What is Recruiting Automation?

Let’s define Recruitment Automation as automating, or eliminating, human steps, or workflow processes within the recruiting process.

We’ve been automating recruiting for years, so what makes today’s automation different? 

Over the last 20 years, we’ve been automating recruiting tasks like posting jobs to job boards, using email to reach candidates, etc. Prior to Indeed and mass job aggregation, most job postings were only visible on corporate career sites. The majority of the job postings never made it to job boards, because of the human cost on posting jobs. Job scraping and job distribution, and now predictive pay-per-click and pay-per-applicant tools from Job2Careers.com and AppCast.com have automated the ability to post jobs everywhere, and do it cost-effectively.

If you break down the recruiting process, Bill Boorman, suggests there are 88 individual steps required to hire someone. Many of those steps involve human steps that require significant training, follow-up, lots of attention to detail, and unfortunately… work.  A recruiter, or hiring manager, needs to screen the inbound candidates, for basic requirements, and then reach out to them for an initial “pre-screen”, to find out if they are Qualified, Available, and Interested (QAI). For most recruiting organizations, this is where the problems start.

To get ahold of a candidate, recruiters have had two primary tools, a phone, and email. No one is picking up the phone these days, unless they know who it is.

And, emails aren’t being opened, read, or responded to. So, recruiters are sending more and more emails. Making more and more phone calls, just to keep up. They’re also losing candidates in the process because the recruiters can’t manage the flow of the data and conversations.

Messaging and Chatbots are leading the new Recruitment Automation

Contacting job seekers via email is simply getting tougher and tougher. Emails aren’t being opened (14% open rates and 2% click-through rates), whereas Text Messages are getting deliver 95% of the time, and responded to within minutes and hours, instead of days.  Text Recruiting with job seekers and over sms messaging is by far the fastest way to get candidate responses and move candidates through the recruiting process.

If the above paints a dark picture, just remember, it can get even worse, because most candidates you want to recruit, are probably already working, which means they probably can’t have a call during their work hours. In the US, we’re currently at near “Full-employment”. Replacing turn-over candidates is becoming harder and harder, let alone, adding to the workforce.

These types of process changes, predominantly use chatbots and messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Text Messaging, and Web Chat, to communicate with candidates, while engaging and pre-screening them for their Qualifications, Availability, and Interest in the company.

Chatbots work 24/7, don’t require time off, and continue to learn as they respond to candidates using their existing smartphones, without the need to download another application.

Messaging is High-Touch, Personalized, and Private

If candidates are ready to leave their current employer, they have options, and companies need to act fast, and respond to candidates quickly if they want to interview and hire them. Dropping the ball, and not responding to candidates quickly enough, is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as the competitive nature for talent continues.

So, back to Recruiting Automation…

Tips for implementing Recruiting Automation in your business Today.

Here are some areas where you can implement some recruiting automation in your recruiting practices today:

1. Sending Text Messages to candidates. If you aren’t doing this yet, ask yourself why you and your organization aren’t doing this. It works. It’s proven. and your competitors already are doing it. Are you worried about how candidates will respond? Good. You should be. Take it slow. Make your text messages personal. Respond back to candidates quickly. And, use a tool desktop application like GoHire, that not only let’s you use a keyboard, to type faster, but also stores all your candidate conversations.
2. Add a Career site Chatbot to your career site. Candidates have options, so you need to make it easy for interested candidates to learn more about your company, the role, and your culture. Only 8.52% of your site visitors will apply for a job. Adding Web Chat to your career site is relatively inexpensive, and can increase your candidate flow by 100%. Essentially, allowing you to engage and convert 100% more candidates, then before web chat.
3. Add a Text Messaging Chatbot, or an Apply By Text chatbot as a way for candidates to engage your company. For instance, in the retail and hospitality fields, you can advertise Text “Jobs” to 888-271-8898,  and let candidates engage with you, create profiles, answer pre-screening questions, and even set up a time for an interview, all from their smartphone and text messaging.
   If you want to automate reach-outs to existing candidates, to ask some basic questions, pre-screen them, or see if they have specific skills needed for a role, Text Messaging with a Chatbot can help.

How it works: Using GoHire’s Text Messaging system, send the candidate a templated response
What if recruiters could spend more time with the highest-value candidates, while candidates could also get immediate responses, and even status updates on their application process.

What if candidates could ask questions of recruiters, 24/7, to learn more about the company, and the specific role they’re looking at.

What if candidates to quickly engage companies without having to fill out 20-40 “required fields”, just to learn more about a company, their culture, and the role?

These are not only possibilities, but they are already realities for some of the early adopters of Recruiting Automation.

This is the future of recruiting automation.