Recruitment is a time-intensive process that requires a lot of searching and scheduling. There’s the sifting through everything from resumes and online portfolios to social media accounts. Interviews are scheduled—often more than one per candidate—and then references must be checked. It’s probably not surprising that traditional hiring of a single employee can take 3-4 weeks, and it can take between 30 minutes and 2 hours just to schedule a single interview.
In today’s tighter, more competitive labour market, 4 weeks is a long time. With good candidates in short supply, you need your recruiting processes to be fast and agile. Speed and efficiency are critical to processing large volumes of candidate information and reaching good people before they’re gone.
The solution lies in hiring automation—tools and technology that give you faster access to more people, and speed up the process of recruiting them. Here are 5 important benefits that automation can deliver.
1. More operational flexibility
Unless you’re a temp agency, you are not in the business of hiring people—so staffing is not a core competency. Instead, it’s a task that pulls you away from running your company. It slows you down and makes you less efficient.
Using reliable tools and processes of a trusted recruiting partner can free up your operations so that your team is able to do their “real job”. Research has shown that companies can experience anywhere from a 10% to a 50% increase in productivity using recruiting technology
2. Greater market competitiveness
The speed and responsiveness of hiring automation enable you to scale your workforce up and down much more quickly to adapt to rapid market ups and downs. Flexible labour is one of the most effective ways to build agility into your business model.
3. More tech-savvy—and satisfied—candidates
If you’re like most employers today, you’re looking for people who are comfortable working with common digital tools, from online forms and publishing platforms to spreadsheet programs. These are the kinds of candidates who tend to use hiring automation to apply for jobs. Which means they’ll probably adapt faster and more productively to your digital processes — and could help drive them.
At the same time, by automating the hiring process, you make it easier and more convenient for people to apply. And by keeping them informed through fast, responsive communication, they’re not left wondering about their application status. The result is a better overall experience for them—and more forward-thinking positioning for your company.
4. A deeper talent pool
Hiring automation offers a level of connectivity and access to a talent pool that simply isn’t possible through traditional recruiting methods. Consider that we at Infinite Outsourcing are typically working with a pool of hundreds of candidates at any one time. Through our online application tool, candidates can typically submit an application in under 5 minutes. We are notified instantly of each applicant, and within minutes can be responding to them and setting up multiple interviews.
In this way, companies can cast a much wider net — which results in a much richer, more diverse, and typically more talented base of candidates. You are reaching people not only in your local area, but those who may be planning to move there, as well as those who offer more economical remote or offshore services.
5. Lower costs
By cutting the time and resources needed for recruiting, you improve efficiency and cut costs: Hiring automation has been shown to reduce total hiring time by almost a full work week (4.5 days), which translates to thousands of dollars in labour cost-savings.
Looking to automate or outsource your recruiting? Want to build a better talent pool? Let’s talk.