Multiple automation tools often alleviate the complexity of recruitment. If you are streamlining the process with these instruments, you could be shutting out the human element. Adding a personal touch is one of the most critical factors contributing to successful recruitment and retention because it demonstrates to candidates that your company is a caring enterprise. Without customizing the experience, you could quickly lose out on top talent going to the competition.
Let's look closer at improving the recruitment experience by leveraging personalization.
The Benefit of Making a Human Recruitment Process
Recruitment is about connecting with a suitable candidate to ensure smooth and continuous cooperation. Since you want real human people to join your team, adding personal correspondence helps your company earn more trust. Automation tools are beneficial to streamline this process and manage more tedious steps, but refrain from relying solely on AI to complete your HR tasks. Automation is a complementary instrument, not a replacement for the human approach.
Entirely automated interactions during the recruitment process can make it feel detached and impersonal, which can easily intimidate candidates and worry them about the quality of further interactions with the company. At the latest stages of recruitment, such as interviews, relying solely on automation could push the candidate away. To streamline the process, you need to complement your automated processes with the human element, which reminds your staff to send follow-ups or keep track of candidates to know who is the most qualified.
How to Add Human Touches to Recruitment
While optimizing the recruitment process with automation, your HR team can streamline it by adding these human touches:
Personalize Candidate Communication
When dealing with 300+ candidates, personalizing each message could take weeks. That's why there isn't anything wrong with relying on automated communications. However, when it comes to preferred candidates, automation must be complemented by personal details. You can send automatic "thank you for applying, but we won't move forward with your application" messages to everyone you decline, using an automated system to personally address messages to each candidate. However, your top candidates should get a personalized email or call with some additional explanation for why they weren't selected.
Worthy candidates you eventually reject also deserve a human message that features a reason for rejection, explaining how difficult it was to decide. You may find yourself in a situation where you may want to hire them for another position in the future, in which case telling them of those intentions helps reassure them.
Make Your Recruitment Process Transparent
HR teams often make the mistake of not telling the candidate what to expect from the recruitment process, leading to significant frustration. When the candidate finds out that after passing two interviews, they have another two to complete, they might give up or move on to another offer. That wastes their time, your time, and costs resources from your business.
Communicating all the stages of the recruitment process to the candidate early in the process, or sending period updates to touch base or when you have information shows you remember and care about them as a candidate. This way, they can be ready for what's coming while feeling that their time is appreciated.
Incorporate Human Interaction Wherever Possible
Automated emails can be great for guiding the candidate through the recruitment process. However, they shouldn't be the only way you keep in touch. Whenever you have time, you could replace an email with a phone call or take the time to add some details to the automated message so it's clear that you put some thought into it.
Once you get to the latest stages of recruitment, you could stop automated emails or switch to phone calls or texting entirely. That can help build a connection with the candidate and reassure them as they get closer to deciding whether to sign onto working for you.
The more you demonstrate your willingness to communicate, the more likely your recruitment strategy will encourage retention too. Candidates will start with a better impression of your company and feel more inclined to work there for a longer time.
Create Relaxed Environments
The recruitment process can be stressful for candidates. Starting from introductory calls and going into several rounds of interviews, candidates' stress can snowball into a highly unpleasant experience as they wait for information in between bouts of worry.
It's up to the HR team to make the process more comfortable for the potential employee. During each interaction, consider:
- Avoiding tough questions at the beginning of the interview
- Tailoring questions to the candidate's experience
- Reassuring candidates throughout the process
- Keeping the tone informal so they feel less pressure
You should also pay attention to your body language. Being friendly and smiling is vital to building much-needed rapport with candidates, helping them feel relaxed and reassured while responding.
Respect Candidates' Time
Even if hundreds of people compete for a position, it doesn't mean their time isn't valuable. Arriving to the interview on time and communicating with the candidate when promised demonstrates you respect them and their time.
When potential employees see this type of respect and recognition of their needs, they form an opinion about the benefits of working for your company. Showing throughout the hiring process that you respect candidates – who don't yet work at your company – lets them see how much respect you show to your employees. Candidates will feel better deciding to work for a company that treats them well compared to one that doesn't.
Personalize Your Recruitment Strategy with a PEO
While a successful recruitment strategy demands a human touch, many HR teams don't have the time and resources to provide it. They're too busy balancing other critical business needs, like processing payroll or administering benefits. That's where a professional employer organization (PEO) comes in. They are comprised of entire teams of HR professionals with the training and experience to manage the mundane but crucial tasks of running your business. They can also help guide and streamline your recruitment process to have a pleasant experience – inside and outside your company.
