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Looking for Healthcare Recruiting Software? Use This Checklist

Posted on by rachel
Employees that were recruited via healthcare recruiting software.

If you’re like most recruitment teams in healthcare, you’re feeling the pressures of the industry. Few recruiters, an abundance of open roles, and a major talent shortage create a perfect storm for today’s talent teams. And the secret to successfully navigating the rough waters? Enlisting the help of healthcare recruiting software.

The right technology allows healthcare recruiters to streamline their processes for efficiency and scale their interview volume—even when facing limited resources. But with a variety of software options out there, how can you ensure you’re investing in the right one? 

Use our 10-point checklist to help you choose the best healthcare recruiting software:

1. Compatibility With Your Existing Systems

First things first: the software that you choose should be compatible with your existing systems. You’ll want to ensure that the software can seamlessly integrate with your ATS and any other critical systems that help you move your recruitment process along. The last thing you want is the inability to use your current systems or to transfer your data between your old and new tech; that’s simply an unnecessary headache. 

2. Ease of Use

Software that’s intuitive and easy to use is a must-have.  This will help get your talent team up and running to use the tech quickly without intensive training. Scheduling conversations with the sales team to get a live demo and understand the product’s interface is a great way to gauge how user-friendly it is.

3. High-volume Features

Many healthcare recruiters find themselves faced with a revolving door of vacancies and endless roles to fill. Overcoming the challenges of high-volume hiring requires recruiting software with specific features. This includes bulk communication and scheduling, self-scheduling, and SMS recruiting, all designed to handle a high level of reqs and a large candidate pool.

4. Recruiting Process Automation

72% of employers predict that parts of their talent acquisition will be automated within the next decade—and we believe them. Automation is a recruiter’s best friend. It cuts down time-to-hire by reducing the time spent on tedious tasks, and when you’re an overburdened healthcare recruiter, an increase in bandwidth is always appreciated.

Look for tech that can automatically load balance interviews and select interviewers, schedule interviews, generate communications, and send out calendar invites and reminders to candidates and interviewers.

5. Reporting and Analytics

Your healthcare recruiting software should give you visibility into the metrics that you need to succeed. For starters, you’ll want to have access to a robust analytics dashboard to reference the status of candidates and see where they’re at in the talent acquisition funnel. Software that also allows you to view data on your hiring team, such as each RC’s total schedules, provides your team with even more valuable insights to use when refining your operations.

6. Customization and Personalization Options

It’s also wise to look for software that offers customization and personalization options. Note: your new software should automate all customizing and personalizing to avoid creating more work for yourself. Even when sending out quick text messages to healthcare applicants, adding a bit of personalization to your messages via custom communication templates goes a long way in uplifting the candidate experience. 

7. Branding Abilities

Want to maintain a consistent brand image throughout your recruitment process? Then you’ll want to look for software that allows you to customize the branding and appearance of the platform. This may include adding your company logo, choosing your own color scheme, and adding company photos.

8. Security

Security is a top concern regarding software, and it’s especially important for an industry as scrutinized as healthcare. You’ll want to do thorough research to ensure that the software you choose has robust measures in place to protect user information and maintain data security. Look for information on how your team can manage users, permissions, and login to the software, and what access users get with regard to sensitive information and calendars. 

9. Customer Support and Services

It’s a good idea to consider the level of customer support offered by the software vendor. Onboarding new tech isn’t always a cakewalk; you’ll want access to experts that can guide your success from day one and help you maximize your ROI. Access to an appointed customer success professional and technical support will help you ramp up your team quickly and resolve any issues that arise.

10. Pricing

And then there’s the elephant in the room: pricing. Yet conversations on pricing should go beyond discussing what your team is willing to spend. You don’t just want software that fits within your budget; you want software that gives you the highest ROI possible. But how do you determine this? It’s time to research.

Sift through customer testimonials and reviews on popular software review sites, such as G2, that illustrate the output that a particular software generated for other talent teams. Pay careful attention to companies that also fall under the healthcare umbrella to more closely predict how your own team might fare if you invested in the software. 

Heal Your Hiring Process With Healthcare Recruiting Software

 By taking the time to carefully evaluate each of these factors, you’ll ensure that you choose the right software for your organization’s specific needs and goals. But we get it—it’s hard to feel confident in investing in a software when there’s so many elements to consider and so many options on the market. 

With GoodTime Hire, healthcare companies feel confident that they can meet their business needs. Hire helps healthcare recruitment teams schedule interviews for roles up to 67% faster. 

Want to see how Hire can help your team crush their hiring goals, boost efficiency, and win top talent? Learn more here. 

Text Recruiting: The Ultimate Guide

Posted on by rachel
Talent leader using text recruiting.

If you’re unfamiliar with text recruiting, then buckle up; it’s time to catch you up to speed. Recruiting via SMS effectively meets candidates where they are in today’s fast-paced, mobile-friendly world. It’s an efficient way for businesses to quickly get in front of busy candidates and tackle a high volume of reqs.

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you must know for successful text recruiting and provide best practices for incorporating this approach into your recruitment process. 

What Is Text Recruiting?

Text recruiting involves using text messaging to communicate with candidates and facilitate the hiring process. It can be used in a variety of applications, including scheduling interviews, sending quick updates, and answering candidate questions.

It’s a great way to reach a large pool of candidates in a short amount of time with quick, convenient communication. While recruiting via email and phone calls might’ve been the norm in the past, the tides are shifting; nearly 66% of candidates consider it acceptable to be contacted by a recruiter via text.

Advantages of Text Recruiting

Need some more convincing before you get on the text recruiting train? There’s a wide range of advantages to SMS recruitment. Here are just a few:

More Convenient for Candidates

When it comes to the most convenient communication channel, text messaging wins by a landslide. Recruiters texting candidates experience response rates of 60% to 70%. For job seekers who don’t have access to email throughout the day, such as those in manufacturing and healthcare, SMS may be the only channel that they check frequently.

Improved Hiring Process Efficiency

Acting too slowly in communication with talent strikes a blow to your hiring efficiency and might even cause candidates to lose patience and seek out other opportunities. Recruiters who text candidates can reduce their time-to-hire and fill positions faster with quick, real-time responses. 

