While many business areas are already highly digitised, HR often still lags behind. A study by Bain & Company, for example, shows that around a third of all HR departments across the USA and Great Britain still work with manual processes, even though they could increase the efficiency of their HR management by around 20 to 30 percent through digitisation.¹ This fact alone makes it clear that moving towards a digitised HR would really pay off.
However, there are other advantages to taking a closer look at digitisation issues: using new technologies that help with process automation, for example, frees up both time and resources. These can be used to respond to any other needs of the new, ever-changing world of work.
Furthermore, digital recruiting also benefits the employer’s image, simply because the application process already says a lot about an employer. Younger generations in particular want to hold discussions at eye level, be valued and find out things in a transparent way. Digitised, optimised and intelligent processes help you to make people the focus of your recruiting processes again and provide your candidates with the best possible experience.
3 tips for digitising your recruitment processes
All in all, it pays to bring your digital know-how up to speed and to focus on a new, future-proof approach to recruiting. But we are aware that such a change can also bring with it major challenges, which is why we have compiled three tips in our blog post that will help you to digitise your processes.
1. Make measuring success the basis of your digital recruiting
Because companies invest a lot of time and money in recruiting activities, they should make sure that the steps they are taking yield the results they want. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are a good basis for measuring success. By comparing these indicators you will see where the current state of recruiting still falls short of your objectives. Especially if you are still at the beginning of digitising your processes and don’t know exactly which measures work best for you, it is definitely worth collecting various key figures and then using them as a basis for evaluations.
The following are among the most important key figures in recruiting, and they can easily be collected with applicant management software:
Time to hire
Time to hire measures the time it takes to hire a person, starting from the job approval and budget release and ending with the signing of the contract. From the candidate’s point of view, this should ideally take a maximum of 21 days.
Time to reply
The time to reply refers to the time it takes for candidates to receive an initial response from the company. Normally, this should happen within the first seven days after receipt of the application.
Churn rate
The churn rate reflects the number of applicants who drop out of the application process. A high churn rate is often an indicator that the candidate’s journey is not appealing enough in their eyes.
2. Employer ratings for a strong employer brand
While for a long time salary was considered to be the decisive factor for choosing an employer, it is becoming increasingly clear that, in addition to receiving an attractive remuneration, finding the right cultural fit also plays a decisive role. This was revealed not least by an online survey conducted by XING. In the course of the survey, 90% of respondents stated that the right cultural fit with their employer is important to them. Digital tools and processes can be a great help in building a positive employer image.
Actively collecting employer reviews, for example, is a great help in building a meaningful employer branding. Platforms such as kununu are not always popular with employers, since there are sometimes negative comments about them. But it’s also clear that potential applicants talk about companies and their application processes on social network platforms anyway: so why not actively shape the evaluation process and use the feedback to make improvements?
Assessments should, however, always be commented on. First separate negative comments into those that the company can influence and those that it can’t. How can a company react in a constructive way? How can it correct aspects that have been unfairly criticised? What can it learn from these assessments? The dialogue held within the community is, in any case, an added bonus and shows potential candidates that you deal with feedback in an honest way and are also prepared to develop and improve.
3. Maximising your reach thanks to social media
Nowadays, if you want to be at the forefront of recruiting processes, then expanding your search for personnel to include the digital space is an absolute must. In addition to online job exchanges and a professional career site, social networks such as XING, Facebook, Instagram etc. have become an integral part of a digital recruiting strategy.
Career networks such as XING and LinkedIn are particularly well-suited for searching for suitable employees. Here, recruiters will not only find detailed information about a person’s CV and skills, but can also easily contact them via instant message. However, there are a few points to consider to make a direct approach successful:
- Use standardised mass messages or paid advertisements as sparingly as possible, or perhaps avoid them altogether.
- Before sending a personal message that specifically refers to the CV, first have a detailed look at the person’s profile.
- Try to also identify the person’s individual needs, wishes and possible concerns based on their profile, and respond to them. This may not always be possible, but it will increase the chances of receiving a response.
Conclusion
Cultural change, lack of expertise and, last but not least, the pandemic have all had a lasting impact on our world of work. If you want to recruit successfully in times of the “New Normal”, you have to be prepared to make people the focus of your recruiting processes again and to respond to the changed needs of your target group. But this can only be done by implementing new, future-proof concepts such as a digital employer brand, data-driven processes and appropriate reach. Harness the full potential of digital recruiting and bring your digital know-how up to speed.
¹ Human Resources 4.0: Digitalization sweeping aside analog HR management, Bain & Company, 2019
