How to Streamline Your Recruiting Workflow

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PhoneRecruiting can make or break your company’s success. Finding the right employees means the difference between expansion and extinction, so it’s crucial to follow  a consistent hiring process. Not only does a repeatable workflow allow you to better identify  ideal hires, but it also keeps recruiting efficient, organized, and measurable.

Assess Your Current Process

To get where you want to go, you have to understand where you’re coming from. Take a hard, critical look at your current process (if one exists), and seek to identify every inefficiency that’s holding you back.

If you have trouble immediately pinpointing inefficiencies, work backwards. Ask yourself, “What hiring problems have we faced?”

Maybe you’re spending too much time emailing back and forth with candidates, or perhaps you’ve made a couple bad hires because you didn’t put in your due diligence. If you can identify the symptoms, then you can treat the cause. By determining which areas need the most improvement, you’ll be able to better identify where change needs to happen first.

If the way you work doesn’t even count as a “process,” try envisioning what you’d like your workflow to look like. What would be the optimal time-to-hire, and how many people would be involved in the process? What role would hiring managers play, and what expectations would be placed on them?

All of these factors can affect what your recruiting workflow looks like, so it’s important to consider them in advance.

Use the Right Tools

Recruiting is all about attracting and retaining the best talent possible. As teams scale and hiring needs expand, implementing the appropriate recruiting tools is vital for your continued success.

Effective recruiting does not happen via email or in a spreadsheet. Once you have an understanding of how your process can be improved, compare recruiting software to find tools that might aid you along the way. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) allow multiple hiring managers and recruiters access to one centralized and organized database of applicants.

WorkflowIf you already use an ATS, it’s still beneficial to consider whether or not it meets all of your current and future needs. If you’re frustrated with your recruiting technology, then it’s probably time to upgrade. When used properly, an ATS can dramatically improve your recruiting workflow.

Solidify a Workflow

Once you’ve identified your inefficiencies and selected an ATS that best fits your needs, it’s time to solidify a recruiting workflow. Lay your process out on paper first so you can get a visual of each step in action.

Every hiring team’s workflow is different, so keep the steps broad and flexible for your needs. Most workflows will probably include steps like resume review, phone interview, follow-up email, in-person interview, etc.

After you have a basic outline of your workflow, transfer it to a project management tool like LeanKit or Trello. These Kanban boards are a great way to visually keep your tasks in order, reprioritize when needed, and assign individuals to various tasks. Most allow you to set reminders and due dates as well, which helps keep the process moving toward the ultimate goal: selecting your ideal hire!

Track Your Progress

Now that you’ve determined the steps that work for you, it’s important to actually assess whether the changes you’ve implemented are providing measurable success. Compare your previous metrics with your current ones to find out if the new workflow is effective. Quantitative data like time-to-hire, turnover rates, and cost-per-hire are important, but it’s also crucial to consider factors like the overall candidate experience and your manager’s feedback on the improvements.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all recruiting workflow. However, by identifying the bottlenecks you face and simplifying your process into step-by-step actionable items, you’ll be able to create a consistent and streamlined approach to hiring. Recruiting is all about people. Leverging the right tools and systems makes you as efficient and thorough as possible, which gives way to dramatic business improvements.

By Shayleen Stuto