We’re cleaning out our garages, homes and probably Dropboxes; so why not the recruiting process? Recruiters can add all the great new recruiting tech to their processes, but maintenance and upkeep are just a fact of life. Don’t let your recruiting process get cluttered with old practices, redundancies and inefficient ways of getting to your goals.

Are your canned job descriptions collecting dust?

When is the last time you updated your template or canned job descriptions? There are tales of ads that list a fax number as an option for applying. Don’t be caught with a dusty old job listing. Inc contributor Jeff Haden believes that job listings should be like a love letter. Haden said:

“A great job posting is a personal letter to one person. Write a generic description, and you’ll hire a generic person. The best approach is to say to that one person, ‘We don’t know you yet, but we know you will love this job.’”

Remove mothballs and roadblocks.

Video interviewing has grown in popularity and use each year because it eliminates so many roadblocks for the candidate –no scheduling, traveling or wasting time. The Office Team Study that brings us this information, also found that, when they asked study respondents the question, “How often, if at all, does your company conduct job interviews using video technology?”

• In 2011 only 1% of respondents answered “Very often”.
• In 2012 the same question was asked, but this time 53% answered “Very often”.

Open up the drapes.

Let people see that company culture and employee brand that we know you’ve been working so hard on. These should be a solid part of every interaction with the candidate. It has been proven that cultural hires out-perform and out-last those hires who do not attain a cultural fit within the company. It has also been proven that a stellar employee brand will attract quality talent. However, neither will do anything if no one knows about them.

Shawn Parr, Fast Company contributor and CEO of Bulldog Drummond, an innovation and design consultancy, said:

“It’s one thing to have beliefs and values spelled out in a frame in the conference room. It’s another thing to have genuine and memorable beliefs that are directional, alive and modeled throughout the organization daily. It’s important that departments and individuals are motivated and measured against the way they model the values.”

If getting through your recruiting lifecycle feels like a stroll through a hoarders house, you probably need to get to cleaning. Find out how your application process stacks up against others. If recruiters go long enough with their focus on their side of the recruiting process, they lose sight of what’s going on the candidate side. They might not realize just how smooth and inviting the competition’s application and hiring processes have become.

photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography via photopin cc