Transform Your Recruiting Process Today…For Free
Simply Hired Staff
At SimplyHired we hear quite a few grievances from both sides of the hiring process aisle. Prospective candidates often complain about cumbersome application processes or unresponsive companies. Those looking to hire, on the other hand, feel the pains of a lack of quality talent or, per more modern trends, great candidates “ghosting” halfway through the interview process.
While there will always be outlyers in any recruitment program, there are a few common stress points that cause an otherwise smooth process to go awry in a hurry. With our inside look at the stages of hiring and our reutation for making quality employment connections we recently took the opportunity of an unhappy applicant to conduct a real life case study on what irks potential candidates. Keep reading for our take on what it takes to transform your recruiting process today, for free.
Our Unhappy Subject
We sat down with a highly qualified professional who has recently been searching for a new position via Simply Hired and independent listings. The job seeker was recently laid off due to corporate downsizing and has an impressive resume in their field. In our initial feedback session, they pointed to the lengthy online application process and their number one frustration when applying for individual positions.
While it’s useful to gather information about prospective candidates, most of what you need to know will be included in a professional resume or cv. Education, experience, relevant certifications, and contact details are all crticial elements of candidate consideration and should all be available at a glance for any recrutier or hiring manager. If you must have a resume fed into your standard format, plenty of application programs will allow an applicant to upload their resume and pull designated fields with little to no fuss. An ideal application should steer away from questions requiring paragraph long answers or that take longer than 10 minutes or so to complete. The only thing a lengthy and confusing application process will do is scare off the most qualified of individuals who have plenty of prospects in today’s competitive job market.
In addition to the time and complexity of submitting a resume, the candidate also highlighted poor mobile application experience as a turn off when attempting to apply for open positions. Today’s job-seeker is increasingly on the go and mobile dependent for everything from shopping to social media to applying for jobs. We’ve delved into this topic plenty in the past, but it’s good to highlight that a lack of mobile friendliness today is a surefire way to get candidates to click the back button.
Last but not least on our candidate’s list of gripes involved communication by potential employers. For those positions they did choose to apply for, in many cases, there was no confirmation of receipt of resume or application, nor any follow up on whether a resume was rejected as not the right fit. In one particularly egregious case, the candidate participated in an initial screening interview and was told they were approved to move on to an in person opportunity. After several weeks of no response or follow up to his email inquiries, the candidate gave up. When the company did manage to get back to the candidate, let’s just say impressions were less than rosey.
While this may seem to be a bit of doom and gloom, every cloud always has a silver lining. If you’re reading this article, we’ve just laid out three real life, simple, and freely executable solutions to help improve your hiring process: keep the application process simple, ensure mobile accessibility and don’t forget to stay on top of your communication. Our case study may not match the experiences of every recruit, but it’s certainly a solid starting spot for an easy, simple, and free overhaul of your recruiting process. Check back in as we continue to delve into best practices for recruiters, hiring professionals, and employees to help further our mission of making quality connections between job-seekers and companies in need of talent.
Article Updated from the Original on September 15, 2018