Greater Candidate Reach

Sending bulk texts to candidates is a game changer for overburdened high-volume recruiters. But regardless of if you use text recruiting for one-on-one conversations or bulk messaging, SMS recruitment allows you to reach large pools of candidates in no time. 

Upgraded Candidate Experience

Text message recruiting is a user-friendly way for candidates to communicate with your company. Making communication as streamlined and modernized as possible helps improve the candidate experience and makes your company more attractive to top talent.

When To Use SMS Recruitment

When does recruiting via text come in handy? Here are several scenarios where texting candidates can efficiently move the hiring process along:

  • Interview scheduling: Say goodbye to scheduling delays. The convenience of text messaging makes coordinating interviews via text highly effective.
  • Sending candidates updates: Even if you don’t have major news to share, candidates appreciate being kept informed on their status in the hiring process.
  • Answering applicant questions: Candidates want to feel that your hiring team has their best interest in mind. Encouraging candidates to message any questions that they have about the process fosters trust and transparency.

Text is a great tool for initial communication and scheduling interviews, but it’s not the most appropriate channel for every stage of the hiring process. For instance, you may want to switch to a more personal communication channel, such as a phone call or a virtual meeting, for more in-depth conversations or for making a job offer.

Best Practices for Text Recruiting

Ready to reach hiring success at scale? Here are several tips to keep in mind when introducing text recruiting into your hiring process:

Before Your Initial Outreach

  • Get permission first: Don’t text candidates without their consent. One of the easiest and most common ways to get their permission is by getting them to opt-in to your SMS list or by including a contact number field on the job application form.
  • Keep it professional: Speaking in acronyms and spamming emojis might be normal for everyday texting, but text recruiting is a professional communication channel. Speak in plain, easy-to-understand language and leave the slang at the door. 
  • Communicate with brevity: Candidates don’t want to read essay-length texts (and personally, we don’t either). Text messages should be brief and to the point to encourage responses and avoid overwhelming candidates.
  • Make templates your friend: Leverage customizable templates for common messages, such as your initial outreach in scheduling an interview. This not only saves time but adds consistency to your communication.
  • Even texts must be proofread: Sending candidates text messages riddled with grammatical errors delegitimizes your outreach and whichever job posting you’re referencing. Proofread, proofread, proofread.
  • Get the timing right: Sorry, but candidates don’t want you to blow up their phones with texts at midnight. Take note of their time zone and keep your communication limited to business hours. 

After Your Initial Outreach

  • Respect a candidate’s time: A candidate might’ve seen your text, but that doesn’t mean they’ll respond right away. The ability to respond at whatever time is most convenient is the beauty of texting; be respectful of their time and avoid sending multiple messages all in one short period.
  • Be responsive and available: Candidates like it when recruiters go the extra mile to make them feel heard. If candidates have questions or concerns, make sure to address them in a timely manner. This demonstrates that you’re invested in their potential as a candidate.
  • Follow through: If you say you will send additional information or schedule a call, keep yourself honest and do so in a timely manner. This gives off the impression that you view your candidates as high priorities.
  • Know when to follow up: So you’re trying to schedule an interview with a candidate, and two days go by without any response back. Now that you’ve given them an appropriate window of time to respond, it’s time to follow up. Send a brief message asking if the candidate received your previous message and if they have any questions or concerns.

Add a Best-in-Class SMS Solution to Your Tech Stack

Successfully recruiting via text is a lot easier when you have the right text recruiting software by your side. GoodTime Hire’s SMS capabilities take high-volume hiring to the next level. Teams can contact candidates in seconds and schedule a time to meet without ever leaving the conversation.

Communicate one-on-one or through bulk texts, directly share your calendar availability and allow candidates to self-schedule interviews, and send automatic reminders to both candidates and interviewers. 

Learn more about GoodTime Hire’s texting and scheduling automation for high-volume hiring today.

7 Talent Acquisition Trends for 2023 (And How to Succeed)

Posted on by rachel
A team discussing talent acquisition trends, preparing for 2023.

Break out those fireworks, talent teams, because 2023 is almost here. But if you want to start the year with a bang, you can’t go into it blind. To thrive in the new year, you must prepare for what the next twelve months have in store—and that means getting familiar with the upcoming 2023 talent acquisition trends.

We’re not psychics, but based on where 2022 left off, we predict that these will be the seven more important trends in talent acquisition next year.

1. Labor Shortage Sparks Challenges

The supply of working-age people will continue to decrease throughout 2023. In fact, over the next decade, the number of working-age people in the U.S. will decline by 3.2%. On top of this, the pandemic still wields a visible impact; there are over 3 million fewer working Americans today than there were pre-pandemic.

When you combine the aging population with the pandemic’s effects, you have a significant labor shortage. Sorry to say, but attracting and hiring candidates won’t get any easier.

Two Strategies for Success: 

  • Diversify your candidate pool. Struggling to find candidates? Tap into different talent pools. For instance, advertise on diversity-driven job boards or take advantage of the fresh Gen Z candidates entering the workforce.
  • Set realistic expectations. Hot take, but the “perfect” candidate doesn’t exist. If you’re dead set on finding a unicorn candidate, you’re likely overlooking plenty of other viable options (and you can’t afford to do that in a labor shortage).

2. Retention Grows in Importance

About 40% of HR professionals said talent acquisition was a major priority for 2021. In 2022, that percentage dropped to 17%. Now, HR teams are focused on strategies that fuel talent retention: employee engagement, compensation, and L&D.

It’s no surprise that retention is becoming a priority. When the job market is tight and finding talent is difficult, employee churn deals an even greater blow to companies. (Not to mention that replacing workers is expensive.) 

Two Strategies for Success:

  • Emphasize internal mobility. Employees who move around within their own companies are more likely to stay for the long haul. Giving employees meaningful opportunities to grow and develop through internal moves leaves them with fewer reasons to leave.
  • Revamp your benefits and perks. Perhaps your employee benefits and perks could use a makeover. To ensure that what you’re offering still aligns with what your employees value the most, ask for their feedback.

3. Rise of the Employer Brand

Your employer brand encompasses how others perceive your company. It’ll be essential in 2023, yet for varying reasons depending on your industry and place in the hiring sphere.

