to fill having been unsuccessful with recruitment agencies.
When we advertised the role, it received over 300 applicants in the first week, which is understandable in light of the current situation, but our client didn’t have the resources to manage this inhouse.
So, our team were instructed to help.
Each application was then filtered and screened, meaning our communication suite emailed every candidate with the outcome.
A shortlist of 25 candidates were then presented to the client, of which six went to the interview stage.
The end result was two out of the six were a perfect fit, so the client hired both! One happy client and two happy candidates!
So, despite the high volume of applications, it just shows with the right technology and resources, your recruitment can be successfully managed with candidate experience intact.
So, on the back of this, we thought it would be useful to put together a few pointers in a blog post.
As we said earlier, as part of our solutions communicating with candidates is something, we can take full control of, with an ATS making this process much easier to maintain. But what we would advise for businesses doing it themselves is, to be honest with candidates. An influx in applications with a lack of resources to manage them can be damaging to the candidate experience. If processing your applications are taking longer than usual, tell them, if someone did not make it through the first stage, but you know you are going to be hiring again next quarter inform them. Be as open and transparent as possible. Do not risk the long-term damage to your employment brand.
Make use of communication tools which can help you to better liaise with a high volume of candidates. Make use of bulk messaging systems, calendar organisers such as Calendly, interview scheduling tools, SMS messaging, community groups, the list goes on. For example, one of our clients received 356 applications for a role and asked us to filter, screen and telephone qualify each shortlisted candidate. We produced a list of 32 qualified and skilled candidates resulting in 8 follow-up interviews. Again, all candidates were communicated with using our automated email communication and SMS functionality. These tools can help you to not only manage and organise the high volume of applicants but ensure you keep candidates engaged and relationships nurtured.
A cloud ATS can also be extremely valuable for data management. The platform is secure, GDPR Compliant, and multi-functional. This is the best time to not only organise talent into pools for the present but to build a resource to be used in the future. We suggest categorising them, primarily based on their location, skillset, and the success of their previous application.
Re-evaluate your recruitment methods. The market is very different now, so the processes that worked before, are no longer sufficiently optimised to return the best results. This is something we can review for you. First of all, look at your application process. Is it unnecessarily long? Does it effectively help in shortlisting candidates? Pre-screening questions are particularly useful to utilise right now to see if candidates are suitable before any time is committed. And of course, video interviews have also proved useful, to both be virtual and to save time and money either in a live or pre-recorded format.
Utilising your stakeholder channels is a great way to manage candidates, especially when your ATS allows you to liaise and collaborate with them from within the system. Decisions can be made quicker, and tasks tracked and completed efficiently, with everyone involved continuously informed of the progress, knowing exactly when they need to do their part. When evaluating your processes, consider if could make use of your hiring manages by involving them in further parts of the recruitment process like shortlisting where it would prove useful in managing the influx and reducing your time to hire.
Outsourcing you recruitment can be the final choice when there is no other way of managing the influx yourself, but, often this can become expensive through agencies, and it doesn’t always provide you with the level of control you require. That is why our solutions are based on a flat fee that helps you when and where you need it. There are no recruitment or placement fees. You get access to all of the data within your own management suite and can make as many hires as you want as you own the data!
If you would like further advice on how to manage a flood of applicants, get in touch, we’d be happy to share our expertise.
Or download our new brochure, for further details specifically on how our solutions can help with your influx of applications.
