There might come a time in your career as an HR professional when you’re called upon to increase your hiring practices by a large number—maybe in anticipation of a seasonal sales push or if your organization is opening up a new branch. This is known in the industry as high-volume hiring. Simply put, high volume hiring is the process of recruiting a large number of employees in a short timeframe, usually greater than your average hiring rate. When large global organizations have centralized hiring, their hiring process may consistently be considered “high volume.” But whether your company is big or small, these 4 strategies can help any organization manage the daunting task ahead with efficient technology.
1. Programmatic Job Advertising
Take the best step toward a successful hiring process by beginning with an efficient and effective job ad campaign. If you’re hiring for various types of jobs at once, a programmatic platform can engage the best strategy tailored to each vacancy—whether that’s 50 job vacancies or 50,000. This is not something humanly possible but is very much a reality when you take advantage of automated AI-assisted technologies.
For example, Pandologic’s pandoIQ uses natural language processing to categorize job ads by job type, then uses historical job ad campaign data to institute the best sourcing strategy based on the job type. So if you need to hire a truck driver, your ad will be placed where truck drivers search for jobs. This type of targeted strategy is important for high-volume hiring because high-volume job ads typically garner more applicants. The best way to ensure those applicants are high-quality candidates is to implement a strategic sourcing strategy.
The other main advantage of using programmatic job advertising is that it can spend your job ad campaign dollars in the most efficient way. For example, pandoIQ features a budget allocation algorithm that assesses the effectiveness of each job ad’s performance in real-time. So, even when you have 50,000 vacancies to fill, the AI software will be able to optimize your spending across each job ad campaign. To that end, it prioritizes hard-to-fill positions and automatically cuts off spending when a vacancy has collected a sufficient number of applications. For maximizing the efficiency of your high volume hiring, a programmatic job advertising platform is a must.
2. Resume Screening
High volume hiring means an even higher volume of resumes to screen—more than a single HR team can handle. Automating this process is another must when you are hiring in bulk. While most large companies have an ATS system that engages resume screening, it is ideal to have an AI-assisted program that can score resumes and provide a shortlist for your team to consider.
A sophisticated keyword search will use natural language processing to not only find a list of keywords but also to recognize synonyms—a key trait for any intelligent screening system so you’re not missing out on quality candidates with the requisite skills simply because your software can’t “read” the resume properly.
3. Talent Rediscovery
Speaking of your ATS, there is a goldmine of data just waiting to be “rediscovered.” If a candidate has previously applied to other jobs at your organization and you already have all their qualifications sitting in your storehouse of applicant data, shouldn’t you be able to cross-check new vacancies with previous candidates’ qualifications? This is a sourcing strategy that everyone should be using, but your ATS may not have the right functionality to do it.
Talent rediscovery tech that can scan your ATS data can use new job vacancy descriptions to sift through your previous candidates to find the most qualified applicants for the vacancy. Previous applicants are one of your best sources for talent because you can reach qualified candidates who have a proven interest in your organization with a simple search. When it comes to high volume hiring, particularly if your company employs seasonal workers, looking at past applicants a way to find interested candidates quickly.
4. Recruitment Metrics And Analytics
Lastly, you need to keep tabs on your process and your hiring efficiency, from knowing your best sources of hire to understanding how well you’re engaging candidates. Real data that helps you root out inefficiencies is not only helpful for your current high volume hiring needs, but it also helps you optimize your hiring processes in the future. With a variety of tech available to keep tabs on HR analytics, keeping track of metrics is a forward-thinking strategy that will boost your hiring over the long haul.