Perhaps waves of layoffs have hit your company this year (we’re looking at you, tech industry). Candidates value job security, and catching wind that your company laid off a sizeable chunk of its staff makes them weary. How does your organization plan on assuaging these fears and improving your public image in 2023?

Or maybe misperceptions of your industry have made it difficult to attract workers, specifically young candidates. This is especially true for the manufacturing industry; less than 50% of young workers see manufacturing as a viable career.

Two Strategies for Success:

  • Freshen up your employee value proposition. Remember: candidate values change all the time. Does your EVP still resonate with what modern candidates care about? If not, it’s time to revamp it.
  • Actually commit to DEIB. Candidates want to know where you stand on DEIB before they accept a job offer. Audit your career page and hiring process for opportunities to showcase your DEIB initiatives and values. 

4. Impending Recession Inflicts More Damage

The looming recession is the elephant in the room for 2023 strategy meetings. Companies have begun to trim their budgets and their workforces in response to economic uncertainty.

But while some companies are bracing for what’s to come, most tech companies are already wondering, “When will this end?” Thus far in 2022, over 140,000 tech workers have been laid off. Each month, more and more high-profile workforce cuts make the headlines (sorry, not all talent acquisition trends can be fun).

Two Strategies for Success: 

  • Refine your tech stack. Want to emerge from the downturn stronger than ever? Then implement recruitment technology. Investing in the right tech places you in the best position possible once you revert back to your normal hiring cadence.
  • Maximize what you have. When faced with a smaller budget and fewer resources, you must do more with less. Instead of spending time and money hiring external candidates, consider your current employees. And instead of throwing everything at the wall to see if it sticks, use your hiring data to make informed, precise decisions. 

5. Skills Gap Continues to Widen

As technology continues its high-speed evolution, the global skills shortage worsens. Old skills die out just as fast as new skills emerge, and not every company can keep up. In fact, most companies worldwide—87%—say that they have a skills gap or will have one within the next few years. 

Companies say that their skills gaps are the widest in the areas of data analytics, IT management, and executive management. Looking to the future, these same companies agree that the need for advanced data analysis and mathematical skills will grow dire.

Two Strategies for Success:

  • Upskill your current workforce. In the age of digital transformation, upskilling your employees is a must-do. Your company can’t keep up with the latest trends if your employees don’t have the latest skills.
  • Rethink how you evaluate candidates. Don’t weed out promising talent just because of “red flags” that don’t even reflect a candidate’s abilities, like having gaps in a resume. When assessing candidates, focus on the knowledge, skills, and capabilities displayed in their application. 

6. Automation Takes the Spotlight

Automation is a growing topic in the world of talent acquisition. It takes care of the time-consuming parts of your recruitment process so that you have more time to spend on high-value initiatives.

Looking to the future of recruiting, automation adoption is sure to increase as more teams discover its benefits. And with a recession, labor shortage, and a workforce skills gap on the horizon, leveraging automation could mark the difference between hiring teams that thrive and flounder.

Two Strategies for Success:

  • Don’t wait to shop for tech. The sooner that you automate your workflow, the sooner you’ll reap automation’s rewards. Automating the interview scheduling process reduces your time-to-hire, delivers a better candidate experience, and moves you closer to hitting your goals.
  • Leverage the right automation. You’ve been warned: not all automation is created equal. Subpar scheduling automation can’t handle the challenges of everyday scheduling. You want automation that can intelligently select interviewers, schedule for speed or for “best fit,” and identify interview options spanning one or multiple days.

7. Evolution of Pay Transparency

Pay transparency made a splash in 2022. New York City joined the ranks of Colorado and Connecticut in requiring companies to include salary ranges in job postings, and California is soon to follow in 2023. 

By the beginning of 2023, one-fifth of U.S. workers will be covered under pay transparency laws. As workforces and candidates demand discussions on salary, HR and talent acquisition must respond. Are you prepared?

Two Strategies for Success:

  • Determine your transparency level. Not every organization is ready to go all-in on full transparency. As a starting point for identifying where you want to be on the spectrum, survey employees to understand what they’d like to know about salaries.
  • Get real during the interview process. Don’t wait until the last moment to disclose the true salary offer. Yes, candidates want to do meaningful work, but they also want to be paid well while doing it. They want to discuss compensation in early conversations to know if the role is worthwhile.

Ring in the New Year With Powerful Recruitment Tech

Now that you’re caught up on the biggest talent acquisition trends coming in the new year, we have one final suggestion to make 2023 your team’s best year yet. Start the year off on the right foot with best-in-class recruiting tech.

GoodTime Hire helps reduce your time-to-hire, crush your goals, and deliver a seamless candidate experience. Hire automates the entire interview scheduling process to create the optimal schedule for candidates and interviewers and get to the offer stage faster than ever.

See how Hire can transform your recruiting process today.

What Recruiters Must Know About the (Still) Tight Labor Market

Posted on by rachel
Recruiting in the tight labor market.

Think it’s no longer a tight labor market? Think again. While the hiring landscape is constantly in flux, the shallow talent pool has remained consistent. When there’s a lack of candidates and an abundance of vacant roles, recruitment teams must think differently about the ways that they hire. Old processes and workflows cannot remain the same. 

Here’s what recruiters must know to successfully navigate this (still) tight labor market, make the most of their candidate pipeline, and fill their vacancies.

Population Ages and Labor Supply Shrinks

People are aging out of the workforce in droves. In the next decade, the supply of working-age people in the U.S. will decline by 3.2%. The number of people over 65 years old will reach 1.3 billion in the next 20 years.

The aging population coupled with the pandemic’s lasting effects on the labor force creates a perfect storm. There are over 3 million fewer Americans in the labor force today than there were in February 2020. Even if every unemployed person in the U.S. found employment, there would still be 4 million open jobs. 

Unemployed workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic cite a variety of reasons as to why they haven’t returned to work. Some (27%) say that the need to care for their family members has made it difficult to return to the workforce, and others (28%) say that their own declining health stands between them and a new job.

What does all of this mean for talent acquisition professionals? In short, qualifying and hiring enough candidates to fill their vacancies won’t get easier anytime soon. 

