How to Ace Candidate Screening When Dealing With High Volumes of Applications
The pandemic has shifted the recruiting narrative from a war for talent to a war for jobs. On one side, companies have struggled to survive, and large numbers of employees have been let go. On the other side, the pandemic era has also brought forth new opportunities, and a huge number of active candidates are vying for them. For recruiters, this all translates to higher volumes of applications on their radars.
Wading through a sea of applications and identifying the best of the lot is never a simple job. With the candidate screening tools and strategies, however, it can be swift and seamless.
Let’s look at five simple but effective ways to handle high-volume applications.
1. Draft Great Job Descriptions
A clear job description enables candidates to figure out whether they are eligible to apply for the job — and whether this is a job they would like to apply for at all. A good job description becomes your first round of screening. That’s why it should meet these basic qualifications:
• Accurately indicate the nature of the job
• Be relatively self-explanatory
• Define the role and responsibilities without ambiguity
• Have a straightforward, recognizable title for the position (in case applicants want to compare it to similar jobs)
• Direct applicants to the next steps of the application process
Freshteam has a rich repository of well-written job descriptions that you can simply use as is.
2. Preemployment Tests
For some roles, like engineering or tech, you may recruit for multiple positions at once. In such cases, preemployment tests help you screen large numbers of candidates efficiently. Pre-assessment tests like HackerEarth, HackerRank, and Codility are great ways to evaluate candidates’ problem-solving or coding abilities. Assessments can also eliminate bias from the process and enable stakeholders to remain objective in their evaluations of candidates. Assessments can save time and enable you to quickly find candidates who are worth advancing to the interview stage.
3. Custom Application Forms
Cut the chase and get to what really matters with custom application forms. Resumes are important, but they may not be the best way to screen candidates in some situations. For example, let’s say you want to select candidates who have working visas in your country. You can ask candidates to fill out a basic application form requesting key details, and then you can filter applications based on those details.
Custom application forms are incredibly useful when you want to collect information that may not be available on resumes, like willingness to relocate, visa information, and so.
4. Showcase Your Culture Through a Career Site
A candidate screening software like Freshteam allows you to set up an appealing career site in minutes. This is a place to share your company’s story and values and what it’s like to work with you. You can channel candidates from job boards and job ads to your career site so they learn about your culture and choose for themselves whether they’d be a good fit.
5. We Saved the Best for the Last: Automated Screening
You can set up screening automation to advance or reject candidates based on location, experience, visa status, and more. Automated screening can cut your time to hire by at least 50 percent. You can use automation to cut down on chores like sending rejection emails, following up on assignments, nudging candidates to take tests, advancing candidates to the next stage, and more. Automation would be a fantastic addition to your recruiting toolkit.
Wrapping Up
When high volumes of applications roll in, it’s easy to simply look through half the pile and settle for the first candidate that fits. That, however, wouldn’t do justice to the company or the applicants. With a tool like Freshteam, you’ll be able to streamline candidate screening and improve the experience for everyone involved, even when high volumes of applications are flooding in.
“Ultius has extremely high-quality standards (in terms of hiring writers), so the required volume of talent sourcing is high. Our hiring funnel processes thousands of applications just to hire a few contractors. We used SmartRecruiters, Indeed, Monster, and manual spreadsheets. It was a complicated system. We also used an organized folder system within our email. Though the process worked, it was clunky and time-consuming. With Freshteam, we were able to review 40 percent more candidates.” — Melissa, Ultius
Freshteam is simple and smart HR software with very efficient candidate screening capabilities. It empowers recruiters to up their sourcing games with resume-parsing abilities, customizable application forms, a career site that blends with your brand, smart candidate profiles, and automation that makes screening 100 times easier.
If you are interested in trialing Freshteam, sign up here.
This article by Freshteam is built on the original article that first appeared on the Freshteam blog.
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