Category: Talent Acquisition

Facing a wide range of HR challenges and issues, businesses of all sizes, especially those in specific fields (E.g., Information technology – IT), are having quite serious problems in attracting and retaining top talent. And employers are not able to sit still and rely on traditional recruitment methodologies, such as career sites, job boards or career fairs any longer but to adopt fresh and creative ideas and means to acquire talent more efficiently. One of the most optimal and commonly used solutions to the “talent war” is employee referral programs (ERPs). The hiring statistics indicate that 82% of employers have integrated ERPs into their recruitment strategy with a solid belief that they would be able to yield better results and ROIs for their businesses in the long term. Today, let’s dive deep into the definition of referral bonus programs, their benefits as well as how to reap the most out of them.

How Do We Define an Employee Referral Program? 

What is an employee referral program, anyway? Basically, an employee referral program, also known as a referral bonus program, is a system designed to encourage employees to refer candidates for open positions within an organization. The program may offer financial incentives, such as a bonus or commission, to employees who refer successful candidates. Please note that the bonuses are not necessarily always money; they can be prizes, paid time off, or other types of rewards and recognition or flexible benefits.

Why Need Employee Referral Programs in Place? 

The specifics of employee referral programs vary from organization to organization, but they all share the same ultimate goal: to identify and attract top talent. Most organizations that are desperately in need of good candidates have a tendency to consider employee referral programs due to these tangible benefits:

Reduce the Time-to-hire

First and foremost, employee referral programs help employers fill the positions faster, which is decisive for inefficient recruitment. In fact, it has been reported that referred candidates are hired 55% faster than those who are sourced through other channels. You can save much time from shortlisting, assessing, and interviewing applicants since the candidates are already prescreened by the referrers before making their way to you. This keeps your hiring process lean, smooth, and less time-consuming in exchange for quality hires in a shorter amount of time. 

Lower Cost-per-hire

Apart from time, businesses can also save a significant amount of money from deploying ERPs. The cost of hiring an employee through a referral program is, on average, $1000 lower than other recruitment methods, according to ZIPPIA. Since you don’t have to go through a lot of middlemen or expend a lot of effort on advertising, your recruitment cost will definitely be cut to a large extent.

Boost the Quality of Hires

Hiring enough personnel to fill the vacancies is not the final destination of a company referral program, after all, but what every business craves is to bring in the most suitable and outstanding employees. The good news is that employee referrals tend to outperform applicants from other sources in quality. To put it in another way, they are more likely to be a good fit for the job and have higher job satisfaction as well as lower turnover rates. Recruitment statistics show that referred candidates are four times more likely to get hired, and 45% of employees hired via referral tend to stay with a company for more than four years. 

Build Better Employee Engagement

No need to doubt the importance of employee engagement within any organization. Especially in such a tight job market as current, SMBs or enterprises are struggling to retain their top employees from leaving willingly for many reasons, including new opportunities or being stolen by rivals. In fact, companies with high employee engagement perform better, and they are 21% more profitable than their counterparts. Properly, it is not surprising to see that many businesses leverage employee referral programs to create a more engaged workforce. By offering monetary and non-monetary rewards, you can encourage your employees to participate in the referral program actively and get them more engaged with the company as a whole. As a result, they will be more productive and loyal to the organization, which is beneficial for long-term business success.

Promote Company Culture 

Your employees will be your brand advocates and play an irreplaceable role in strengthening your employer’s brand as well as promoting your company culture to the outside world. With an employee referral program, you can let your employees be the voices of your business and win more likes for your organization. Also, by engaging your employees in the hiring process, they will have a better sense of ownership and responsibility, which contributes to a positive corporate culture.

What Is a Winning Employee Referral Program Made of?

Keep these in mind if you would like to deploy a successful employee referral program:

A Well-Defined Goal 

The very first step to success is to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with your employee referral program. Do you want to boost employee engagement? Do you want to improve the quality of hires? Or do you just want to reduce the cost-per-hire? When you have determined the primary purpose of your program, it will be much easier for you to set specific goals, KPIs, and even reward systems.

An Effective Marketing Plan 

Before launching your employee referral program, you need to let your employees know about it. They shall be the ones who will be making referrals for you at the end of the day. You should come up with an effective marketing plan to ensure that everyone in the company is aware of the program and knows how it works. You can use various channels, such as email, intranet, or posters, to get the message across. If you seek a successful referral program, make it viral across teams and departments within your company.

The Right Incentives 

Last but not least, you need to offer the right incentives to encourage your employees to participate in the program actively. The type of incentive will vary from business to business, but it is generally a good idea to offer both monetary and non-monetary rewards. For instance, you can give out cash bonuses, gift cards, or even paid days off as rewards for successful referrals.

As any business grows, it becomes increasingly important to have a well-defined onboarding process for new employees. A successful onboarding program is not about getting newcomers up to speed as quickly as possible or ensuring that they have all the information they need to do their jobs effectively. While those things are important, they are not the ultimate goal of an onboarding program. The real purpose of an onboarding program is to help new employees feel like they are part of the team from day one. It’s about helping them understand the culture of the organization and what it means to be a member of that team. It’s about helping them feel welcomed, valued, and supported in their new roles. The onboarding process is not only the responsibility of the HR department. It’s a team effort, and everyone in the organization plays a role in making it successful. Therefore, it entails that the organizations have the best practices for onboarding new employees in order to ease the transition and avoid any issues that may potentially disrupt the experience of the hires. 