It’s a Candidate’s Market—and You Must Adapt

With employers chomping at the bit to fill their vacancies, candidates have the upper hand. It’s not just a tight labor market—it’s a candidate’s market, and they have a robust wish list for recruitment teams and future employers.

What Candidates Want From the Hiring Process

Before candidates even consider accepting a job offer, candidates have specific expectations about the interview process. Whether the hiring experience lives up to expectations heavily dictates if talent teams can turn their offer into a “yes”:

  • Respect their time. Candidates want to interview at times that are convenient for them. They appreciate it when recruiting teams ask for their availability first. Scheduling a disruptive all-day interview leaves a bad impression; they’d rather interview in chunks scheduled across a week. 
  • Smooth out your process’s kinks. Speed and efficiency win candidates. They won’t stick around for a long, drawn-out hiring process. The more that you optimize your operations to deliver the most efficient experience possible, the better. (Hint: automation and standardization can help with that.)
  • Practice salary transparency. Waiting until the last moment to disclose a role’s salary is a risky move. Candidates want to do meaningful work, but they also want to be paid well in the process; they want to discuss dollar signs in early conversations to know if they’re wasting their time. 
  • Define what a “great work-life balance” means. Your job description might applaud your company for offering employees a work-life balance, but what does that really mean? Interviewers should come prepared to provide anecdotal evidence on how their company follows through on this promise. 
  • Show diversity through your interview panels. No one likes someone who’s all talk and no action. You can’t just say that you value DE&I—you have to show it. One way to do this is by ensuring that your interview panels consist of a diverse range of interviewers. This will give candidates a glimpse into the diversity of your company’s employees.

What Candidates Want From Their New Roles

Even after a candidate accepts an offer, talent acquisition professionals aren’t in the clear just yet. Acquisition and retention are two sides of the same coin, both equally important. 

If talent teams want to not only acquire but retain their new hires, they should get familiar with what candidates value in the workplace. Here’s how candidates rank their priorities:

  1. Compensation & benefits
  2. Work-life balance
  3. Remote & flexible work arrangements
  4. Opportunities for upskilling
  5. Opportunities for career advancement
  6. Work that creates a real impact
  7. Job security
  8. Happy coworkers
  9. Helpful management
  10. Culture of innovation

Ways To Widen the Talent Pool You (Likely) Haven’t Tried

What’s a talent team to do when there’s a shortage of qualified candidates? Have no fear—there are several strategies for widening the candidate pool that you likely haven’t tested:

  • Emphasize university recruiting. As older employees leave the workforce, new graduates enter it. Young prospective workers with fresh skills and perspectives are viable targets for recruitment teams in a talent drought. 
  • Give returning citizens a chance. With recruiting teams scrambling to find talent, more companies are providing opportunities to formerly incarcerated individuals. While workers with criminal records face negative biases, research shows that they tend to have longer tenures and are less likely to voluntarily quit their jobs. 
  • Hire across the globe. Candidates are hungry for remote work—and your talent team is hungry for candidates. To meet in the middle, consider hiring remote candidates. We know, remodeling to accommodate remote talent is a big lift, but boy does it pay off. 
  • Prioritize continuous candidate engagement. Practicing continuous candidate engagement means engaging and re-engaging candidates before, during, and after the hiring process. You’ll have a pool of quality, pre-vetted candidates to consider for opportunities. This way, you won’t have to source new candidates every time a role opens up. 

Thrive in the Tight Labor Market With Quality Recruiting Tech

Still scratching your head and wondering how to succeed in today’s tight job market? The right recruiting tech can alleviate all of your hiring headaches in one fell swoop. 

GoodTime Hire allows you to maintain a high-quality candidate pipeline, move fast on the best talent, and effortlessly crush your hiring goals. Hire automates the entire interview scheduling process to create the optimal schedule for candidates and interviewers and get to the offer stage faster than ever.

See how Hire can transform your recruiting process today.

Recruiters in Tech Have a Time-to-Hire Problem. Here’s How To Fix It.

Posted on by rachel
Recruiters in tech collaborating.

In the war for tech talent, no recruiting team wants to be left in the dust. Decreasing your time-to-hire is a reliable way to outpace the competition. Yet based on the data from our 2022 Hiring Insights Report: Technology Industry, few recruiters in tech have seen their time-to-hire decline.

If alarms aren’t going off in your head, they should be. A long, inefficient hiring process is a candidate-repellant (and recruiting tech talent is already hard enough). 

Recruiters in tech should take proactive steps to decrease their time-to-hire—and we’re here to help them do that.

What is Time-to-Hire?

First, let’s get back to the basics. Average time-to-hire refers to the time that passes from when a candidate submits their application to when the candidate accepts a job offer.

Note: this isn’t the same as time-to-fill, but they’re often confused with each other. The interval for time-to-fill begins before time-to-hire; it measures the time from when a job requisition is posted to when a candidate accepts an offer.

What’s a “good” time-to-hire for a tech company recruiter? It’s hard to say. Average time-to-hire ebbs and flows with economic and market conditions, the seasons, and requisition loads. 

Even company size matters. The average time-to-hire for smaller tech companies is 29 days, while larger tech companies see an average of 43 days. Smaller tech companies tend to have fewer hoops to jump through to bring on new hires, which decreases time-to-hire. 

The State of Tech Recruiting’s Time-to-Hire

How did tech companies stack up in 2021? We conducted our 2022 Hiring Insights Report: Technology Industry to find out. After surveying 409 talent leaders across the tech industry in the U.S., we saw that the industry’s time-to-hire isn’t a pretty picture.

The majority of talent teams in tech—58%—said that their time-to-hire increased. Only 9% saw it decrease. 

But not everything from our survey is doom and gloom. Talent leaders said that improving hiring efficiency is currently their biggest focus area for the future (41%). With the current condition of their time-to-hire, hiring efficiency needs all of the focus that it can get. 

Why Does This Matter?

