How Can Technology Enhance The Hiring Process?
By 2026, an estimated $24.6 billion will be spent on HR software, and it’s no wonder teams are buying in. Technology can help reduce your team’s administrative burden and improve outcomes by leveraging automation, streamlining workflows, and strengthening candidate relationships.
Automate & Boost Efficiency
Use tech to give your hiring velocity a much-needed lift and eliminate time lags. Instead of spending time manually logging interviews, digging through emails for resumes, and circulating interview notes, you can leverage technology to focus on what can’t be automated, like cultivating candidate relationships and making strategic hiring decisions.
Automation is great for things like candidate scheduling (especially when paired with user-friendly Kanban-view dashboards), meaning you can more quickly move candidates through the hiring process and make decisions sooner.
Build Stronger Relationships
Almost half of talent acquisition leaders in the U.S. say cultivating meaningful candidate relationships is their number one priority — but fully manual processes make this nearly impossible to achieve. You can enhance the quality of the candidate’s experience during the hiring process and forge stronger relationships by utilizing candidate dashboards; automated actions and reminders; and custom screening tools — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Reveal Deeper Insights
Companies armed with insights into their hiring process are more empowered to repeat what’s working and adjust what’s not.
For instance, the right technology can automatically track recruiting cycles, helping you spot patterns in when and where speed bumps occur, and better make plans for your business based on how long your hiring cycles take. Meanwhile, an automated survey can help you gather and analyze feedback about your hiring process, both from the candidate and interviewer perspective.
Most tech tools have reporting capabilities built-in and will show you new metrics and patterns with no need for manual data gathering or exploration. In fact, you may even be able to sync these tools with others, creating added value with a more holistic view.
How to Choose The Right Recruiting Tools
Before investing in new technology or cutting an old tool out of your stack, it’s critical to pinpoint the specific aspects you’re looking to transform or streamline in your existing workflows. There’s no shortage of fantastic tools, but with a limited budget and bandwidth for adoption, focus on your core hiring challenges and how tech can best help you overcome them.
- What are your biggest challenges in recruitment?
- What are the top pain points for your team?
- What are the top pain points for candidates?
- How long does it typically take your team to hire?
- What part of the hiring process takes the most time?
- What activity is most important to you when filling a position?
Once you’ve considered these questions, you’ll have a solid understanding of the types of tech that will best answer your needs.
Ways to Use Technology in Your Recruiting Strategy
There are many flavors of recruiting tech you can implement, each dealing with a different activity in the hiring workflow. The most common can help you with:
- Sourcing Candidates:
Sourcing tools can help you identify qualified candidates that fit your search criteria, saving time. By automating the process, they can also help you assess a broader talent pool, which is essential for attracting a more diverse pool of applicants. - Assessing Candidates:
Assessment tools can help you focus on candidates who exemplify the hard and soft skills that you’ve defined as crucial for being successful in a role. This can greatly speed up the qualification process, allowing you to deliver decisions to non-selected candidates sooner. - Engaging Candidates:
Engagement tools can help you improve communication with candidates, shape your employer brand, and build lasting connections, especially with applicants that you aren’t hiring (at least, not yet). - Tracking Candidates:
Applicant tracking systems can help you manage the entire recruitment process with ease, from when you first receive an application to when you’re onboarding a new employee. This ensures nothing, and no one, falls through the cracks, further supporting a positive candidate experience. - Onboarding Candidates: Onboarding tools will not only facilitate a smooth transition for your new hire but can help new employees achieve early and lasting success with your company.
Making The Most of Technology in Your Recruiting Strategy
When your communication loop with candidates is timely, and clear, people feel a sense of urgency about their candidacy. When your screening process shows your team is thoughtful and smart about how they assess candidates, your credibility and respect get high marks. When your team is able to stay on top of communication, it results in a higher-quality experience all around. Sound too good to be true?
While tech can never replicate the human expertise that your team provides candidates, it can greatly aid human interactions to improve efficiency and support your commitment to making more meaningful connections with the people you engage.
Want to learn how to evolve your hiring strategies to keep up with shifting demands and expectations? Learn more about this year’s emerging trends and how companies are adapting to them in our guide.