The onboarding procedure can be simple or complex and should be designed to fit your organization’s needs. So, you definitely need a checklist to make sure that you’re covering all your bases. The full onboarding program is often broken down into three main stages:

Pre-onboarding Checklist

This is the starting point of the whole onboarding process. Let’s go through the pre-onboarding checklist:

1. Confirm the Arrival of the New Employees: This step seems to be unnecessary, but it actually plays an important role. You should always contact the new employees a few days before their first day of work to reconfirm the date, time, and location. This will certainly help you prevent any confusion on their first day.
2. Plan the First Day: The first day is critical for setting the tone for the rest of the onboarding process. You should take some time to plan out the day so that it runs smoothly. Prepare the Workspace: You should make sure that the workspace is ready for the new employees before they arrive. This includes setting up their desks, computer, and any other equipment they will need.
3. Prepare Necessary Paperwork: There are a few essential pieces of paperwork that you will need to hand in before the new employees arrive. These include things like employment contracts, tax forms, and direct deposit information.
4. Conduct Personality Testing: This is an optional thing to do, but if you are able to, then why not? A personality test enables you to look deeper into the character traits, interests, strengths, aptitudes, and more of an individual. Accordingly, the information you gain from the results will prove useful for planning the onboarding process in some aspects, such as team building, training, and finding the right mentor. And one useful profiling tool that facilitates easy personality testing you can consider is bravoGROWTH – a personal reflection tool based on RIASEC and MBTI tests. 

Day-one Onboarding Checklist

This is when the real onboarding process begins. Here’s what you need to include in your onboarding checklist for day one:

1. Send Welcome Emails: A heart-warming welcome should be sent to the newcomers on their first day at your company. This should be done previously so that the new employees can open it soon after they sit down and touch their PCs.
2. Walk an Office Tour: On the very first day at work, you should assign a representative from the HR department to take the new employees around the office for three purposes: Firstly, the rookies can familiarize themselves with the new working space. Secondly, this is an opportunity for you to introduce the newbies to other staff and also a chance for them to get to know each other. It is a simple thing but can create a good first impression and later work harmony within your team and your organization, so do not miss this part.
3. Conduct Orientation Training: The orientation training will be the longest session on the first day before handing the newbies to their line managers and teams. It should cover all of the essential information that the new employees need to know, such as the company’s history, mission, and values, or in short, the company overview. You should also include information about the company’s policies, procedures, and employee benefits when working here.
4. Training Sessions: The new employees will need to undergo some form of role-specific training so that they can be up to speed with the company’s work processes. This could be anything from a few hours of e-learning to several weeks of on-job training.

Post-onboarding Checklist

Do not think that your onboarding mission is over yet. There are still a few things that need to be done in order to ensure a smooth transition into the company. 

1. Follow Up with New Employees: After the first day, you should check in with the newcomers to be aware of how they are settling in and blending into the team, as well as if they have any questions or concerns. This can be done via different methods, such as email, phone, or in person. 
2. Conduct Surveys: A few weeks after the new employees have started, you should conduct some kind of onboarding surveys to get their feedback on the onboarding process. This will help you identify any areas that need improvement. With bravoSURVEYS, you can craft and customize a comprehensive survey easily within minutes, easing the burden on your HR team.
3. Review the Whole Process & from the Mistakes: No successful process stays its way forever, and the same for onboarding. You will need to constantly work on it and upgrade it over time. After the survey has been completed, you should review the entire onboarding process to see what went well and what could be improved. This is also a good chance to get feedback from the managers of the new employees. With the valuable information at hand, you can make any necessary changes to the onboarding process for future intakes.

Final Thoughts

We believe that we need no further emphasis on the role of having a proper onboarding procedure within your organization. And a new hire onboarding checklist will play a supporting role in ensuring that you plan the process properly as well as apply it smoothly. Make sure you get a plan and a checklist to follow. If you are stuck at the stage of brainstorming your onboarding program, then a few creative ideas will blow your mind and prove useful.

Speaking of difficulties in recruiting, many businesses are now starting to feel the pain of the so-called “War for Talent” – a term that was first coined by McKinsey’s Steven Hankin in 1997, and it was popularized in 2001 through a book with the same name. It is used to describe the difficulty that businesses have in recruiting and retaining employees with the necessary skills and abilities. In today’s day and age, this problem has only gotten worse due to a wide range of causes, leading to a lot of serious HR issues. With the ever-changing landscape of the workforce, businesses are struggling to keep up.

The “War for Talent” Is Becoming Fiercer Than It Looks Like

The competition for recruiting the best talent is fierce, and it’s only going to get more intense. Businesses of different sizes and shapes across the globe are having headaches facing a lot of challenges associated with human resource management and recruitment, especially when it comes to attracting new talent and retaining top employees. Therefore, employers are starting to realize that in order to stay ahead of the curve, they need to be creative with their recruiting efforts. It’s no longer enough just to post a job ad and wait for the best to come. In order to appeal to top talent, businesses need to start thinking outside the box. They need to get creative with their recruitment strategies and find new ways to reach potential candidates. With a lot of talent acquisition trends rising in 2022, employers should make haste with brainstorming new ideas to stay ahead in the game or be cast aside. If you, employers, do not have any clue of what to do next, then let us guide you through some useful ideas for better recruitment.

8 Employee Recruitment Ideas That Help HRs Feel Less Stressful

Since talent acquisition and recruitment are intense enough, it is time to do things differently if you would like to change the game. Let’s unwind a little bit while still acquiring the high-quality talent for your business with some of the fresh yet dynamic tips to rock your recruitment effort.

Let’s Get Social

Social media has been changing the world, and it is one of the most powerful tools in today’s day and age. However, it is no longer the network for human socialization only; it has become a powerful platform for businesses to reach their target source of the workforce. When it comes to recruitment, social media can be used to reach a wider pool of candidates. By creating a presence on different social media platforms, businesses can connect with potential candidates who might not have been approached through traditional methods. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are excellent places to start when it comes to getting social with your recruitment efforts. You can use these platforms to post job ads, share company news, and connect with potential candidates.

Host Events

This is a good idea that you, the employers, should take into account. Why? Because it is one of the most efficient ways to introduce your business, as well as get to know the job applicants in person. You can use this chance to build a good relationship with them from the beginning. This will make it easier for both sides when it comes to discussing work conditions and benefits later on. Plus, hosting events is a great opportunity to show off your company culture, which is advantageous for your recruitment efforts. Moreover, hosting events is extremely efficient when it comes to high-volume recruitment as a great number of potential candidates are available at your own event and waiting for opportunities to be hired by your company.