There are innumerable benefits to keeping a firm pulse on your time-to-hire and taking active steps to decrease it. Here are a few reasons why time-to-hire matters:

  • Slow processes kill a candidate’s interest. A short time-to-hire keeps candidates engaged.
  • Hiring fast increases the chance that you’ll win the most qualified candidates before your competition.
  • Time-to-hire illuminates the bottlenecks in your hiring process, and your holistic ability to compete in the market.
  • Agile recruiting provides candidates with a smooth hiring experience and boosts your employer brand.
  • Lengthy hiring processes that leave positions unfilled negatively impact company revenue.

The tech industry’s increasing time-to-hire is concerning. Even as hiring slowdowns and fears of a tech recession ricochet across the industry, time-to-hire is still a critical KPI. 

Regardless of hiring volume, hiring with speed is of utmost importance. If your company is hiring at its normal volume, you’ll face the challenge of finding and winning enough qualified candidates. If your company is hiring to a lesser degree, you’ll need to hire fewer but higher quality people. 

No matter what group you reside in, establishing an efficient hiring process to decrease your time-to-hire is the key to securing the best talent. 

How to Fix Tech’s Time-to-Hire Problem

From implementing automation to keeping candidates engaged, recruiters in tech must institute the right processes to get talent in the door faster while still delivering the high-quality hiring experience that candidates expect.

1. Let Your Hiring Data Be Your Guide

There’s always something to learn from your data, especially when identifying and resolving efficiency gaps. Use the data on your hiring process to diagnose what’s helping and hurting your time-to-hire. Then, you can make adjustments accordingly. 

For example, what does your response rate look like? Are candidates more receptive to correspondence via email or text? And what about your time between stages? Are you keeping your talented candidates waiting days and days before moving them on to the next interview?

2. Get Real With Your Hiring Manager

We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: the “perfect candidate” doesn’t exist. Your picky hiring manager with a laundry list of requirements, searching for their purple unicorn candidate, is in for a rude awakening once their role sits open for months. 

The importance of creating alignment between hiring managers and recruiters in tech early on cannot be overstated. Hold an intake meeting to discuss what a realistic ideal candidate looks like, and what touchpoints are necessary to hire this person. 

Here are several other topics to cover in your intake meetings:

  • Ideal candidate profile
  • Hiring process objectives
  • Job requirements
  • Title & salary
  • Hiring process stages
  • Sourcing strategies

When done correctly, the alignment from intake meetings ensures that the hiring process moves along at a steady pace and onboards the right person in a timely manner.

3. Say Goodbye to Manual Interview Scheduling

No matter the industry or company, all recruiting coordinators know the pain of sifting through calendars to find the perfect interview time. Manual scheduling invites hiring delays and bottlenecks—and nobody wants that. 

And what about when one of your interviewers cancels last minute? (Because yes, you know it’s going to happen.) Then suddenly you’re back to square one, up to your eyeballs in calendars, looking for an alternate interviewer with a free afternoon to speak to your candidate.

Automation is the solution to your interview scheduling headaches. By leveraging the right tech to automate your scheduling process, you’ll get a meeting on the books within seconds. Don’t believe us? Check out the difference that automation made for HubSpot’s talent team. 

4. Capture Your Candidate’s Attention

If you struggle to get talent to say “yes” to offers, or if candidates drop out left and right, then you have a candidate engagement problem—and this means bad news for your time-to-hire.

Every touchpoint in your hiring process should engage candidates and nurture your candidate relationships. If candidates don’t feel connected to your talent team, your company will quickly fade into the background amid competing opportunities (that’s right, your candidates are most certainly shopping around).

The secret sauce to cultivating impactful candidate relationships consists of four pillars:

  • Genuine Connection: Candidates want to have meaningful conversations about your company’s mission, culture, and DEIB beliefs. They want to uncover if they align with what your company stands for. 
  • Transparency: Candidates expect a transparent hiring process. Candidates want open communication from employers. Most recently, at the top of their wish list is pay transparency.
  • Adaptability: Your hiring process must adapt to the calendars of your candidates. They want to schedule interviews at times that best fit their everyday lives.
  • Candidate Well-being: Candidates want to understand how your company proactively supports employee mental health, and learn about any related benefits that are offered.  

Hey Recruiters in Tech: Want More Hiring Trends?

Don’t let a skyrocketing time-to-hire bring your hiring process down. To keep your time-to-hire in check, get into the habit of identifying bottlenecks and optimizing your process for speed and efficiency.

If you want to learn more about the latest trends in tech hiring, then read through our 2022 Hiring Insights Report: Technology Industry. It’s one of the best ways to keep pace with the evolving landscape.

Download the report today to see how tech companies are adapting their hiring.

Neurodiversity Hiring: The Essential Guide

Posted on by rachel
Neurodiversity hiring in action; recruiter speaking to a candidate.

A diverse workforce is invaluable to a company’s innovation, creativity, and holistic success. In fact, diverse teams produce 19% higher revenue (no joke). But while talent acquisition professionals have turned their attention to attracting and supporting candidates from diverse backgrounds, neurodiversity hiring is still overlooked.

Neurodiversity refers to variations in the way that people’s brains work. The term is often used in reference to people with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurological conditions. 

Despite the benefits of a diverse workplace, the hiring process often leaves neurodiverse candidates at a disadvantage. Traditional recruitment methods favor neurotypical candidates (people with “typical” neurological development or functioning). This makes it incredibly hard for neurodiverse individuals to land roles; one in five adults with autism is unemployed.

It’s time to close the neurodiversity hiring gap. Here’s how to make your hiring process inclusive and supportive of neurodiverse candidates.

1. Recruit With the Right Mindset: Differences, Not Deficits

Neurodiversity represents differences in cognitive functioning, not deficits. Take this sentiment and make it the foundation of your neurodiversity hiring efforts. Viewing neurodiverse candidates as less adept than their neurotypical counterparts is harmful and completely incorrect.

Neurodiversity brings fresh perspectives and out-of-the-box thinking to the workplace. Neurodiverse talent deserve an equal shot at employment, just as all candidates do. 

2. Partner with Experts in Neurodiversity Hiring

Supporting and hiring neurodiverse candidates might feel like uncharted territory. If you’re questioning whether you have enough knowledge to implement effective initiatives, reach out to expert organizations for help.

