How to Be a Good Recruiter With Automation Tools
Recruiting new employees has never been more challenging than it is today. Unemployment rates are low, worker turnover is high, and wages are increasing every day. A shortage of employees with specific, in-demand skills is forcing companies to compete for new hires. And on top of that, hiring teams are struggling to reach a broad pool of potential applicants in an increasingly fragmented digital world.
With all these conflicting pressures — and the rising costs of recruitment marketing — being a good recruiter is vital. But what does that look like?
What Makes a Good Recruiter?
There is no single solution to the challenges recruitment teams face today. But these best practices can streamline your hiring process and help ensure you’re reaching the right candidates.
1. Don’t Rush
Anything worth doing is worth doing right. Speeding through the recruitment and hiring process without carefully evaluating applications or assessing candidates’ abilities may fill the gaps in your workforce quickly — but it won’t fill them for long. Allocating ample time to the hiring process helps ensure you identify qualified candidates who are more likely to succeed in their roles long-term.
2. Build a Healthy Workplace Culture
Low unemployment rates mean job seekers have more freedom to be selective about where they work. The hiring process is as much about candidates evaluating you as it is about you assessing them. Be sure to establish your organisation’s brand, culture, and core values before launching a recruitment push. Diversity is increasingly important to applicants, as is the ability to see themself succeeding in the role they’re applying for.
3. Create an Applicant-Centric Experience
Candidates that wait too long to hear from you or find your recruitment process unduly burdensome are likely to abandon their applications. Make sure your hiring strategy is efficient and transparent to provide potential new hires with a positive experience. Maintain a list of qualified applicants that you don’t hire, and reach out to them with future opportunities.
4. Leverage Data and Automation
Almost everything we do today generates data in some form — and that data can hold the key to streamlining your recruitment process. Measure the efficacy of your efforts by tracking time to hire, application completion rate, cost per applicant, and first-year attrition. Use tools to automate tasks like job posting, applicant screening, mass communications, and tracking metrics.
Automating Tasks With Recruitment Tools
While most of the best practices we’ve talked about can be implemented with little or no upfront investment, embracing automation comes with a price tag that can be off-putting. So is automating some (or all) of your hiring process really worth the investment?
The Benefits of Automation in Hiring
Artificial intelligence and other technological tools offer some distinct advantages over an entirely human hiring process:
- Increase your pool of qualified applicants
Automated posting distribution tools maximise the visibility of your opening and can monitor views and applications in real-time to optimise as needed.
- Reduce your cost per applicant
Increased diversity in posting broadens your audience to improve posting performance, while pay-per-applicant fee models mean you don’t pay for clicks that don’t result in an application.
- Improve transparency into your processes
Automated tracking tools provide real-time insights into how your postings are performing and let you share that information with the rest of your team.
Calculating Your ROI
The effects of external factors like market trends and seasonality can make it challenging to measure the ROI of your recruitment efforts. To accurately assess the success of your hiring strategy (automated or not), use these four metrics:
- Cost per click — your total recruitment marketing spend divided by the number of clicks your posting receives
- Cost per applicant — your total spend divided by the number of complete applications you receive
- Apply rate — the total number of complete applications received divided by the total number of clicks on your posting
- Applicant to hire rate — the number of applications you review for each successful hire
Establishing these baseline metrics allows you to measure whether changes to your strategy — for example, automating certain stages of the recruitment process — result in improvements. Remember that there are many costs associated with recruitment beyond the price of posting a job. When evaluating the value of an automated platform, be sure to consider the total cost of:
- Creating a job posting
- Engaging recruiters
- Reviewing or pre-screening applicants
- Conducting background checks or skills assessments
- Interviewing candidates
Choosing the Right Recruitment Tools
Not all automated recruitment tools deliver the same value or meet the same needs. Be sure any technology you consider will help you achieve your hiring strategy goals, whatever they may be. Ask yourself these questions when evaluating tools for your organisation:
- Is it designed to maximise clicks or deliver results?
More eyes on your posting are great, but not if they don’t translate into more qualified applicants.
- Will it help you optimise ad spend across a variety of channels?
Reaching a broad audience is great, but you don’t want to spend on channels that aren’t delivering results.
- Can you self-manage your campaigns?
How easy (or difficult) is the technology to use? Will you actually gain all the benefits the technology is capable of providing?
- What level of support is available to help you leverage the technology?
New tools should ease your workload, not add to it. Be sure you’ll have the onboarding and support you need to benefit from the technology.
Hirematic’s automated job advertising platform is the first choice for recruiting teams at companies like Uber and Amazon. Our smart platform lets you maximise the visibility of your posting across a vast network of channels and monitor traffic and applications to optimise your spend — or leave it all to our team of experts. Have questions about automation in recruitment? We’ve got answers. Contact our team today.
