4 Automation Hacks to Streamline Your Hiring Process
Increase applicant flow, reduce candidate drop-off, and save your hiring managers time with automation.
Hiring managers are dizzy keeping up with labor shortages and an increase in job openings. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that we have about three million fewer Americans participating in the labor force today as compared to February of 2020. Meanwhile, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates that roles in leisure and hospitality will grow tremendously in the next decade, with job openings for restaurant cook jobs alone projected to increase by 36.6%.
All of this recruiting, hiring, training, paperwork, and a laundry list of other day-to-day tasks means that location-based hiring managers’ heads are spinning these days. With shortages on the floor, it can be tough to keep a business running smoothly, much less respond to candidates within 24 hours or thoroughly evaluate candidates to determine who might be a good fit for the position.
Why Automate the Hiring Process?
Hiring managers know that applicants require attention, consistency, and fast responses to move forward with their applications. This means that hiring managers need to be on their A-game for every applicant at each point in the applicant lifecycle, or they risk losing out on great applicants to competitors. Automation supercharges hiring managers so that they can nurture their applicants through the process without getting overwhelmed or lost in the details.
A streamlined talent management platform is often the best way to go because it will enable hiring managers to eliminate or reduce the time required for things like completing applications, scheduling interviews, answering applicants’ questions, and assessing their qualifications. Being able to send a quick text message or rapidly schedule an interview not only increases the likelihood of a positive interview experience and the potential for hire, but also helps prevent interview ghosting.
Hiring managers need to be empowered with fast and efficient ways to engage interested job candidates, schedule interviews, quickly decide whether or not to hire them, and then get them all set for their first day without any snags. Automating these four functions can be a game-changer when recruiting and hiring hourly workers.
Increase applicant flow with text recruiting
Today’s candidates — mostly Millennials and Gen Zers — live on their phones. They hate taking phone calls, and sometimes email isn’t even fast enough. It’s been shown that 88% of the hourly workforce prefers texting, and while 98% of texts are read, only 20% of emails get opened. This doesn’t just apply to how you communicate with candidates; it’s how you enable them to apply as well. When an applicant has the option to use a feature like Text-to-Apply, they receive information and links to branded pages specific to their location and fit.
Quickly find the right applicants with a conversational AI chatbot
A conversational AI chatbot creates an engaging and easy way for applicants to fill out an application and engage with your brand — without requiring hiring managers to be involved until the interview is scheduled.
Structured conversations can help candidates complete applications, assess their qualifications, and schedule interviews within minutes — not hours or days. Automating the application process can decrease applicant drop-off rates to as low as 12% and reduce time-to-apply by 84%.
Reduce interview ghosts with automatic scheduling
With the right solution, recruiters, HR, and hiring managers simply sync their calendars to their talent management platform, select time slots for interview availability, and enable automated scheduling for their chosen positions. Hiring managers select a default interview scheduling link and a default qualification rule to apply to incoming applications, and if the candidate matches the set qualifications, they will be automatically extended an invitation to schedule an interview based on the manager’s availability.
With schedule automation, HR and hiring managers can configure automated notifications to remind managers and applicants of upcoming interviews and make rescheduling for both parties simple — greatly reducing no-shows.
Cut down on manual data entry — and errors — with employee sync
Once you find your next employee, ensure that new hire data is synced across all of your business-critical systems, such as payroll, workforce management, etc. This eliminates additional and repetitive work for hiring managers and decreases the chance of a manual entry error. Studies have shown that every single data entry performed without the use of HR technology costs a company $4.51. This adds up when dealing with large applicant pools, lots of personal information, and required questions and fields.
With automation and integrations that ensure background checks are run and received, no duplicate entries are made, and compliance is maintained throughout the onboarding process, it saves hiring managers, HR professionals, and franchisees time and money.