Use Employee Referral Programs

Employee referral programs are old but gold. Although it sounds too familiar already, it always works if done right. By offering appealing incentives for employees to refer qualified candidates, you can tap into your employees’ networks and reach out to potential candidates that you may not have otherwise had access to. This will be a big aid for your talent acquisition executives, and it may also help you save the budget spent on headhunt services.

Leverage the Power of Technologies

We are living in the 4.0 era where everything is driven by technology. So, why wouldn’t we use this powerful tool to help with recruitment? By utilizing different recruitment software and tools, businesses can automate many of the tedious and time-consuming tasks that are associated with recruiting. This will free your valuable time so that you can prioritize more important things, such as finding the best candidates for the job. There are various types of recruitment software and tools available on the market, so ensure to do your research carefully and find the ones that will work best for your business. For example, applicant tracking systems (ATS) can help you organize and track job applications, while video interviewing platforms can help you conduct initial interviews with candidates located anywhere in the world. If you are looking for a good HR tool, then you should consider bravoSUITE – a full-option HR platform that offers users multiple features in streamlining the recruitment and candidate assessment process. 

Be More Flexible in Interview Methods

Nowadays, there are many different methods to conduct an interview, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic. Gone are the days when businesses would only conduct face-to-face interviews. Now, with the support of technology, businesses can conduct video interviews, phone interviews, and even chats. By diversifying the interviewing approaches, both employers and job-seekers can benefit from the flexibility. This will also help to make the recruitment process more efficient as it can eliminate some of the time-consuming steps, such as commuting and face-to-face meetings. The candidates can also save time and effort traveling to the interview location. This will make them likely to continue the recruitment process with your company.

Get Creative with Job Descriptions

Job descriptions are often dry and boring. But they don’t have to be. By getting creative with your job descriptions, you can make them more interesting and attractive to potential candidates. This will help you stand out from a thousand job posts out there and lure the best talent to your side. There are more than one good ways to make your job descriptions more creative. For example, you can use storytelling to capture the attention of your target audience. You can also use humor to make your job descriptions more engaging. Whatever approach you decide to take, make sure that it aligns with your company’s culture and values but is still informative yet appealing enough to impress job-seekers at first sight.

Write Blog Posts or Make Videos About Your Company 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million. Nowadays, people tend to watch videos than read an article. Therefore, why not leverage this to your advantage? By creating videos or writing blog posts about your company, you can give potential candidates a behind-the-scenes look at your business or inspire them with how knowledgeable and insightful your company is. This will help them learn more about your company’s culture and values, and it may also encourage them to apply for your company.

Showcase Your Employee Perks and Benefits

In today’s war for talent, businesses need to do whatever it takes to acquire and convince candidates to join their companies. Since people nowadays do not rely on only salaries, you have to show off all the perks, and flexible benefits employees can enjoy when working for your company, such as free lunches, transportation allowance, and flexible working hours. This way, you can make your company more attractive to potential candidates on the market and entice them to apply for your company instead of others.

Among different types of interview formats, the structured interview is believed to be the best way to measure the candidates in an equal manner. To interviewers, it is one of the best methods to filter potential candidates and acquire the best hires for their teams. For interviewees, it is a good opportunity for them to demonstrate not only their professional skills but also their personal qualities and be judged objectively. In this paper, we simply provide you with the definition of a structured job interview as well as outline its pros and cons to see if it is actually the key to a fair and effective hiring process.

What Exactly Is a Structured Interview?

This is one of the four main types of interviews, ranging from structured, unstructured, and semi-structured ones to focus group interviews. A structured job interview is a standardized interview format in which candidates are asked the same predetermined questions focused on the knowledge, skills, and characteristics required for the job in the same order and assessed by the same scoring system. This means the interviewers have to prepare a script of questions and decide the criteria to evaluate the answers in advance before meeting up with the first candidate. And the interviewing process is static until the last candidate. The interviewees’ answers will be scored and recorded for further assessment before making the final hiring decision.

The ultimate goal of this type of interview is to evaluate the candidates in the fairest and most objective way. All candidates shall have equal opportunities to perform and showcase what they are capable of to impress the interviewers; thereby, the employers can minimize the subjectivity of each interviewer and collect reliable data for candidate performance predictions. In the end, the true idea behind such types of interviews is to avoid making unfair, biased, or even discriminatory hiring decisions.

Structured interviews can be separated into two smaller types: 

• Behavioral interviews: It is kindly a performance-based interview in which the interviewees are asked about the specific behaviors they have demonstrated in the past to find out if they have the required skills and qualities for the job.
• Situational interviews: The interviewees are put in hypothetical situations related to the job and are asked how they would react or what actions they would take. This is to assess their problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities under pressure.

Are Structured Interviews the Effective Way to Hire?

The answer is yes. Obviously, there must be strong-enough reasons for employers to take structured interviews into account when it comes to recruitment. 

Less Bias, More Objectivity

Bias and prejudice within the hiring process are the top HR challenges employers are facing today. As stated before, the structured interview is designed to avoid bias as much as possible. All candidates will face the same set of questions and will be evaluated by the same criteria. This way, job interviewers can focus on the answers and performance of each candidate without being influenced by their looks, personality, or any other non-job-related factors. In addition, the interviewers don’t have to worry about what kind of questions to ask next and how to assess the answers since all these have been decided in advance. This can help prevent any personal unconscious bias or gut feelings from clouding their judgment when making hiring decisions. As a result, you ensure that there will be less or no bias, and the vetting process will be fairer and more objective. In brief, using structured interviews means you can secure fairness and consistency when interviewing candidates and making hiring decisions, leaving no room for personal preferences, biases, and favoritism.

