5 Tips for Improving and Streamlining Your Hiring Process

Developing an efficient and streamlined hiring process is the key to success for a small- to medium-sized business. It’s vital for businesses to be quick with their recruitments and ready to act fast to increase the chances that the candidates they want accept their offers. Why? Because the best candidates are out of the job market and in a job within 10 days. With the Great Resignation ensuing, that timeline may be even shorter.

Furthermore, candidates prefer a hiring process that’s efficient, collaborative, and positive, and improving and streamlining your hiring process can help you “seal the deal” with top-quality candidates. Providing a positive employee experience will help you retain talent, and it will help your company grow as 88% of candidates will recommend others to apply to work at the company, as well.

The following five tips will help you make sure your hiring process is smooth and efficient for all involved. 

1. Promote Your Employer Brand

A strong employer brand can attract passive candidates, and they make up over 75% of professionals. When compared to active job seekers, passive candidates are often more desirable to employers.  

While your employer brand may not have been something you thought about previously, promoting it is not that difficult. Make certain to include information about your company culture, values, and mission in all recruitment marketing, including print, online, and social media. In addition, respond professionally to online reviews (both positive and negative) about what it is like working for your company. Demonstrating your interest in this aspect of the company reassures candidates and shows them that you care for your employees’ well-being. 

2. Optimize Job Descriptions

A job description may be the first thing a candidate sees when learning about your company. Not only that, but a good job description will gain higher “shareability” through social media. More than anything, stick to standard job titles and keep the description clear and concise. You don’t want to clutter it with cliches and buzzwords. There are many other techniques out there for improving your descriptions - take the time to study and follow the advice given by hiring experts. 

3. Automate Your Resume Screening

Many of the stages in the hiring process take more time than necessary, especially considering that 46% of HR professionals don’t count resumes as an important piece of landing a job. You want to spend less time on this phase and instead focus on reaching out to candidates and interviewing them. 

Automated resume screening can be an important step in making the process fast and efficient. Utilize tools that filter out unsuitable candidates before you waste time reading and responding to every resume. This improves your hiring process by drastically reducing the time to hire without sacrificing quality of hire. 

4. Improve Your Interviews

The job interview is a great time for a candidate to learn more about you as an employer and for you to decide if the candidate is a good fit for your current job opening. Enter this process with an open mind and focus on the candidate, not yourself. You want to give this individual a chance to show you what they have to offer.  

Read up on current interview tips and techniques to make sure you’re getting the most from this important step. Asking proper questions helps you learn the most about your candidates and develop the best impression of their background and qualifications. Focus your questions around learning about their personality and soft skills. You can train an employee to have the skills for their job, but you cannot train them to have integrity and a strong work ethic.

5. Personalize the Process

While hiring is typically a standard, repeatable process, it’s important to leave room for personalization. Developing a process to send automated receive responses when candidates submit an application, then following up with personalized emails engages candidates and future employees, helping them feel personally heard and helping you stand out in what’s typically considered a cold process. By making the hiring process more personal, you can impress the candidate and help to create a positive perception of your company, which can make them a more dedicated, higher-quality candidate.  

An efficient, streamlined hiring process is one of the most important things you can offer your potential employees. Use the above tips to improve your current process to retain - and hire - more quality candidates. If you need help getting started, learn more about PRemployer and how we can help improve your overall HR strategy and functions.