In today?s recruiting market, we often hear two complaints. One: the web is great but we receive too many unqualified applicants. Or two: with the web, our main problem now is to find and receive quality applications. What is the issue, too many or not enough applications? Although seemingly contradictory, these two issues are part of the same issue and can be summarized in a unique question: How can I access quality applicants? But how do you find quality if it is not by going through quantity? Is quantity AND quality a recruiting oxymoron? To answer this question, let?s see what is working today. Typically referrals are very effective for recruiting because the quality is high and the fit is often very good. But we also forget that the process of referrals is a very selective process. Each employee who goes through his or her previous colleagues refers only a very small fraction so in actuality filters a quantity of potential candidates to only refer the best one. Recruiters love referrals, because the quality is high and the pre-selection work has been performed by somebody else! That is why many companies offer compelling referral bonuses and may even award sports car prizes for the best referrer! The question we need to ask now is: Can technology help us to achieve the same results? How can we benefit from the power of this new tool called the Internet? We examined this issue and saw that the traditional way that recruiting was done over the Internet does not achieve the full benefit of the net. Let?s see what most of the recruiting process is today before starting the selection process:
- Recruiter: set up your website and display jobs
- Recruiter: ask people to send their resume to apply
- Applicants: write resumes
- Applicants: send resumes
- System: dump resumes into a huge database
- Recruiter: search according to keywords and prescreen applicants
- Recruiter: shortlist applicants for telephone prescreening
- Recruiter: call applicant to ask prescreening questions
- Recruiter: shortlist applicants for selection
When we look at this process, it is in fact just the simple transfer of the traditional way to recruit that corporations put online. But, how can we really go a level higher and not simply take an old process and try to stick it to a new tool, a little bit like we could try to put propellers on the jet, to try to go faster! Everybody knows it is not working, and today most of online recruiting is like trying to keep propellers on a jet! But soon both the pilot and the passengers complain. Self-Service
One benefit of the Internet is the self-service aspect. Self-service means that people can do the work they usually left to staff. In this article let?s review how the use of this simple benefit from the net can revolutionize your recruiting process. Let?s see these nine steps again in light of this new benefit:
- Recruiter: set up your website and display jobs
- Recruiter: ask people to respond to prescreening questions
- Applicants: answer quick assessment questions
- System: automatically rank applicants for pre-selection
- Recruiter: shortlist applicants for selection
As you can see here there are many benefits of the use of the self-selection process to recruit. First, recruiters only spend their time where they have the most value: in the selection. Recruiters can dramatically reduce the time they spend on pre-screening and searching resumes. Second, the applicants do not have to have a resume ready and they can apply very quickly through a question-based system. This is particularly effective to attract and capture passive job seekers. But the major benefit is the ability to receive quantity by accepting all applicants, even those who are not resume ready and at the same time have the ability to rank then automatically. So, with the effective use of technology-enhanced processes, we can have the best of both worlds – quantity AND quality.