As the economy begins to rebound, companies may be looking to bolster their hiring process so as to attract the right talent. Finding a candidate who has the right skill set and fits the mold of an organization can be a challenge – and every company knows how important it is to have the right fit. Compounding that search is the mountain of resumes from qualified and unqualified applicants.
In the midst of sifting through what could seem like countless resumes, employers risk overlooking the most qualified candidates and damaging their company reputations and brand by not handling applicants’ interest appropriately. Quality candidates will likely get snatched up by competitors that have tools to quickly find, interview and hire the people they need.
Organizations that manage the process appropriately – acknowledging all inquiries and communicating clearly with potential candidates – will create positive impressions of the company’s brand, which will make future hiring more productive when organizations face fewer applicants and a more competitive marketplace.
Businesses that don’t have tools to filter the incoming applicants are going to find themselves shortchanged, drowning in an endless volume of resumes – and quality candidates may get overlooked in the resume tide. Businesses need a plan of action for how they are going to tackle this process quickly and effectively.
Answering these questions and navigating this process is a daunting task given that there is pressure to quickly get the right candidate in a climate of multiple qualified people looking for work. A good fit represents future success for the organization; a bad choice represents a burden on the business and added costs.
Tools to Aid the Process
There are many different HRIS/HRMS tools on the market that can help businesses optimize their human resources departments and the recruiting process. Recruitment management solutions offer tools to assist recruiters and hiring managers with the entire hiring process – from requisitions, sourcing, and applicant tracking and management all the way through the interview process to the job offer and on-boarding.
These technology tools graphically match applicants to open positions based on required skills by identifying or ranking the best applicants, which significantly reduces the time recruiters need to spend on the qualification process; this results in faster identification, interviewing and hiring of top candidates.
These recruiting tools also generate and track all types of correspondence, including “resume received,” invitations for interviews, job offers and other communications. Recruitment management solutions can organize and store all these types of correspondence, making it easier for the hiring manager to manage applicant data and provide documentation for Equal Employment Opportunity and diversity analysis.
The same recruitment management tools can also play an important role in turning the challenges of managing what many refer to as the “resume tsunami” into an opportunity. Organizations that manage the process appropriately – acknowledging all inquiries, communicating clearly with potential candidates – can create positive impressions of the company’s brand. Organizations can use this rise in activity to build a candidate database and a favorable impression of the company, even with candidates not selected for a position; this can help future hiring efforts to be more productive, particularly when organizations are faced with fewer applications and a more competitive marketplace.
It’s important that organizations don’t lose sight of internal candidates even as external resumes pile up. Searching through candidates internally, prior to an external search, offers many benefits. Not only does it save money during the recruitment process, but it establishes company culture, enables retention and career growth and defines the employer’s brand. If a company has an HRIS/HRMS solution in place, internal candidate performance, job history, training, skills and levels attained, competencies and salary history are readily at hand – making recruiting internally an easier process.