Has your business just secured a big new account? Perhaps your organisation has an eye on global expansion. In either case, it’s almost certain that you’ll have to supersize your workforce. Welcome to the world of high volume hiring.
Otherwise known as mass recruitment, high volume hiring can prove a minefield for smaller companies unprepared for the task at hand. When hiring at scale, the usual recruitment techniques can’t always be depended on. Fail to adapt your hiring processes and you’ll struggle to fill vacancies on time, if at all.
Fortunately, retooling your recruitment strategy to meet the needs of high volume hiring is possible. By rethinking some key steps in the process and utilising the right tools, it’s easy to scale your talent acquisition efforts.
What is high volume hiring?
The high volume recruitment process involves finding suitable candidates to fill many open roles at once, often to a tight deadline. It’s a common occurrence in the retail sector, with seasonality forcing many companies to bolster their ranks with short-term recruits. Elsewhere, high volume hiring tends to come into force when an organisation expands its operation. Whether you’re planning on opening a new branch or thinking about penetrating an international market, you’ll need to scale your team accordingly.
A small business may only need to recruit a handful of candidates at once. However, enterprise-level organisations can face the prospect of finding hundreds, if not more, suitable candidates within a tight timeframe. Handling such a huge number of applications requires a different tack than conventional recruitment.
Job advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and onboarding all take time. If you’re already struggling with a lengthy time to hire, mass recruitment doesn’t make life any easier. Fortunately, you can remove some of the burden from hiring managers by hammering out an effective high volume hiring strategy. However, you’ll need to rethink your hiring processes and ensure you have the right tools at your disposal. For that, you’ll need to identify the unique hurdles presented by high volume hiring.
What are the main challenges posed by the high volume hiring process?
Finding a qualified candidate for a key position is difficult at the best of times. When time isn’t on your side, sourcing suitable candidates for many vacancies can seem like an impossible task. Along with the usual pain points, mass recruitment brings a fresh batch of obstacles that your hiring teams will need to overcome.
Time is of the essence
Recruiting for a single role can be time-consuming enough. Advertisements need to be posted to job boards or social media channels (read more on social media recruitment), applications need to be screened, and suitable candidates need to be shortlisted. When that’s all done, the real recruitment work begins.
Scheduling interviews with countless candidates can prove overwhelming, with late arrivals and no-shows all but a guarantee. This can be infuriating when you’re operating to a fixed timeframe. Once you’ve honed in on the right candidates and they’ve accepted the position, there’s still onboarding to consider. A shortfall at any point in the process is a surefire way to overshoot your hiring deadlines.
Too many applications to handle
Advertise for a single role and you’ll find yourself dealing with a large number of potential candidates. With high volume hiring, the number of incoming applications can prove overwhelming for unprepared recruitment teams. If you’re relying solely on manual processes, simply sifting through all those incoming CVs can be too much to handle. This can lead to many candidates slipping through the cracks, while others aren’t going to be getting a fair shot once the interview stage and selection process begins.
Unfamiliarity with role requirements
Generally speaking, in-house recruitment teams tend to have a good grasp of what a role entails. However, the demands of high volume hiring can complicate things. There may not be time to check whether job descriptions need updating. Likewise, there’s little opportunity to liaise with hiring managers and discuss the remit of newly-created roles. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t produce the greatest crop of potential candidates.
Candidates are mismatched with roles
During the application process, recruiters should pay close attention to candidate experience to ensure they’re a good match for a role. Sometimes, however, applicants may boast a varied skill set that makes them suitable for one of any number of positions. This may seem like an advantage for companies engaged with high volume hiring, but this is rarely the case. Weighing candidate experience against job requirements is a time-intensive process, even if the right call is made in the end.
Effective high volume recruiting strategies you should utilise
While the many obstacles can make mass recruitment seem insurmountable, there are many techniques you can use to lighten the load. Unfamiliar with high volume hiring best practices? Below are just a few of the ways you can make the process as stress-free as possible.
Define what you’re looking for
If you want to secure the best candidates en masse, you need to start with the basics. Make sure your recruitment teams are connecting with hiring managers to determine what skills and experience would-be employees need to possess. Once this is taken care of, you can start thinking about how you’ll actually evaluate the most desirable candidates.
Will one face-to-face interview be sufficient, or will you be using a collaborative hiring model instead? If so, who’ll be involved in the interview process? If pre-hire assessments are going to be used, decide who’ll be in charge of evaluating these. All of this brings much-needed structure to the high volume hiring process, saving you wasted time and resources in the long run.