Higher Quality Hires

No matter what positions you are searching for, the hiring quality is always the top-priority employers would like to focus on. With structured interviews, employers and recruiters will have what they want. Less or no bias and a more objective recruiting process with no personal preferences and favoritism will result in better hires for your job vacancies. This is extremely helpful when it comes to high-volume recruitment. Since you have a large number of candidates to interview, the more consistent, accurate, and objective your recruitment process is, the better the outcomes will be.

Predictive Validity 

Compared to other types of interviews, the structured interview has been proven to be more predictive of future job performance. In fact, a structured interview boosts the predictive validity of hires by up to 65%. In other words, if a candidate does well in a structured interview, there is a higher chance that he or she will excel in the actual job. This is because the questions asked in a structured interview are usually based on the specific skills and abilities required for the job. As such, candidates who are able to give impressive answers are likely to perform well in the job too.

Faster & More Efficient 

A structured interview is usually shorter than other types of interviews since all the important questions have been predetermined. This can help you save much time when meeting with candidates, especially if you are interviewing a large number of them. In addition, since the assessment criteria are already decided in advance, it will be easier and faster for you to evaluate and score the candidates’ answers after the interview. And both interviewers and interviewees always stick to the main points and purposes. As a result, you can make quicker hiring decisions without having to spend too much time on each candidate or on side questions. This also means that you can save costs, time, and effort on the recruitment process. To double the productivity and quality, you can also leverage useful recruitment tools to aid your hiring process. 

Some Possible Disadvantages of Structured Interviews

Although structured interviews help employers a lot in streamlining the recruitment process, they are not without drawbacks. The best way to leverage the full potential of this interview type is to know its disadvantages, and here are a few notable ones:

Rigidity and Lack of Flexibility 

Structured interviews can streamline the hiring process, which is one of its best things. But it is also the reason why this interview type can be quite inflexible and even rigid. This is because all candidates have to go through the same set of questions regardless of their qualifications or experience. Additionally, it will be difficult to change the questions and assessment criteria once they have been developed. As such, this limits your ability to ask follow-up questions, probe deeper into a candidate’s answers, or explore different aspects of him or her. In addition, the rigid format of the structured interview can make it less enjoyable for both the interviewer and the interviewee, which can impact the quality of information you can gather from it.

Highly Rehearsed Answers 

An interview with a static structure and a script of questions may lead to rehearsed answers from candidates. In other words, the candidates somehow can predict the frequently asked structured interview questions and prepare the answers in advance. As a result, the answers from the candidates may not be entirely accurate or genuine. This is because they are just repeating what they have memorized instead of actually thinking about the question and giving an honest answer. Even worse, they can give the answers employers want to hear, which makes it difficult to measure the true potential of the candidates and may result in hiring inappropriate people for the positions.

Less Engaging & More Formal   

One unpleasant thing about using a structured interview is that it can be less engaging for both the interviewer and the candidate. This is because the questions are often more formal and direct, and there is little room for small talk or informal conversation. Consequently, the interview can feel more like an interrogation than a conversation, which can make it difficult for candidates to relax and be themselves. In addition, the lack of flexibility in the format can also make it difficult for interviewers to build rapport with candidates.  Obviously, like other types of interviews, a structured one can bring employers different benefits in the recruitment process, but it may pose some obstacles as well. Therefore, it is up to you to decide if structured interviews can be a good option or non-optimal ones in your recruitment best practices based on your own recruitment needs and requirements. For example, the advantages of structured interviews make them more suitable for high-volume recruitment or when hiring non-manager positions. So, employers should decide their goals and objectives before using this interview type to ensure that it brings the most benefits and the least drawbacks in hiring.

Automation and technology are transforming businesses operation. Not only does the CS team can reduce their workload via AI chatbots but the marketing staff also automate social interactions and email retargeting. The finance department makes use of automation software for payment email reminders and the payroll process too.

You’re missing out on something huge without mentioning recruitment automation. Undoubtedly, technologies are involved in every step of your hiring process, from acquiring talents to organizing and managing manual admin tasks. Since then, you can ultimately reduce hiring time, create an extensive experience for candidates, and retain top talents.

In today’s article, let us bring your attention to the reasons motivating you to automate the recruitment process. Then we’ll discuss 7 ways to apply technology in your company’s hiring. The bonus of bravoTALENT solution will wrap up this post.

Why Using Recruiting Automation

Successfully getting a newcomer on board takes a lot of time. You can’t skip any step of the hiring process, from posting the job advertisement to screening resumes, setting up interviews, and following up with candidates. Reviewing CVs and classifying candidates prove to be the most time-consuming sector. It’s estimated that a recruiter needs to spend around 23 hours screening resumes for a single position only.

Embedding recruiting automation comes with a massive package of benefits for businesses and organizations. Technologies will increase the recruitment team’s productivity, raise the quality of hires, and reduce hiring time. They also help free bias in hiring and at the same time enhance the applications’ experience.

• Reduce Hiring Time and Boost Productivity

Automation tools are intended to empower recruiters to perform more efficiently. They eliminate manual resume screening, interview scheduling, or nurturing tasks, resulting in faster and better decision-making. You can greatly reduce the overall time to employ and spend that time on candidate engagement.

• Increase Hiring Quality

AI software operates logically and always produces data-driven decisions with consistent results. Applying them to the recruitment process assists to remove emotional influences when hiring.

• Improve Candidates’ Experience

It’s worth mentioning another significant point of recruitment automation in creating a great candidate experience. Candidates can encounter automatic email confirmations, flexible interview time, and assessment pre-employment.

7 Ways to Automate Recruitment Process

Headhunters use automation technology throughout various recruitment touchpoints, from the application step to the final decision.

#1 Posting Jobs

Rather than manually placing open job positions on social platforms to collect candidates’ resumes, think of programmatic job advertising. With the help of automation tools, recruiters are no longer involved in jotting down job descriptions, posting on tons of job sites, and manually messaging candidates.

