Welcome to episode 16 of Claire Shares. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m going to be sharing with you high energy, bite size videos, about all things talent attraction, talent acquisition and talent retention. Today’s talent attraction topic is recruiting process tools from the lens of talent attraction. We’re going to walk through the steps in the recruiting process and how you can leverage tools to improve talent attraction and candidate engagement. Before we get started with today’s talent topic, I want to share with you my recommendation of the week.
Recommendation of the week
My recommendation of the week is Calendly. Calendly is an online appointment scheduling software. I’ve used their professional plan for 4 years now and consider myself a power user. I cannot say enough good things about it and love telling everyone I know about it. If we’ve ever met or had a meeting, you’ve likely booked time with me through Calendly. I’ve also used Calendly for webinar registration when I’ve hosted webinars in the past. What I love most about Calendly is how it saves me time, but also provides an amazing experience for the person or candidate I’ll be speaking with!
I remember being a recruiter years ago and asking candidates to provide a few date/time options that worked for them for a phone or video screen. It took many back and forth emails to agree upon a date and time, and THEN I still had to send them a meeting invite. Now, I send people my Calendly link – it’s integrated with my Outlook, so the times showing free for folks to book are the times I’m actually free to speak! No more getting double booked. When they pick a time that works for them, Calendly automatically sends us both a confirmation and a meeting invite with connection information. I have my Microsoft Teams integrated with Calendly as well, so Calendly automatically places a Teams link in the meeting invite. I’ll stop here because I’m going to tell you the rest of what I love about Calendly when we get to the screening and interviewing section of this episode. 😊 If you need help getting your Calendly set up, reach out to me! I’d be happy to talk with you about it. Onto our talent topic of discussion for today! Recruiting process tools from the lens of talent attraction and candidate engagement.
What to consider before you implement recruiting tools
In April of this year, Forbes Tech Council published an article called “Five Ways To Streamline Recruitment Using Technology.” My biggest take a way from this article was that recruiting is about selling, and a positive candidate experience throughout the process helps you attract and engage those ideal applicants in a competitive market. The article also talks about multiple ways to use technology to streamline recruiting and improve that candidate experience.
One of my favorite things to do is map out processes. People, process, technology. I know you’ve heard me say these words many times before! In just a minute we’ll walk through some key points in the recruiting process and how to utilize technology for talent attraction and candidate engagement. Before we do that, I encourage you to map out your recruiting process along with me, and think about where you can use technology to streamline or improve. When I come across a bottle neck in my day to day work, I like to pause and think about how this task makes its way to me, and then what I do with it. I try to come up with a few creative ways I could streamline, use technology or automate. Freeing up time on administrative works helps us in HR and recruiting spend more time on the human touch – being consultative and building relationships.
I had someone in my network who is an HR department of one tell me recently that she was drowning and tried to make a case to company leadership to hire some additional HR help. They didn’t seem too on board, and she asked my advice on how she presented the ask to them and what I would have done differently. Before diving into that, I asked her what she did to evaluate her current role and time spend before making the ask for additional help.
We discussed her pain points and found some solutions to improve efficiency, automation and streamlining of processes that made her work feel much more manageable. From personal experience I can tell you it’s easier to make a case for additional budget dollars for tools and enhancements when that is much cheaper than the cost of a salary for a new team member. I’m not saying don’t make your case for additional help, of course that absolutely may be needed, but I encourage you to map out your current processes, responsibilities and pain points and see what improvements can be made.
My favorite ways to get input on this are to ask one of my mentors, ask a connection of mine in the HR community who I know may be in a similar role as me, or I ask my IT department. In the past I’ve explained high level what my challenges are and IT recommended to me a new tool that we have included in our Microsoft365 subscription that may be able to help me – talk about Microsoft Power Automate! You have to ask the questions otherwise you may never know what is out there to help you! So let’s dive into some key points in the recruiting process and how to utilize technology for talent attraction and candidate engagement.
Recruiting tools
ATS
Let’s start with an ATS, an applicant tracking system. If you’re a small company who only hires for one role at a time, Zoho recruit free may be a great option for you. Zoho also has a 25 per user per month plan. And let me tell you as a prior HR department of one, that $300 a year would have been well worth it to keep myself organized and provide a great candidate experience. Some of my favorite features that our ATS Loxo has is the ability to send out email templates when candidates are moved into different stages of the process.
For example, when someone applies to one of our open roles, they automatically get a thank you for applying email that includes the link to the job posting, our company name and contact information, what next steps look like, and our blog post on our best 5 tips to ace your virtual interview. We’ve gotten many responses to that email saying thank you for how helpful it was. It sounds basic, but small steps like this and ensuring the candidate knows their information has been received, start to establish credibility between that candidate and your company brand.
Scheduling tools
The next example I want to dive into is scheduling tools. Say you attract that ideal candidate with your job posting and it’s time to schedule them for a screen with a recruiter or HR partner. (be sure to catch up on the last 2 episodes on developing and distributing awesome job postings if you missed it!) We use Calendly. We have an email template in our ATS system ready to go that a recruiter can use to send out a scheduling link to candidates requesting a time to speak with them. Our ATS system integrates with Outlook, so anything we send candidates from the ATS, still shows up in our sent box in Outlook which is wonderful. Remember, don’t worry too much if you don’t have an ATS, you can also create email templates in Outlook and have those handy to send that way as well.