Create a candidate-friendly application process
Even though the clock might be ticking, you should still invest in an application process that’s designed with the candidate in mind. Not sure where to begin? Start with job descriptions themselves. Is this content up-to-date and reflective of job responsibilities? Be as thorough as you can here. The more vague a job description is, the more questions you’ll have to field from shortlisted candidates. Additionally, focus on designing attractive job ad landing pages as they serve as the initial touchpoint with your candidates. They can significantly influence whether a good candidate decides to apply or not.
High-quality content like this can help minimise fall-offs during the hiring process and ultimately reduce turnover rates. It can also help instil your core values, giving jobseekers a solid understanding of your company culture.
In order to meet high volume hiring objectives, you’ll need to be using multiple engagement channels. This means posting vacancies on traditional job boards, social media platforms, career pages, and more. While you’ll be casting the net wide, you’ll need to consider accessibility. A would-be candidate might be reading a job posting on their smartphone, rather than a desktop computer. As such, the application process should be mobile-friendly (read more on how you can easily create mobile friendly job ad landing pages).
Automate everyday tasks to streamline recruitment
Saddle your hiring teams with too many manual tasks and you can say goodbye to honouring those recruitment deadlines. If you’re not using a recruitment automation software, now’s the time. Artificial intelligence can be used to automate tasks at every point of the recruitment process.
You can use it to source applicants, match candidate experience against role requirements, schedule interviews, and more. Now that you’re hiring teams aren’t tied down with mundane tasks, they’re available to handle those more involved recruitment tasks that call for the human touch.
High volume hiring tools
Looking to make light work of mass recruitment? With the right tools in your arsenal, anything is possible. An applicant tracking system is typically loaded with handy features to expedite the recruitment process, although some are more useful than others. Below are the high volume hiring tools that will save you time and money, while helping secure you a richer pick of candidates.
Job board integration
If you want to succeed at high volume hiring, you can’t rely on only a handful of recruitment channels. Job board integration is essential if you want to extend your reach and engage as many candidates as possible. Great recruitment software should offer integration with multiple job boards as standard. If you regularly recruit via more specialist channels, make sure you’re choosing a solution that supports custom integrations.
Email automation
Even if you’re recruiting en masse, it’s important to maintain the personal touch when communicating with candidates. Email automation tools are an effective way for recruiters to engage with applicants and can be used at every step of the recruitment process. As well as saving your hiring teams precious time, email automation maintains consistent communication at all times.
The best tools provide scope for personalisation, ensuring candidates receive information that’s relevant and valuable. All of this enriches candidate experience. Unsuccessful applicants are more likely to engage with your business in the future if they’ve felt valued during the process. Meanwhile, the positive relationships you’ve nurtured with successful candidates will continue on into their employment.
Asynchronous interviews
Because of the time demands of high volume hiring, traditional interviews aren’t always an option. Don’t have the time for face-to-face interviews with every candidate? Asynchronous video interviews are the way forward. This innovative alternative to traditional interviews involves guiding applicants through a series of interview questions, with their answers being recorded for later evaluation.
Provided you’re using a reliable provider, asynchronous video interviews can dramatically reduce your mass recruitment burden. Although you’ll probably want to arrange a real-time meeting at a later point, they’re a scalable solution for companies looking to expand.
Automatic scheduling
Asynchronous interviews might remove some of the strain of mass recruitment, but you’ll need to schedule them first. Constant back-and-forths via email waste everyone’s time and don’t exactly help with candidate experience. When you use an interview scheduler, your hiring teams have one less admin task to worry about.
How does talent acquisition software help with high volume hiring?
Is the mere mention of high volume hiring sending your recruitment team into a spin? It’s time to discover the benefits of high volume hiring software. With talent acquisition software like Teamdash, you have everything you need to rise to the challenge of mass recruitment.
Think you’ve seen everything that an applicant tracking system can do? Think again. While you get all the core functionality of a standard ATS, Teamdash takes things to the next level. You can automate all manner of tasks every step of the way. Create quality content to enhance candidate experience, unlock the potential of asynchronous videos, and save time with automatic scheduling.
A valuable tool for everyday recruitment drives and a necessity for high volume hiring campaigns, Teamdash lets you streamline just about every process, extend your reach and enhance your brand image.
Ready to see for yourself how Teamdash can help you overcome the challenges of high volume hiring? Why not book a demo today?
