It’s no secret that hiring is one of the most time-consuming and stressful parts of running a business. It involves sifting through countless resumes and conducting numerous person interviews to find the perfect hire. With the many moving parts involved, the entire hiring process can last up to a staggering 30 days or more.
To mitigate these challenges, companies can use various technologies and methods to expedite the recruiting process. In this article, you’ll learn three proven strategies that can help you reduce time to hire.
1. Create a Detailed Job Description
A detailed job description provides jobseekers a clear understanding of the position and its requirements. It allows hiring managers to attract ideal candidates for the position, reducing the number of irrelevant applications. Since they don’t have to sift through these irrelevant applications, time to hire is reduced.
So, ensure you clearly define the role and responsibilities of the position for prospective candidates. That includes outlining the specific daily tasks that the successful candidate will be responsible for.
Additionally, include any necessary qualifications, skills, or certifications required for the role. Determine the level of experience or seniority needed. Mention, for instance, whether you are seeking an entry-level worker or someone with at least 10 years of experience in the same role. The more detailed your job description, the better.
See how SEMRush does this:
As a final tip, avoid overly technical terms in your description, from the job title to the body. If jobseekers don’t understand what you’re saying, you might still end up with the applications of unqualified candidates even if your job description was detailed.
2. Use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
An applicant tracking system can help expedite your hiring process in this competitive job market. Statistics on time management show that 76% of employees spend 10 hours per week moving data from one place to another. But with ATS, you don’t have to physically or manually move any data from the time a jobseeker applies for the job.
The software already serves as a central hub for all your recruitment information from the get-go. ATS systems often include features such as resume parsing, which automatically extracts relevant information from resumes, including years of candidate experience, skills, and certificates, and stores it.
Besides, ATS can help you sift through your application stack in minutes. Gone are the days you’d spend hours to manually go through each resume to determine whether an applicant should go through the next stage.
In the screenshot, for example, this software sorts prospective employees using the keyword “PHP” so the unsuitable candidates don’t make the cut.
Additionally, ATS systems make it easy for the recruiting team to schedule an interview and do a background check on candidates speeding up the hiring process. Recruiters can do almost everything recruitment-related in a centralized platform so they don’t have to spend time switching from one channel to another.
ATS can also help track and analyze data on job candidates sourcing, average time-to-fill, and other recruiting metrics. That provides valuable insights to ensure a shorter time is spent in recruitment.
It’s best to choose ATS with advanced algorithms and machine learning capabilities. These allow the tool to analyze and process large volumes of applicant data accurately. Some ATS examples include BambooHR, Jobvite, and Lever.
3. Enhance Your Careers Page
Enhancing your career page can help you reduce time to hire in many ways.
A good careers page is visually appealing and full of information that helps create a positive impression of your company. So, it can immediately erase any jobseeker’s doubts about applying for the role. The result is that they don’t put off sending their applications.
You can employ several recruitment strategies to make your page stand out among high-quality candidates.Create a user-friendly design that reflects your branding and company culture. Use high-quality images and videos that showcase your workplace, team members, and company events. For instance, Mito has a fun video that shows the team having a good time.
Furthermore, highlight your company’s unique selling points as an employer, such as competitive benefits, growth opportunities, and your supportive work environment. Doing so ensures suitable candidates see you as an attractive potential employer.
Incorporating testimonials and success stories from current employees is also a good idea. These don’t just motivate your current employees. They also serve as social proof for your target pool of candidates.
A good careers page is also functional, making it easy for potential employees to apply immediately in the first place. When they do apply, they can also do so in the shortest possible amount of time.
So, use the best web hosting to ensure your page loads quickly. Google recommends a page loading time of less than two seconds. Also, use a simple application process form applicants can complete in minutes. Minimize unnecessary fields or offer options for pre-filled data.
As a final tip, optimize your career page for search engines. You need to make it discoverable to get people to apply immediately in the first place. With Google search queries for job applications rising by 100% year over year since 2020, you may reach a larger pool of qualified candidates with SEO optimization.
Incorporate relevant keywords in your compelling job descriptions. Also, optimize your meta tags and URL structure. You can use AI for SEO intents by analyzing data and identifying trends in job searches. That can help you determine the popular keywords and phrases potential candidates use, allowing you to tailor your job postings accordingly.
Finally, create a sitemap and submit it to search engines to ensure your career page is indexed.
Conclusion
There’s no “right” way to recruit the best talent. Everyone has different expectations of what a recruitment process should look like. But companies do agree on one thing: they need to reduce time to hire.
So, create a job description that can help ensure you get suitable prospective hires from the get-go. Use an ATS to help you screen your talent pool and ensure a streamlined and structured hiring process. Optimize your careers page to get qualified jobseekers to apply immediately and in the shortest possible time.
Implement these tips to reduce time to hire. You’ll have the best person for your role in no time.
Author Bio
Owen Jones is the Senior Content Marketer at ZoomShift, an online schedule maker app. He is an experienced SaaS marketer, specializing in content marketing, CRO, and FB advertising. He likes to share his knowledge with others to help them increase results.