Going back to my recommendation of the week. Not only does Calendly save us time from the back and forth of scheduling, it’s a great opportunity for employer branding in our talent attraction and candidate engagement process. Candidates LIKE using it! They love being able to pick a time that works best for them. Not once have I gotten a comment from a candidate that sending a calendar link feels rude and intrusive. If you’re being kind, thanking them for applying, using your brand voice and tone, and explaining the next steps in the consideration process, candidates will have no problem with picking a time to speak on your calendar link. Calendly then sends them a meeting invite with the Teams connection information included, and you can also fully customize the body of that meeting invite. We use this as another opportunity to include company links and information.
Calendly also has the option to send reminder emails and texts before the scheduled call. Our no show rate for screens has decreased significantly after implementing the text reminders. Calendly can also send a follow up email. We take advantage of this to go out a few hours after the call took place, thanking candidates for their time and reiterating next steps. We get replies to those emails often as well saying thank you, it was wonderful speaking with you and this follow up is helpful.
Video interviewing platforms
Now let’s go into video interviewing platforms. We use Microsoft Teams as our home base, but there are a couple other tools we use in the recruiting process. These tools help us be more efficient and effective in the recruiting process, and provide a great experience for our candidates.
Let’s start with Spark Hire. Spark Hire is a video interviewing platform. It has a ton of capabilities, but we primarily use it for one way video interviews. Don’t come for me yet. Trust me I’ve seen all the hate for one way interviews on those viral LinkedIn posts. My opinion, after reading those posts from recruiters/HR pros who think one way interviews are heartless and candidates who didn’t enjoy the process, is that a lot of the times the WHOLE process that encompassed the request for that one way interview needed some work.
For example if a recruiter sends a link for a one way video to a candidate and asks them to complete it before they will be considered further and no other context. If I was a candidate and that happened to me, I wouldn’t want to do it either! Here at Lighthouse, we make sure rapport is built with the candidate first. They have a Teams video call with one of our recruiters and discuss the position at length. If at the end of the call, we believe they’re a good fit, and the candidate is interested in proceeding, we discuss next steps. Some of our clients like having candidates complete a brief one way video interview. This allows the candidate to showcase their communication skills, personality, voice, and technical expertise on a certain topic.
When explained to the candidate why we use Sparkhire and for what purpose, for the most part they don’t mind doing it. They understand it’s a great opportunity for them to pitch themselves to the hiring team. We also then have to coach our hiring managers on how to review them, what to look for, etc. which is a whole other topic. This helps with efficiency in our recruiting process because the hiring manager can watch 3-5 videos for the top candidates on their own time. This could be early in the morning or late at night, and then pick the top folks they’d like to speak with. As recruiters/HR pros, I always here us say that people are much more than just a resume or a piece of paper. And that’s so true! It’s our job to provide to the hiring manager the candidate’s resume and a detailed write up. A one way video interview also gives that person an opportunity to showcase their personality and voice aside from their piece of paper resume.
AI note taking during interviews
Next, we’ve also started using Metaview. Metaview is a note taking platform built specifically for recruiting. It integrates with Calendly and our Outlook accounts for a seamless experience for us and our candidates. Of course due to GDPR compliance and just being ethical in general, candidates have the opportunity to opt out of having our AI note taker join the Teams video screens. However, when presented to the candidate what the tool is and why we use it, they’re actually more impressed and curious than they are nervous or turned off. Our opt out rate is very low.
Metaview allows our recruiters to be present on their video calls – be more engaged and ask better questions, because they aren’t multi tasking and taking notes. The note taking is wonderful and helps our recruiters capture the needed information to submit the candidate to the hiring manager. Talk about efficiency and candidate experience. Our recruiters can provide a better conversation and experience during the call, focused on human touch because we’ve eliminated the administrative task of note taking.
Use technology during offer extensions
Next, let’s get into the offer stage. Your ATS or HRIS system may have a portal that you can upload your offer letter to and candidates can go in and electronically sign. If you have an ATS or HRIS system, ask this question! In a prior ATS I used, the functionality was there, we just didn’t have it configured or turned on. Docusign works well also! Just please don’t email that word doc or PDF attachment and ask candidates to figure out how to electronically sign it, or worse print it, sign it and take a picture of it to send it back. You have hopefully extended a verbal offer to the candidate, but think about the process in which the way the actual letter gets to them. Consider an email template that has more information about your company, your brand voice and tone, etc.
Wrap-up
Every step in your recruiting process is an attraction and engagement opportunity. An opportunity to share more about the company, express your excitement about them joining your team, and create that brand stickiness and affinity that’s needed for talent retention.
While you’re doing all of this, be sure to keep up posting and engaging from your company LinkedIn page. It’s important to always have your employer brand working for you to attract future applicants, WHILE you’re bringing candidates through the recruiting process.
This week, think about your recruiting process from the lens of talent attraction and candidate engagement, and think about tools that could improve efficiency and the experience for all involved. Thank you for being here with me and joining me for these bite size intros about all things talent attraction, talent acquisition and talent retention. These areas of HR and People Ops are my favorite and specialty, and I’m so excited to dive in with you. This work is what I do, if you need help with the tools, technology and process around how you attract, acquire and retain talent, reach out to me and let’s talk!
Claire is Coaching 