5 tips how to become a more efficient recruiter

1. Automate daily tasks

Do you feel like you spend hours and hours on administration, so you have almost no time left for the activities you care about? In this case, there is room for automation.

One of the most effective ways is to use suitable recruitment applications( so-called ATS). ATS manages the entire recruitment process from start to finish. Here are the tasks that can be automated using reliable ATS:

• Posting positions on career sites, job portals and social networks
• Import reactions from external sources
• Email templates, bulk and personalized correspondence
• Planning interviews
• Consents to the processing of personal data: requests, extension, reconciliation
• Mass events with candidates( invitation to the recruitment day, rejection, ect.)
• NPS- candidate feedback
• Pre-boarding communication before the employee arrives
• Notifications( new reactions , starts, end of trial period, ect.)
• Matching- automatic findings of candidates for a specific position sorted by relevance( see image below)

2. Create a checklist

Creating a clear recruitment process leads to speeding up and streamlining your recruitment efforts. It allows you to continuously monitor ongoing and upcoming tasks.

Create a comprehensive list of steps and divide it into different stages of the process:

• Position approval
• Elaboration of position description
• Creating an advertisement and running an advertisement on job portals, career sites, social networks and other resources
• Pre-selection of candidates and sharing with the line manager
• Planning interviews
• Preparation of the offer
• Pre-boarding communication

Once you have mastered this process, you will no longer have to start from scratch with each new position.

3. Make the most of your existing talent pool

If you are looking for new candidates every time another request appears, you are wasting your time. A more effective way to recruit employees is to create your own talent pool of candidates.

The talent pool is a database of candidates who have shown interest in working for your company in the past. It can include qualified candidates who previously applied for the position but did not pass, or those that you obtained by contacting through social networks, came on the recommendation of employees, from various events and other sources.

The goal is to work with the database of qualified candidates and whenever a suitable role appears, reach into it and address the relevant candidates. As your database becomes stronger, you won't have to rely so much on external sources, such as job portals or job agencies. This proactive approach will save you not only time but also money and improve the quality of your recruitment.

It's good to work with a database of candidates, to create a community that you'll be in touch with on a regular basis. You can choose to create a Facebook or LinkedIn group or invite candidates to subscribe to your news. Through these channels you offer them relevant content in various formats such as articles, webinars, events, podcasts, etc.

An example of a company that works so effectively with candidates is Deloitte. They have a dedicated section for students to publish information on traineeships, new job opportunities and student events.

4. Create email templates

Whether you're sending an email to get in touch with a candidate, an interview invitation, a job offer, a rejection email, or a pre-boarding email, it will help if you have a sample email template for each of the above scenarios.

This way you don't have to recreate emails from scratch. Templates standardize the process, eliminate misspellings, and ensure consistent communication.

You can also set up an automatic thank you for responding or deferred sending in case of rejection. It's easier when you use ATS. Its function allows you to automatically add the correct address, position name, date and interview time to your emails, allowing you to set up delayed sending or sending emails in bulk. Plus, you have all the history of communicating with candidates in one place.

 5. Have important tasks always under control

Let's face it, life as a recruiter is not easy. You go through candidates' reactions from job portals, reaching out to candidates on social networks, but constantly thinking about how to make the job description more attractive.

It doesn't stop there. You must plan interviews, communicate with managers, test and evaluate applicants, report, deal with the paperwork involved in the offer and entry of a candidate.

How do you stay productive in so many activities?

Make a plan, a list of specific tasks with deadlines, and stick to that. On a daily basis, revise and update this plan.

Technology will also help you greatly in this area. Tools like Trello are popular, Wunderlist etc. But it is ideal to have such functionality built directly into the ATS as Datacruit does. Its Dashboard function provides a complete and quick overview of ongoing recruitment activities. For example, it monitors for you how many unprocessed responses there are, how many interviews you have in a given week, how many new hires you have, or even the number of expiring consents to the processing of personal data. At the same time, the recruitment application Datacruit has the function Tasks, whose main advantage is the ability to connect a task to a specific record. That is, to do a task connected directly to a candidate, position, department, or client. You can then see all the tasks clearly in Dashboard, where you can also manage them.

Implementing these five recommendations will put you in a better position to make time for important activities such as building contacts and communicating with candidates, supporting and involving line managers in recruiting or measuring your recruitment activities. At the same time, it will positively affect the perception of your company by the candidates and, overall, improve the quality of your recruitment.