Thankfully, recruitment automation tools streamline the job posting process at your fingertips. Job posts will be listed on popular and relevant career sites such as Indeed, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor automatically.

#2 Tracking Applicants

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are and have always been one of the most popular recruitment automation technologies to reduce labor work in your hiring process.

As the name indicates, it collects, tracks, and manages data of candidates, from when they submit resumes until becoming official employees. This draws a big picture of which stage each candidate is in so you can keep track of their status.

#3 Candidate Pre-screening

Automation solutions do wonders for pre-qualifying good fits for an open position. You’re free from grading candidates, evaluating their experience and skills, and determining the most suitable people for the role.

Chatbots and virtual assistants prove an increasingly common technology for automatic pre-screening nowadays. They lend you a helping hand in gathering basic information from candidates, interacting with them, and providing immediate answers to their questions

#4 Assessing Candidate Pre-employment

Providing assessment is of indispensable necessity for employers to rank candidates and remove potential unconscious bias. It gives you a holistic view of candidates to make better decisions.

Automation tools serve the recruitment department with various pre-employment tests. Cognitive ability examination, personality questionnaire, cultural fit assessment, and live chat support simulation, just to name a few.

#5 Scheduling Interviews

Check availability for all applicants is always a painful part. You must go back and forth, confirm with candidates, then add and remove events on the calendar to successfully set up an interview.

Fortunately, you have automation software at hand. They allow streamlining of the interview process. It’s possible for candidates to schedule – and reschedule the preferred time themselves on your calendar without interrupting your team.

#6 Nurturing Candidates

It’s evident that maintaining a close relationship helps reduce the rate of candidates turning the table tables to ghost employers.

You can take advantage of candidate relationship management (CRM) systems to engage and encourage applications. They take care of sending automated reminders, keeping candidates up-to-date on the next steps, and ensuring they won’t lose interest in the position.

#7 Background Checking

Last but not least, you’re required to check the background of candidates for certain roles. You need to ensure no problems in their educational qualifications, criminal records, references, and financial status.

Recruitment automation solutions handle this sector as ease as pie. They’ll go through all profiles and search for red flags. This enables you to experience a thrill of speed and accuracy in the background checking process.

Why Is bravoTALENT Your Ideal Recruitment Automation Solution?

bravoTALENT receives a great deal of recruiters and HR staff’s attention thanks to its simple yet powerful features to streamline the recruitment cycle. It packs enough power to get nearly anything you want in terms of a recruiting automation platform.

You’re permitted to dive into bravoTALENT’s candidate pool, post jobs, review all candidate profiles applying for open positions, or even proactively match your job positioning with candidates automatically.

On top of that, you can manage every candidate in one place, see their status in the hiring process, and schedule interviews effortlessly. The tool offers tons of email templates, making the follow-up process as easy as pie.

Ready to Move to Recruitment Automation?

There exists a stereotype that HR can operate without the involvement of humans. Frankly, you can still automate various elements of the hiring cycle to bring more consistency, efficiency, and productivity.

We’ve walked through 7 areas to consider when automating your recruiting, from job advertisements to background checking before having passed candidates on board.

You’re missing out on something huge without looking at bravoTALENT, a perfect solution for automating business recruitment. You’re enabled to hire, retain, and develop employees without having to put in a lot of your effort.

Check out details on how bravoTALENT supports your hiring automation here!

Perhaps you have no idea that talent acquisition and recruitment are getting harder and harder over time, and employers are struggling with a lot of HR issues. The decreasing pool of qualified workforce, the discrepancies between what employers expect and what employees can actually offer, the staff’s expectations of more than just salary (such as flexible benefits, rewards, and recognition), and others make it difficult to hire good talent, not to mention retaining top employees. Because of that, the “war” for talent is heating up again, especially post Covid-19. And guess what? The winner in this harsh reality is only the one with the best recruitment process. 

Are Your Hiring Processes Good Enough?

The employer-centric era is over, now it’s the time for the employee-centric market where employers compete with each other to get the best candidates on their sides, and the hiring process plays a decisive role in the success or failure of recruitment. According to Hirevue, 60% of candidates will drop a job application process midway if they find it complex and time-consuming. 

Normally, a candidate will go through main 6 stages before officially becoming an employee of a company. 

• Stage 1 – Awareness: This is when a job seeker runs into a job post from your company and becomes aware of your company and employer’s brand. 
• Stage 2 – Consideration: Candidates research your company and your competitors before taking an employer into account. 
• Stage 3 – Interest: Candidates choose you as their preferred employer over others. 
• Stage 4 – Application: Candidates apply for an open position at your company.
• Stage 5 – Selection: The short-listed candidates go through the selection process (E.g., interviews, tests, etc.) before proceeding to the final stage.
• Stage 6 – Hire: The selected candidates become official employees of your company.

Each of these stages is a critical touchpoint that recruiters should focus on in order to keep the hiring process going smoothly while also building good impressions with candidates. So, if employers want to get the best hires, they first need to look back on their current recruitment process. Is your hiring process efficient enough to lead the job seekers through the candidate’s journey smoothly? If not, it is okay cause we have just what you need to improve your processes of recruitment and selection.

9 Useful Best Practices in Recruitment & Selection to Win Best Hires

It is so easy to Google-search the term recruitment best practices and gets a ton of results, but how many among them can actually be applied to your own case and make progress. That’s why we are not going to lure you to sleep with theoretical lessons about how to improve your hiring process. Instead, we research, consider and pick out as many useful yet practical tips as possible to help you sharpen your recruiting procedure and win the best hires over your competitors at every touchpoint. Make sure you get a note and jot down the practices that suit your recruitment process the most.