For instance, the non-profit organization Specialisterne helped Goldman Sachs shape its Neurodiversity Hiring Initiative internship program. Neurodiversity in the Workplace, another non-profit organization specializing in supporting neurodiverse candidates, has partnered with Dell and VMware to set up their neurodiversity hiring programs.

3. Make Your Job Adverts Inclusive of Neurodiversity

Convoluted, exclusionary job adverts can dissuade neurodiverse talent from applying to your organization. Even if you think your job adverts are inclusive, give them another glance and analyze them from a neurodiverse applicant’s perspective.

Part of using inclusive language involves using concise, plain words and phrases that could be understood by any applicant, regardless of their cognitive differences. Are your adverts straightforward? Or do they include unnecessary corporate jargon? 

Candidates from underrepresented groups (URGs), like neurodiverse candidates, have a tendency to self-eliminate from the hiring process if they don’t meet all of the requirements. As one of our many inclusive recruiting best practices, remove any requirements that aren’t directly conducive to success in a position. 

If you don’t already have one, draft up a diversity and inclusion statement for all of your adverts. SHRM has provided a template to use. State your willingness to make reasonable accommodations in the application and/or hiring process; this will go a long way in making neurodiverse talent feel confident enough to apply.

4. Schedule Interviews Across Multiple Days

Some neurodiverse candidates practice masking when they interview, a method where they hide certain traits and behaviors to pass as a neurotypical person. Now, imagine having to do that for hours on end in back-to-back interviews—yeah, it’s rough.

All-day interviews can feel like an inconvenience to neurotypical candidates and an incredibly exhausting ordeal to neurodiverse candidates. Luckily, there’s an easy solution: break up the interviews into chunks across multiple days. This gives neurodiverse candidates time to decompress and prepare themselves for the next meeting.

And if there was ever a time to ditch all-day interviews, the time is now. With the rise of remote work and remote recruiting, the traditional all-day, onsite interview is quickly becoming an outdated practice. Our thoughts? Good riddance. (What, too harsh?)

5. Interviewing Neurodiverse Candidates: Prioritize Training

Whether your candidate is neurodiverse or neurotypical, training your interviewers and modifying your interviewing tactics for inclusivity benefits all candidates. (Need a guide on all-things interviewer training? Check this out.)

Here are several quick tips for interviewing neurodiverse talent:

  • Select questions about a candidate’s work experience and skill set; avoid hypotheticals.
  • Be direct with your questions. Don’t be vague.
  • Neurodiverse candidates might struggle to make eye contact or fidget. Don’t let body language influence your decisions.
  • Patience is a virtue: allow candidates time to gather their thoughts, and don’t interrupt.

6. Ask for Candidate Feedback—and Use It

Did you know that 75% of candidates report rarely or never being asked their opinions, even though 68% want to provide feedback after an interview? Talk about a missed opportunity.

Collecting feedback from neurodiverse candidates gives you insight into the quality of your hiring process. You’ll find out if your process is really as inclusive as you think it is, and learn how you can improve the interviewing experience for future candidates. 

If you’re questioning whether you have the bandwidth to kickstart a feedback collection initiative, the answer is yes. You just need the right tech tools to automate the process.

Keep Inclusivity at the Center of Your Hiring Process

Neurodiversity hiring doesn’t have to be complicated. It begins with putting yourself in your candidates’ shoes and fine-tuning your hiring process. Celebrating neurodiversity is the right thing to do, and it gives your team an edge over the talent competition.

With GoodTime Hire, you can start the hiring process on the right foot by creating diverse and inclusive interview panels.

Hire’s self-identification tagging system allows you to group interviewers based on characteristics—such as “nerdette” for female engineers—to create panels that represent the diverse perspectives at your company.

Learn more about how Hire can help elevate DE&I in your hiring process today.

What a Tech Recession Means for Your Recruiting Team

Posted on by rachel
Hiring team strategizing for a tech recession.

As the U.S. prepares for a looming economic crash, layoffs and hiring freezes sweep through the tech industry. With a possible tech recession on the horizon (yes, we said the “R” word), Big Tech and startups alike are battening down the hatches. 

Now that tech companies are reeling in or freezing their hiring, the role of recruitment is in flux. How would a tech recession affect recruiting operations? And most importantly, how should talent acquisition professionals ride out the storm?

The State of the Tech Industry

What goes up must come down. After 2021’s rapid-fire hiring, soaring startup valuations, and wild rides on Wall Street, the tech industry’s growth is losing momentum. With evidence of declining sales and profit margins across the US, and worries that they might’ve hired too rapidly and expanded too much last year, tech companies are bracing for rough waters.

Companies have trimmed their budgets and their workforces to cope with the economic uncertainty. Each passing month brings more high-profile tech layoffs. Thus far in 2022, over 120,000 workers in the tech industry have been laid off. Twitter, Netflix, Snap, and Robinhood are among the organizations that have made cuts.

1 in 5 tech companies feels they are not prepared for a recession. There’s palpable stress and confusion in the air (“Is this a recession?” “What’s even going on?”). Yet talent teams should take comfort in knowing that the economy is constantly ebbing and flowing. The sooner that teams learn how to navigate the tides, the better off they’ll be.

So You’re Facing a Potential Tech Recession: Now What?

No matter if your company is hiring in full force or if you’ve slowed down your operations, now isn’t the time to sit around. Tech recruitment will inevitably rebound. And when it does, you’ll want to be in the best position possible to secure the top candidates.

The tech downturn offers a golden opportunity to optimize your hiring process to guarantee future success. Yet our 2022 Hiring Insights Report: Technology Industry data shows that tech companies have a pattern of too much talk and too little execution. (Recruiters outside of tech are guilty of this, too.)

They recognize what actions will help them hit their hiring goals, but they rarely actually take action. If tech companies want to make the most of this hiring downturn, inaction is not an option.

We recommend that you focus your tech recruitment efforts on these three areas:

1. DEIB

Female, Black, and Hispanic workers make up just a fraction of the tech workforce. Men hold 73% of tech jobs in the US, and white Americans hold 62% of tech jobs. Even though Black Americans make up 14% of the population, they occupy just 7% of tech jobs.

Today’s Distance Economy opens up talent pools to a wide range of candidates from underrepresented groups (URGs). Those candidates expect to see an emphasis on DEIB in the hiring process. 

