3 Reasons Your Recruitment Process is Failing

You have tried everything in the book, and still it seems as though your recruitment system isn’t working anymore. It turns into a never-ending cycle of too much to process and not enough resources to do so. Well unfortunately, without an Applicant Tracking System, it is easy to let unqualified candidates slip through the cracks of employer decency and not alert them when they didn’t get the job. They post their experience to social media and it damages your employer brand. And the cycle repeats. You can, however, break the cycle.

1. Your recruitment process is failing because of your employer brand.

Well, you just don’t have one, much less a good one. Consistency and simplicity are key when developing your delicate web that is your corporate employer brand. But that’s the problem. You don’t want your recruiting process to become a tangled web of a mess for your candidates to navigate alone. At least 70% of hiring companies fall into this category. This is the reason jobseekers find it to be such a trying endeavor to find a new job; most companies force applicants through so many hoops, they get tired of jumping through them after a while.

2. Your recruitment process is failing because you are ignoring candidates.

It’s really no wonder your recruitment process isn’t working if you simply don’t respond to applicants. Even if they don’t meet the cut, they want to know. They are more likely to post a negative experience to social media (which spreads like wildfire), and that will do nothing but damage your employer brand. Candidates who have a negative experience will share their story 64% of the time. Over half of the candidates who have a poor or very poor experience will socialize it. That’s enough to concentrate on your candidate experience as a part of the company’s recruitment process. A healthy recruitment process is reliant upon a good employer brand, so communicate with your candidates. They are the ones that ultimately let your recruitment system sink or swim.

3. Your recruitment process is failing because honestly you need more...

You just can’t handle a bigger load. Truth of the matter is, you need more qualified applicants, more candidates, more new hires, and really a higher retention rate. So what is so scary about all of this? You can’t process all of this paperwork effectively on your own. With dwindling budgets, your recruiting team most likely shrinking as well, which makes processing all of the applications and resumes not only a time constraint, but also a hassle.

However, you can give your department the tools you need to use the time you do have wisely. Applicant Tracking Systems greatly reduce the time spent reviewing the value in any particular resume, so you only have to look at the qualified ones. They can automate anything and everything from posting to job boards to candidate emails. Here are features that an effective ATS should include:

Resume management: collects resumes and cover letters in any format en mass from emails and upload them to the system in bulk.
Applicant tracking: Not only should you be able to track an applicant’s progress, you should have the ability to auto-archive them if they simply didn’t fit the position, or search within their candidate profile for more information.
Career site management: an ATS should be able to publish to your career site as well as to social media and search engines to optimize your company’s visibility.
Collaborative recruitment: Easily share candidate profiles with other members of your team for a cooperative hiring process.

Your employer brand is greatly affected by your candidates’ experiences. A negative employer brand can lead to a decrease in the number of quality candidates, which can increase your turnover rate, something every recruiting department cringes at. So do the very least and communicate with your candidates. Let them know the process your company has set forth. However, even better get a recruitment tool, like an ATS to help you manage candidate files easier.

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Comment by Tim Spagnola on July 29, 2014 at 7:30am: Thanks for the post Raj. Great points raised. Can you share where you go the data for - Over half of the candidates who have a poor or very poor experience will socialize it.?