Make the Jobs More Appealing to Candidates

The job description is the starting point of the candidate’s journey, and you only get one chance to engage and persuade the job seekers to apply for your jobs. Therefore, we should enhance it first. Normally, job posts that are too generic, unclear, or also too long are more likely to turn the candidates away. As a result, recruiters should be more diligent and creative in creating the JDs. A good job description should be clear about the responsibilities, specific about the scope of work, and be informative about your roles, business goals, benefits, and cultures. Make sure that you write all the information in a concise way. In addition, you can make your job descriptions sound more exciting and friendly to candidates by putting in your brand tone of voice and including a little sense of humor. 

A common mistake most companies commit is to reuse the old job descriptions, which are out of date and no longer accurately reflect the duties and responsibilities of the roles, every single time they hire new employees for the same positions. Hence, remember to always keep your JDs updated and aligned with your current business goals and objectives. In addition, you should have your recruitment team spend more effort and time reviewing the JDs multiple times before publishing them.

Monitor Job Posting Performance Regularly

Most companies often tend to forsake the job posts after putting them up without knowing this is a big mistake. After you have posted the jobs, don’t just sit and wait. Instead of sitting and waiting, you should take proactive actions to track how your job ads are doing in order to make necessary improvements. This is not only about the job posting performance but also the ROI of your recruitment campaigns, ranging from the platforms that you involve in the hiring process, the advertisements you run to promote the job vacancies, and more. By analyzing real data, you will be able to detect any potential issues and make changes to your recruitment strategies in a timely manner. From there, you can start to see patterns and optimize future job postings accordingly. Fortunately, there are currently a lot of recruitment management systems that aid you in job posting performance tracking and analysis. Simply connect all your recruitment channels with these systems, and you will get all the data stored in one place.

Sourcing Is Not Only about Job Boards

When it comes to recruiting, most recruiters still think that job boards are the only way to source candidates. However, this is no longer true, as social media has become one of the most powerful HR tools that can help you reach out to a wider pool of talent. In other words, you should not limit yourself to job boards only but also use social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to look for potential candidates. It is now easier than ever to find the contact information of any candidate you want, thanks to the Internet and social media platforms. Then why not use these platforms to your advantage?

Moreover, you should also consider conducting employee referrals as this method has been proved to be one of the most effective methods to recruit quality candidates. Your current employees may know someone who is looking for a job or is a great fit for an open position in your company. Therefore, don’t forget to encourage them to refer their friends or colleagues to work for you. You may offer some incentives like bonuses or rewards for those who successfully refer quality candidates to you.

Automate Time-consuming & Repetitive Tasks

With the ever-growing sophistication of technology, there are now many tools and software that can automate as many time-consuming and repetitive tasks as possible in the recruiting process, from candidate screening and assessment to emailing and scheduling interviews. These tools and software not only help you save a lot of time and effort but also improve your hiring efficiency and accuracy. As a result, you can focus on higher prioritized tasks that require human involvement, such as building relationships with candidates and assessing their soft skills.

Evaluate Your Candidates Through More Than Just an Interview 

The selection process should include different methods to measure one candidate’s abilities, experience, and performance. It is a waste if you only rely on the face-to-face interview to make your decision because this method has been found to be the least predictive when it comes to job performance. Hence, try to use multiple assessment tools such as skills tests, work samples, and structured interviews to gather more in-depth information about each candidate. This will give you a more comprehensive view of their strengths and weaknesses as well as help you decide whether they are a good fit for your company or not. Moreover, do not forget to check references. Just because someone looks good on paper or does well in an interview doesn’t mean they will excel in the role. The best way to know for sure is through speaking with their past employers or managers.

Make the Application Process as Short & Easy as Possible

The recruitment process should not be too long or too complicated for the candidates. In other words, it should be short and easy enough for them to complete without any difficulties. The best practice is to limit the number of steps in the application process and make each of them as simple as possible. For instance, you can ask the candidates to submit their CVs only instead of making them fill out a long and tedious online form. In addition, you should also allow candidates to apply for multiple positions at once to save their time and effort. In addition, employers and recruiters should be more flexible by enabling online interviews or phone screenings for those who cannot come in person. And remember to only call for an interview once you find the candidates are close to the ideal standard required for the position to avoid wasting time for both sides.

Conduct Video Interviews to Save Time & Money

Video interviews have been around for a while, but they are becoming increasingly popular in recent years due to the advances in technology and the presence of the pandemic. With video interviews, employers can save a lot of time and money by conducting screening interviews with candidates who are not located near the company. In addition, video interviews provide employers with an opportunity to assess a candidate’s communications skills, which is important for many positions.

Catch Up on the Latest Recruiting Trends

With the ever-changing landscape of the job market, new trends are emerging all the time. To stay ahead of the competition and source the best talent, employers should be up-to-date with the latest talent acquisition trends. Some of the latest trends include the use of social media for recruiting, gamification in the recruitment process, and the use of assessment tools. As an employer, you should identify which trends are relevant to your company and make use of them in your recruiting strategy.

Don’t Forget about Interview Follow-up

Most recruiters often ignore the interview follow-up with or without intention. 73% of candidates said that they do not receive any kind of response to their application, while 60% never hear back from a company after an interview. This creates a very bad impression on candidates and discourages them from applying to the company in the future. Therefore, it is essential to send a follow-up email or call after each interview to thank the candidate for their time and effort. In addition, you should also keep the candidates updated on the status of their applications so that they know where they stand. 

In brief, we would like to remind you of the importance of having an optimized recruitment process in place. And the decision on how to enhance it is up to you. By taking our best practices into account and choosing the most appropriate ones to adapt to your current hiring procedure, you will be able to build the best process of recruitment and selection for your company. Please note that everything will not work perfectly from the beginning – it is important to remember that optimization is an ongoing process that should be constantly updated and improved.

High-volume recruiting is quite a common term for the HR department. Some industries that often have a lot of job vacancies to fill and use high-volume recruiting include technology, healthcare, and retail. However, high-volume recruitment often causes organizations in these industries “headaches” because they need to fill so many positions in such a short amount of time but still require high quality for each hire.   

What Is High-volume Recruiting?  