The Data on DEIB

The tech industry at least sees the value in diverse candidates. Respondents from our report said that “diversity of candidates” is the second most important metric to their company, only after quality of hire. But is this all just…talk?

When asked which aspects of their hiring process they plan to improve in the next 12 months, prioritizing DEIB was the second lowest response at 34%. Respondents were also least likely to communicate DEIB to candidates during the hiring process (32%).

Where Tech Hiring Must Improve

We know what you’re thinking, and you’re right: creating effective DEIB initiatives is a heavy lift. Most companies spent last year rapidly hiring, which made uplifting DEIB seem impossible.

Yet for many tech companies right now, hiring has cooled down. With a tech downturn towering over the landscape, refining the hiring process is a growing priority. Now is the perfect time to give DEIB the attention that it deserves.

Here are several ways to do exactly that:

  • Train interviewers on acknowledging and reducing their own biases (we can help with that).
  • Diversity matters. Ensure that the employees in your interview panels are diverse, not homogenous. 
  • Audit away your job descriptions. Remove any exclusionary language.

2. Candidate Relationships

The quality of your hiring process can make or break a candidate’s hiring experience (yes, the pressure is on). One of the most telling signs of a high-quality process is its ability to create strong relationships between candidates and your hiring team.

Candidates expect to be seen as more than just a number; they want to feel that their time and talents are valued. 

The Data on Candidate Relationships

Thankfully, talent leaders in tech recognize that candidates want to be prioritized. Forty-seven percent of tech companies from our report agreed that in the past 12 months, meaningfully connecting with candidates has become crucial. 

Yet here’s where the problem arises: only 34% of tech talent teams built better candidate relationships. Only 35% plan on improving relationships with candidates in the months ahead. To make matters worse, the majority of respondents (67%) ignore a crucial pillar of healthy candidate relationships: candidate well-being.

Where Tech Hiring Must Improve

If all hiring teams had time to improve their candidate relationships, then everyone would do it. That’s the endless struggle for these teams: too many initiatives to implement, and not enough time. 

Luckily, today’s slower-paced tech hiring environment opens the door for teams to focus on this task (thanks, tech recession). 

Here are several ways to help your candidate relationships flourish: 

  • Train all interviewers on proper interviewing etiquette. They’re your brand ambassadors!
  • Collect feedback from candidates. How else will you know if your relationships are translating?
  • Be ready to get transparent; candidates don’t want to beat around the bush on salary expectations.

3. Hiring Efficiency

We can’t highlight hiring quality without giving attention to its gutsy sibling: hiring efficiency. Hiring efficiently and fast is a must-do, no matter the industry’s climate. 

Regardless of hiring volume, the competition for quality talent isn’t going anywhere. The best candidates get snatched up in as little as 10 days. You need to move fast on candidates, or else another hiring team will swoop in.

The Data on Hiring Efficiency

In the past year, improving overall hiring efficiency was the main focus area for tech companies (42%). Likewise, this is still their biggest priority for the next 12 months (41%). 

Greater efficiency reduces your time-to-hire. So, where did the tech industry’s focus on improving efficiency lead them? Here’s a hint: probably not where they’d like to be. The majority of talent teams in tech said that their time-to-hire increased. Less than 10% saw it decrease.

Meanwhile, talent leaders in tech possess different perspectives on hiring efficiency. Sixty-five percent of C-Suite executives rated their process as very efficient while only 33% of directors stated the same. Evidently, employees with closer proximity to the hiring process have a different perspective on business efficiencies.

Where Tech Hiring Must Improve

Whether economic conditions have shifted your attention from hiring fast to hiring with precision, or if hiring at the speed of light is still your goal, hiring efficiency shouldn’t sit on the back burner. 

Speed to hire should always be a critical KPI for tech companies. Here’s how to optimize your hiring efficiency: 

  • Automate, automate automate. Implement scheduling automation to reduce the time spent coordinating interviews (the right tech can help with that).
  • Use email templates to standardize your communications with top talent.
  • Make data your best friend; dig into your hiring analytics to identify efficiency gaps.

Want More Tech Recruiting Trends?

If you want to succeed amid this period of uncertainty—and for years to come—you need to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry’s latest hiring trends. Our 2022 Hiring Insights Report: Technology Edition is here to give you the inside scoop.

Download the report today to see how tech companies are adapting their hiring.

The Remote Interview Era: How Scheduling Must Evolve

Posted on by rachel
Hiring team conducting a remote interview.

Anyone else still have whiplash from these past few years? The remote work era—and the changes that came with it—sent shockwaves throughout the hiring landscape. Four in five companies now offer remote or hybrid work, and 82% of employers now opt for a remote interview when speaking with candidates. 

Recruitment teams have had to alter their practices to adapt to this new normal, including their interview scheduling methods. How exactly has interview scheduling changed? One word: flexibility. 

As the rigid all-day onsite interview format fades away, flexible scheduling capabilities in your tech are no longer a nice-to-have—they’re a requirement. You can’t successfully coordinate a complex remote interview without incorporating flexibility into your scheduling.

But first, let’s examine how we even reached this current moment in time. 

The New Normal for Interview Scheduling: How Did We Get Here?

The way that recruiters hire people, the frequency of meetings, and the degree of candidate availability are now wildly different. These changes have introduced levels of complexity to the interview process that no team—without the proper tools—can manage effectively. Here’s what’s changed in the hiring landscape:

The Death of the Onsite Interview

Remember when employers would routinely fly candidates out to their companies for a packed day of onsite meetings and office tours? With the surge in remote work and remote recruiting, the onsite interview is now a thing of the past (hello, remote interview). 

In-person interviewing allowed panels of employees to swap in and out for multi-stage, all-day interviews with candidates. Now, remote hiring has laid in-person interviewing to rest. 

A New Meeting Culture

If you find yourself sitting in meetings more often than ever before, you’re not alone. Remote work created a culture of constant meetings; professionals spend up to a third of their workweek in meetings. 

Blocking off a full day to have large groups meet with candidates is now almost impossible. Interview scheduling becomes even harder when you have employees based across the globe, a reality that is increasingly common in the distance economy. 

