Since 2017, 86% of all interviews and 72% of all hires come from online sources. Online sites like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor have become staples for anyone looking to fill positions. These sites generally do a good job of providing a long list of applications, but they can end up leaving a hiring manager with even more work than they started with.
Think of the last time you hired for a position. Keeping track of job listings, working through piles of applicants, and trying to schedule interviews for just one job turns into days of work. It only gets worse when you have dozens of applicants that aren't qualified for the position. Finding a way to stay organized, effectively communicate with candidates, and quickly identify strong applications should become your priority.
Multiple Job Boards Hurt Organization
Nothing is worse than losing a promising candidate because you can't remember which job board they applied through. Most employers post their job listings as far and wide as possible in the hopes of finding the best job-seekers. The most common sites like ZipRecruiter handle their own job listings well, but as soon as you post the role on multiple sites, organization goes out the window. Downloading resumes, creating applicant folders, and building spreadsheets all end up as a painful part of the hiring process. Since each of these platforms operate in a silo, you end up taking the brunt of the work necessary to find each applicant and track them through the hiring process.
They Don't Help Communication
Most job boards collect information about applicants and that's where their part ends. Some sites have templates for emails, but it's often an afterthought. A phone number or email is only useful if it actually leads to a conversation, and unfortunately job boards don't provide any features to help. Reaching candidates is already difficult, and scheduling interviews that end up as a no-call no-shows is very frustrating. We want job boards to lead to hires, but their focus is really on only one specific aspect of a long and time-consuming process: finding people.
It's Still Hard to Find The Right People
Access to online job boards gave people opportunities they never had before, but it also led to a problem of over saturation. Indeed sees 250 MILLION people visit their site every month, bringing huge amounts of traffic to job listings on their site.
Unfortunately, when so many people view a job description, a lot of unqualified individuals end up applying. In a 2017 study of 15 million online applications, only 655,000 people got an interview. Less than 5% of 15 million applicants appeared to be qualified enough to even get an interview, nevermind actually get the job. If you only want to see the best applicants, why should you be stuck reviewing hundreds of duds before you find your next hire?
What Should You Do?
Online job boards have opened up entirely new sources for finding applicants, but they do very little to actually help improve the process of hiring. Luckily, there are resources that can fill in where job boards don't perform. Applicant tracking software can greatly improve your organization by putting all the candidates from multiple job boards into one location. The software can track which source an applicant came from, when they applied, and where they are in the hiring process.
Communication with applicants needs to change just as much as any other hiring practice, and the best way to do that is to incorporate texting into your outreach. Texts have over a 90% open rate within three minutes of the message being sent. That is five times better than sending an email! The guarantee that a candidate will view your message makes texting the best mode of communication these days, and is the best way to send reminders to reduce your no-show rate.
For finding the best applicants, flip your application process around. Ask the applicant for the information you need to evaluate them. Don't simply hope they provide it in their resume. Team Engine does this and only shows you the people that meet your specific requirements, saving you a ton of time.
Team Engine developed out of the idea that the ENTIRE hiring process had to be improved, not just candidate sourcing. In every area where these online boards fall behind, Team Engine is there to help you along. Our software offers an automated way of screening candidates based off relevant experience, skills, licenses, and a multitude of "soft" determinants like the responsiveness of a candidate. Even better, it is a fully integrated job posting and applicant tracking system that can automate every vital aspect of communication with the Intelligent Hiring Assistant. Hiring is a constant in the business world, but your process can be changed for the better.
If you want to learn more about the many ways Team Engine can improve the hiring process, or to see if it is right for you, book a demo.