High-volume recruiting or mass hiring is simply a type of recruitment that focuses on sourcing and hiring large numbers of candidates within a short period of time. This process can be done through a variety of means, such as online job boards, job fairs, social media, and employee referral programs. High-volume recruiting is often used by companies that are experiencing rapid growth or who have high turnover rates.  

The Difficulties That Come with High-volume Recruitment  

Since the volume is large and the time is short, high-volume recruiting may absolutely pose a chain of challenges:  

Time Pressure  

The biggest challenge with high-volume recruiting is the time crunch. When you are trying to hire a large number of employees within a limited period of time, you will not have the luxury of taking your time to interview and assess each candidate thoroughly. According to Ideal, 52% of talent acquisition leaders acknowledge screening candidates from a large applicant pool is always the most time-consuming and the hardest part of their job.   

Therefore, the time constraints can lead to making hasty decisions and hiring candidates that are not a good fit for the position of your company. Even worse, the time pressure when recruiting employees in great numbers may also lead to other obstacles, such as time and money wasting. Therefore, it is critical to have a clear idea of what you are looking for in a candidate and to set up an efficient system for screening and interviewing candidates.   

Budget Constraints  

As always, time and money often go together, and in the recruitment process, they do again. Hiring employees in great numbers at once can strain your budget, especially if you are using expensive recruiting methods such as headhunters or job boards, regardless of the average cost per hire. This can be a big challenge for organizations with great demands for manpower but little budget. Usually, the shorter time you have and the larger the numbers of employees you require, the more money you have to spend on recruiting methods to achieve the goal.    

In order not to be over budget, recruiters may need to get creative with their hiring strategies. For example, you could use social media or employee referral programs to reach a larger pool of candidates without breaking the bank. Unfortunately, this leads to the third challenge – heavy workloads.  

Heavy Workload   

The process of hiring a large number of employees within a short time and with a limited budget is definitely overwhelming for your talent acquisition team. Recruiters may feel like they are constantly playing catch-up and may struggle to keep up with the demand. More candidates come, more paperwork, more phone calls, emails, and a dozen things to handle. This will soon lead to burnout, mistakes being made, and good candidates slipping through the cracks. That’s why it is important to have a plan in place to manage your workload efficiently. One good way to ease the process is to use an applicant tracking system (ATS) or talent management system to help you keep track of candidates and streamline the process, or consider scaling up your recruitment team. Alternatively, you could delegate tasks to other members of your team or outsource some of the work to a staffing agency.  

Quality of Hires  

Above all, quality should not be sacrificed for quantity, but with high-volume recruiting, this can be a real challenge. When you’re trying to hire a lot of employees quickly, it can be difficult to give each candidate the attention they deserve. This often leads to rushed interviews and hasty decisions, which can result in candidates who are not a good fit for the position or company. In addition, when recruiters are under a lot of pressure, they may be more likely to make mistakes, such as overlooking important qualifications or failing to vet candidates properly. As a result, the quality of hires will be straightforwardly affected one way or another. A little tip here is to optimize the system for screening and interviewing candidates. In addition, consider using assessment tools to help you explore the true potential of a candidate and make more informed hiring decisions.  

Hiring-bias  

This is one of the primary causes leading to low hiring quality. Since we have a lot of vacancies to fill, it is more likely to happen that we overlook a candidate’s potential just because they do not “fit” our ideal candidate profile. Consequently, we may end up hiring someone who is less suitable for the job just because they are “better on paper.”  

Should-know Tactics to Strengthen Your High-Volume Recruiting Strategy  

High-volume recruitment is never easy, but at least we can do something with it to make it less challenging.  

Leverage the Free Resources but Do Not Rely on Them  

To lift the burden of the high budget off your team’s shoulders, you should take advantage of all the free resources, such as social media channels (Facebook and LinkedIn). However, remember that “free” does not get along well with quality, so you have to be selective.   

In-house First, Outside Later  

By this, we mean internal talent mobility. This is not a solution but a good way to fill as many vacancies as possible before resorting to external recruitment. The first step is to identify good potential candidates within the company who could move into the role. You can do this by looking at performance review data, employee engagement surveys, or even just talking to managers and team leads about who their top performers are. Once you have a list of potential candidates, reach out to them and gauge their interest in the role. If they are interested, start working on getting them trained and up to speed. This will not only help fill the vacancy quickly, but it will also help develop your employees and retain top talent.  

Technology Is Your Ally  

The recruitment process can be optimized to the fullest by applying HR-specific technology solutions, such as recruitment management systems. With the support of advanced technology, you can boost the performance and productivity of the talent acquisition team, so when it comes to high-volume recruiting, you and your team will have fewer problems to worry about.  

Train Your Recruitment Team  

Obviously, a strong recruiting team will be able to accomplish tasks better than a young and inexperienced one. So, training your recruitment team should be one of the first things you do to improve your high-volume recruiting strategy.  

Try Not to Rush  

As you are under pressure to fill a lot of vacancies quickly, it can be tempting to lower your standards or make hasty decisions. However, this is usually a recipe for disaster. It is important to remember that quality should always come before quantity. So, take your time, do your due diligence, and only hire the best candidates. For those organizations who often have seasonal mass recruitment, it is better to prepare everything in advance so that you will not be stuck in a last-minute situation. And for those who do not frequently hire employees in high volume, you should consider outsourcing to a staffing agency that specializes in high-volume recruitment. 

Bottom Lines 

In brief, recruiting staff in large volumes is a challenging process for any organization. By knowing the difficulties that may arise during the process, you will be able to prepare a better high-volume recruiting strategy and avoid making mistaken decisions. Furthermore, the tips we provided in this article also contribute to helping you optimize your recruitment process and strengthen your talent acquisition team. 

Talent acquisition is an ever-evolving process, and it can be challenging to keep up with the latest trends. But if you want to stay ahead of the competition, it’s essential to know what’s coming down the pipeline.  

