5 tips for recruiters to find the ideal candidate faster

Speed matters. Just ask Usain Bolt, Keanu Reeves or anyone sat waiting for a lagging video to buffer on YouTube. While you’re at it, you can add recruiters to that list of alacrity addicts.

While the Coronavirus pandemic threatens to throw the world into an economic depression, the sad reality is that any downturn will impact much more on less-skilled jobs and employees. Highly-educated employees with knowledge-based skills are likely to remain in high demand. For many jobs and industries, demand still outstrips supply, meaning that, even in these tough economic times, it’s a candidate’s job market.

When quality candidates become available, they tend to get snapped up faster than a baby zebra paddling on the Nile. The very best candidates are on the job market for just ten days before getting hired. Recruiters need to react quickly to be in with a chance.

It’s not simply a case of contacting the candidate promptly, either. With each vacancy costing companies an average of €420 per day, getting the right candidate into the proper role at top speed is in everybody’s interest. What can companies do to turbocharge their recruiting?

1. Create clear and concise job descriptions

Like almost all jobs well done, great recruiting starts long before the interview stage and before the job even gets posted. A well-written, detailed job description with a thorough candidate profile is critical and yet, almost always, is raced through or overlooked. Spend a few hours building a top-class job description and candidate profile, and you’ll save days of speaking with, contacting or interviewing candidates who just don’t fit the bill.

2. More candidates is not better​

If you’ve been an active job seeker in the past, it won’t surprise you to learn that almost two-thirds of candidates have, at some time, quit an application process because it just took too long. That means a lot of high-quality candidates are not only falling by the wayside and being picked up by other companies and maybe even competitors, but you’re also leaving them with a poor impression of your organization.

The most time-consuming stage of the process is usually initial contact and screening. Too many recruiters do this with too many candidates.  Be aggressive in whittling down the number of applications you receive to just three to five candidates and then set up calls using an online scheduling tool like Doodle’s Booking Page. That enables candidates to choose a convenient slot in their schedule with no back-and-forth on your side.

With fewer candidates being interviewed and calls scheduled more efficiently, it should be possible to fly through these first stages quickly and efficiently while the very best candidates are still available and excited about working for your company. 

3. Network, network, network

With the acute need for speed, it’s extremely valuable to find shortcuts for getting suitable candidates to fill vacancies. That’s why recruiters should spend a considerable amount of their time networking, deepening their knowledge of their target industries and markets, as well as making contacts through in-person events as well as digital opportunities. Networks don’t have to be external either. Companies’ workforces and their networks are potent tools for unearthing gems.

Armed with these approaches, when a vacancy opens up, the recruiter can face the challenge head-on and with laser-guided precision. They can share the vacancy internally and with their network before taking the spray and pray approach to job posting and advertising.

Almost half of all companies believe that their highest quality hires have come from referrals, while referred candidates are typically hired 55% faster, plus they remain with companies longer. 

4. Build a pipeline

When does a person become a candidate? Aha, trick question. Everybody is always a candidate for a role in your organization; at least, that’s how you should approach your recruitment strategy. Three-quarters of candidates for in-demand jobs are passive job seekers, who are either headhunted, approached, referred by a contact or who just happen to see a role that captures their imagination, even though they’re generally quite happy in their current job.

This is precisely why recruiters need to align closely with their recruitment marketing colleagues. Recruitment marketing ensures that the external face of the employer brand is always being conveyed. It’s a proactive approach to tell the world about who you are, what you do and what opportunities you have. Therefore, the heavy lifting has been done when recruiters first pick up the phone to contact a candidate. Prior knowledge and awareness of your company as an employer will, of course, speed up the recruitment process too.

Recruitment marketing need not be all airy-fairy employer brand building either. Suppose your company has particular positions that are highly sought-after or difficult to fill. In that case, you could run pipeline-building campaigns to capture the contact details of people with the right profile so that, when opportunities do open up, there’s already a list of potential candidates for recruiters to reel in.

5. Use tech to shatter bottlenecks

Take a step back and take a critical and objective look at your entire recruiting process. Where are the speed bumps? What could you do to make it more efficient? Where are the bottlenecks? 

Often, technology can help smoothen and accelerate those delays. For example, using video conferencing tools for first meetings makes them far quicker and easier for recruiters to manage. Recruitment teams in many organizations are tiny and under-resourced. An online scheduling tool like Doodle can save hours of email back-and-forth and give time back to recruiters, acting as a set-and-forget virtual meeting assistant.

For high-volume positions, such as those in retail and hospitality, AI can integrate seamlessly with social platforms or websites and guide applicants through the first few rounds of the process, flagging only the qualified candidates for follow-up by the recruiter.

So important is the use of technology within the recruiting space that more than 98% of Fortune 500 companies use some form of recruitment software, with more than two-thirds of recruiting professionals believing that investing in technology is the best way to improve their company’s recruiting. 

The faster that candidates are recruited, the happier they are with the experience, the less it costs your company and, let’s not forget, the sooner they become part of your organization and can be developed and nurtured by your HR team and managers. Recruitment isn’t an objective in and of itself, rather a necessary instrument for ensuring that companies remain well-tooled and ready to succeed. Removing inefficiencies and creating a smooth and fast recruitment process gets people in and companies moving forward.

If you work in recruitment, then here’s some reasons why Booking Page should be your new best friend.