Streamline Your Recruitment Process With These 7 Tips

If we recruiters dream, it would be about how easy tech recruitment could be—create a job vacancy post, watch the applications pour in, and then, pick the best out of them. Just like that.

And it’s back to reality, which is far removed from this mystical land of simple recruitment! The IT industry is known for its complicated and long-drawn-out hiring processes, with recruiters finding it hard to make the right hire. It’s only going to get worse as the industry is grappling with severe talent shortages.

What if we told we had some tricks up our sleeves? To help you hire faster. We dug deep into our own recruitment processes to figure out how to get the best out of them. A lot of companies need to take a second look at their existing recruiting strategies if they aim to hire top talent efficiently.

On that note, here are 7 recruitment process tips to add to your repertoire—to improve candidate experience, streamline your hiring efforts, and attract the very best candidates in the industry.

Tips to streamline technical recruitment

The sweet spot of tech recruiting is when you’ve found the perfect candidate for your job opening in the least amount of time—and under budget.

When done right, a streamlined recruitment process can:

• Slash cost-per-hire and time-to-hire to a large extent
• Improve the quality of your workforce
• Increase the overall productivity of your teams
• Enhance employee engagement and retention
• Increase diversity within your organization

7 recruitment process tips to help you make your hiring, leaner and meaner:

1. Get straight to the point with job descriptions

Job descriptions are what your applicants see before all else. It can accomplish so much if done right. Do you want a candidate’s first impression of your company to be a generic, lackluster job description? 60% of job seekers gave up on their applications due to unclear job descriptions, according to GoRemotely.

It’s time to bin these outdated job descriptions—create some that are concise, have realistic expectations, do away with buzzword lingo like “young”, “responsible”, etc that don’t mean much, and more importantly, are bias-free. An ideal job description keeps to a 250-word limit, is properly formatted, and doesn’t look like an unappealing wall of text.

We put together this free checklist to specifically help you curate job postings that are well-designed and will bring in good caliber candidates. Recruiters, make it count!

Also, read: 5-Step Guide To Gender-Fluid Tech Job Descriptions

2. Market your job postings on social media for a wider reach

In today’s age, traditional recruiting methods will no longer cut it. Sticking to the regular job portals might not yield the results you’re expecting. Much of the global talent, like the Gen Z, do not read newspapers anymore let alone search for job vacancies in them—they look to Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram to bring them up to speed. 49% of professionals use Linkedin network to scout for job opportunities, as seen in our annual Developer Survey.

The modern recruiter needs to think out of the box and use social media to market their job postings if they want to grab eyes for their job postings. Social media recruiting attracts a far more diverse pool of candidates, is relatively cost-effective, and works better to bridge the gap between recruiters and their candidates.

We have a free cheatsheet + bonus takeaway for you to help kickstart your social recruiting efforts the right way as well as tailor your strategy for popular social media channels. Get your copy here.

Also, read: The Ultimate Guide To Social Recruiting

BONUS: We teamed up with Joel Lalgee, Lead Recruiter at Hirewell to talk about all the questions you might have on social media recruiting. Watch to find out how Joel breaks down the essentials of content creation for social media, the trends to look out for, and the hacks and tricks behind creating a personal brand.

3. Decrease the number of hoops

A lengthy and complicated recruitment process results in higher attrition, with candidates dropping off midway due to poor experience. Studies show 63% of job seekers will likely reject a job offer because of a bad candidate experience and you don’t want that!

Go back to your interview process, and understand the complete journey of a candidate. This way you get to identify gaps/obstacles that may contribute to a bad candidate experience and accordingly, make changes to your process.

Also, read: 5 Steps To Create A Positive Remote Interview Candidate Experience

4. Use an applicant tracking system

ATS solutions alleviate HR folks’ workload and make their jobs more efficient. They save a lot of time too as they no longer have to manually screen thousands of applications. A study by GetApp shows that 86% of recruiters say using an ATS has increased the speed at which they hire candidates.

With tech recruitment on the rise, an ATS is a must-have asset in the HR department. It streamlines the recruitment process, screens candidates by skills and work experience, and acts as a central repository of data that the entire hiring team can access.

Also, read: Remote Work & Recruitment: An ATS Story

5. Screen better with assessment tools

Pre-employment screening assessments improve the quality of hire to a large extent. The technical screening round is designed to filter candidates who exhibit the skills they listed on their resumes. This is where recruiters get to confirm if the candidates are truly skilled. And, coding assessments happen to be an effective way to test the behavioral and technical skills of developers.

Screening tools like HackerEarth make the lives of recruiters easy! Objectively evaluate developers with a rich library of 13K+ questions across 80+ skills and shortlist candidates based purely on their performance with minimal technical know-how. Combine this with other technical skill testing methods like on-the-spot questions and you have a comprehensive approach to vetting a candidate’s technical ability.

We have seen the interview-to-hire ratio drastically improve in the companies that have decided to use a dedicated hiring tool like HackerEarth Assessments. For instance, Zalora, a fashion e-commerce brand based in South East Asia, has been able to shorten its recruitment cycle by 50% by our platform.

Also, read: Technical Screening Guide: All You Need To Know

6. Select the right candidate with coding interview tools

A candidate-first coding interview would be as close as possible to the real job that the candidate is interviewing for. Not writing code on paper or using whiteboards to solve problems. You find the perfect candidate by simulating the exact ‘day in the job’ environment at the technical interview round and assessing the candidate(s) who excel.

Coding interview tools make this possible. They provide a fair, objective, and structured screening as well as evaluation of the candidates. HackerEarth’s intelligent remote interviewing tool, FaceCode allows you to invite and conduct coding interviews on a collaborative, real-time code editor that also automates your interview summaries.

Also, read: FaceCode Update –  4 New Features That Make Remote Interviews Easier!

7. Stay in touch with your candidates

Lack of feedback post interview is a major peeve of candidates as stated by 40% of the respondents of our annual Developer Survey. Nobody likes to be left hanging.

Let the candidates know how and when you will communicate with them, what the interview process will be, and how long it will take. Describe each stage of the remote interview along with what tools you will be using to help them prepare. Communicate changes and delays in your hiring process in real-time to help avoid confusion— it dramatically improves the candidate experience too.

If the candidate was not selected for the role, that needs to be conveyed to them as well. Ghosting candidates as a form of rejection is an absolute NO. Tell them what went well and give actionable tips on how to do better the next time. Candidates will appreciate that you took the time out to inform them personally.

Also read: Ultimate Playbook for Better Hiring

The short of it

We know, all too well, how expensive a bad hire can be. Tweaking your hiring process to make it more streamlined is the first step—to make the right hiring decision. The bonus? An efficient hiring process will strengthen your employer brand, enhance the candidate experience, and bring in talented folks who want to work for your company!

Make use of the recruitment process tips mentioned in this article to elevate your hiring experience 🙂

Further Reading

Would you like to get monthly updates on our articles? Subscribe now to The HackerEarth Blog!

Ruehie Jaiya Karri Author 58 Blogs