This article will look at some of the top talent acquisition trends for 2022. So, whether you’re looking to update your talent strategy or get a sneak peek at what’s in store, read on for insights into the future of talent acquisition! 

Talent acquisition plays a vital role in every organization 

The role of talent acquisition has changed dramatically over the past few years. In the past, talent acquisition was primarily focused on filling open positions. But as the war for top talent has intensified, organizations have started to view talent acquisition as a strategic function that can help them attract, hire, and retain the best employees.  

As a result, talent teams are now being tasked with more than just finding candidates. They’re also responsible for developing and executing recruiting strategies, managing employer branding, and creating a positive candidate experience.  

AI-driven future 

One of the most exciting areas of human resources is the growing use of AI. In the near future, we can expect to see AI-driven tools that can help recruiters identify high-quality candidates, assess their skills, and even conduct initial interviews.  

Tools like these will be invaluable for recruiters, as they’ll allow them to quickly and easily assess a large number of candidates. And since AI can evaluate candidates more accurately than humans can, organizations will be able to identify the best talent faster and more efficiently.  

Ten talent acquisition trends that impact candidates 

There are a number of trends that are impacting talent acquisition. With unemployment rates at historic lows, employers are finding it increasingly difficult to attract and hire top talent. This is especially true for in-demand occupations such as engineering, marketing, and sales.  

To stay competitive, employers need to rethink their recruiting strategies. They need to find new ways to reach candidates, stand out from the competition, and make their organizations more attractive to potential employees. Here are some of the most important trends in talent acquisition to keep an eye on:   

1. Talent acquisition teams to make greater use of AI and automation  

Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are changing the talent landscape, making it easier for companies to identify and assess the right talent. These technologies are also being used to streamline and speed up the recruiting process.  

AI can help identify top candidates more quickly and automate repetitive tasks in the recruiting process, such as screening resumes and scheduling interviews. This can free up time for recruiters to focus on more strategic tasks, such as developing relationships with candidates and assessing their fit for open roles.  

A real example of how AI is being used to acquire new talent comes from the companies Hired and Entelo. Hired uses machine learning to match qualified candidates with job openings, while Entelo uses AI to help identify candidates for open roles.  

2. Increased use of social media in the hiring process 

In recent years, social media has become an increasingly popular recruiting tool. And that trend is only going to continue in the years to come. 

Social media is a powerful tool for recruitment. It can help companies reach a wider pool of candidates, build relationships with potential employees, and better understand their interests and needs. Additionally, social media can be used to share information about open positions, company culture, and employee testimonials.  

As more and more candidates turn to social media to research potential employers, organizations will need to focus on their employer brand on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. They’ll also need to find creative ways to reach out to potential candidates on these platforms to build more diverse teams. 

3. Greater use of data and analytics in your talent acquisition strategy 

Data and analytics are playing an increasingly important role in the efforts to acquire talents. To stay ahead of the competition, companies are turning to data and analytics to gain insights into the talent market.  

HR professionals are using data to identify skills gaps, assess candidate fit, and predict future hiring needs. By understanding trends and patterns, they can make more informed decisions about where to focus their recruiting efforts.  

Big data analytics will become increasingly crucial for sourcing candidates, understanding which recruiting methods are most effective, and measuring the ROI of different talent acquisition initiatives. Business leaders will need to invest in data and analytics tools to gain a competitive edge. 

4. More personalized recruiting experiences 

Personalization is critical in the war for talent. Candidates today expect a more personalized and tailored recruiting experience. With the advent of social media and other digital tools, companies are able to connect with candidates on a more personal level. This allows them to tailor their recruiting messages and strategies to the individual, making the process more efficient and effective. 

To stand out from the competition, companies need to get to know their candidates as individuals and understand their needs. This can be done through targeted outreach, improved communication, and greater transparency throughout the hiring process.  

The goal is to create a recruiting experience tailored to the individual and meets their specific needs.  

5. Increased use of chatbots 

Chatbots are a type of AI that can be used to automate the recruiting process. Chatbots can be used to answer questions, provide information about open positions, and schedule interviews.  

They can engage with candidates through chat platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, providing them with information about open positions and answering their questions.  

By using chatbots, companies can automate the screening process and make it easier for candidates to apply for open positions. Additionally, chatbots can help improve communication and create a more personalized experience for candidates.  

6. Virtual reality in recruiting 

Virtual reality is starting to be used in the recruiting process to give candidates a realistic preview of what it’s like to work at a company. This technology can be used to provide an immersive experience that gives candidates a taste of the company culture and the work environment.  

Virtual reality can also be used to assess candidates’ skills. For example, a candidate could be asked to complete a task in a virtual reality environment to see how they would perform in the role.  

7. Greater focus on employer branding 

Employer branding has become increasingly important in recent years, as companies strive to attract and retain top talents, building up high-quality talent pools. In a tight labor market, employer branding can be a deciding factor for candidates when choosing between multiple job offers.  

To create a strong employer brand, companies need to focus on their Employer Value Proposition (EVP), which is the unique set of benefits and perks that they offer to employees. This can include competitive compensation and benefits, flexible work hours, and a positive work-life balance. 

8. Increased use of mobile recruiting 

With the rise of mobile devices, more and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to search for jobs. The talent acquisition function will need to focus on mobile devices and technologies to reach the potential candidates. To do this, first companies need to have a mobile-friendly career site and recruitment process.  

In addition, companies should consider using apps to connect with candidates. There are a number of apps that can be used for recruiting and building up the talent pool, such as Indeed, LinkedIn, and Glassdoor.  

Wrapping up 

The field of talent acquisition is changing rapidly, and there are many new trends to look out for in the coming years. Some of these include the use of virtual reality in recruiting, employer branding, mobile recruiting, and remote work. Additionally, the use of AI will continue to grow in importance, and it will soon be used to help recruiters identify high-quality candidates.  

The trends mentioned above are important for companies to keep in mind as they work to build a strong talent pool. By paying attention to these trends, companies can stay ahead of the curve and find the best talent available.