Difficulties With Engaging Candidates

Candidates aren’t easy to come by; there are two jobs for every available worker. Many are passive candidates who are already employed, which makes it difficult to fit a complex series of interviews into their workday. 

Not all passive candidates can afford to take a day off of work to interview in an all-day session—and they certainly can’t show up in person. 

Interview Scheduling Must Now Be Flexible

Now, are we all caught up to speed? Due to the changes prompted by the remote work era, scheduling all-day onsite interviews is increasingly less common. 

The new norm of scheduling is evolving to look like this: scheduling a series of remote interviews spread out over several days.

Scheduling complex multi-day interviews comes with several challenges that didn’t exist with the all-day onsite interview. It multiplies the number of meetings to coordinate, broadens the interview timeline to keep tabs on, makes it difficult to reschedule or adjust specific meeting times, and more. 

This interview format isn’t easy to schedule—unless your scheduling tool has the right capabilities. Coordinating these remote interviews calls for a heightened level of flexibility. Here are several reasons why flexible scheduling is a requirement for today’s recruiting teams and candidates:

From Your Recruiting Team’s Perspective

With calendars more jam-packed than ever (on both the interviewer and candidate side), interviews must be spread out over several days. Without this flexibility, it’s incredibly difficult to find available times when key interviewers can get together with a candidate.

Working across teams and time zones makes calendar coordination all the more complex, once again prompting recruiting coordinators to schedule over the span of a few days to locate availability. Long story short: it’s tough to get an interview on the books without flexibility in scheduling.

From Your Candidate’s Perspective

Remember how we said that many candidates are already employed? With their limited availability, these candidates need to book their interviews over their lunch hour, in between meetings, or during any other free moment in their workday.

If you want them to go through a series of panel interviews, you’ll need to break it up over several days to make their participation possible. 

Above all, today’s candidates need to be accommodated if you want to attract and win the best of the bunch (it is a candidate’s market, after all). That requires talent acquisition tech that can adeptly schedule beyond the confines of the one-day interview structure.

Effortlessly Schedule Your Next Remote Interview

As the norms of scheduling interviews evolve, your recruiting tech stack must evolve with them. Recruiting teams now face a new remote recruiting reality, with new interview scheduling challenges requiring new tech. 

You need a tool with scheduling flexibility that can coordinate complex panels of interviews fast enough to keep candidates engaged. And as the cherry on top, you must provide a holistically compelling hiring experience. 

No existing tools can provide this—until now. GoodTime Hire delivers the flexibility that’s missing from your HR tech stack. Recruiting teams can schedule interviews over one or multiple days; they have complete control over meeting event times, dates, breaks, attendees, and priority.

Learn more about how Hire can revolutionize the way that you schedule interviews.

Losing Candidates? Subpar Scheduling Automation May Be the Culprit

Posted on by rachel
Recruiter frustrated with their lackluster scheduling automation.

Are you consistently losing candidates, even though your hiring process seems to be in great shape? You may be overlooking one significant culprit: low-quality scheduling automation.

As talent acquisition teams juggle multiple calendars, time zones, and interviewer loads, leveraging scheduling automation is an absolute necessity to coordinate fast and intelligently. Automation is invaluable to the scheduling process…until it isn’t.

With some interview management systems, the promise of automation doesn’t deliver. Not all tools can navigate the twists and turns of modern-day interview scheduling. Subpar scheduling automation makes a recruiter’s job harder and degrades a candidate’s hiring experience. 

What Does Subpar Scheduling Automation Look Like?

If your scheduling automation can’t handle the complexity of everyday scheduling, then you have low-quality automation. This type of automation presents suboptimal scheduling decisions as the “best fit.” It doesn’t think like a recruiting coordinator would.

Subpar automation can’t handle the turbulence of the recruiting landscape, where interviewer availability can shift at a moment’s notice. If you can’t trust your system to adapt to changes and make the best scheduling decisions, then is your automation really saving you time?

How Lackluster Automation Deters Candidates

Candidates expect a fast-moving, frictionless hiring process that positively connects them to your culture and team. Lackluster automation delivers the exact opposite experience. Here’s how:

Candidates Are Picky—and Poor Automation Is a Turnoff

Today’s record-low unemployment rate makes finding stellar talent a challenge. To ramp up the pressure, candidates are increasingly selective when vetting job offers. Nearly half (49%) of candidates have turned down an offer due to a bad recruiting experience. Candidates have high expectations of your process—and you better live up to them. 

Recruiting teams need to be on their A-game to impress picky candidates, and that means leveraging intelligent HR technology. Poor scheduling automation creates a clunky process filled with bottlenecks. That’s a major turnoff.

Top Candidates Lose Enthusiasm When There Are Delays

Put yourself in the shoes of a candidate. A recruiter approaches you for a phone screen—success! You give them your availability, but then a week goes by without any communication. Did they just ghost you? Ouch.

Suddenly, the recruiter reaches back out: your interview is scheduled. It’s about time. You complete the interview, yet then the cycle of delayed communication starts once again. Time to apply to other companies.

Doesn’t sound like a pleasant hiring experience, does it? It certainly doesn’t match up with expectations; 55% of candidates believe that it should take one to two weeks from the first interview to receive an offer. When scheduling automation creates delays, candidates steadily lose enthusiasm and opt out of your process.

Candidates Flock to Companies With Refined Automation

Almost all candidates have multiple companies vying for their attention. If you don’t hire with polished automation, another company will. (Hint: that’s the company that candidates will run to.)

A tech solution that doesn’t create a compelling hiring experience or cultivate bonds with candidates drives talent straight into the arms of competitors.

What Does Intelligent Scheduling Automation Look Like?

Intelligent scheduling automation revolutionizes the hiring process. It knows just as much (or more) about your interview team and workflow as you do. High-quality automation can be just the thing that makes your hiring process impress top talent.

Intelligent automation possesses advanced calendar awareness. It’s able to schedule for both speed and “best fit.” Intelligent automation is also agile; it can handle a request to change or reschedule an interview in a matter of seconds. Overall, this automation considers the nuances of your company’s calendar so that it truly thinks like a recruiter.

How Smart Automation Engages Candidates

While smart automation makes a recruiter’s job easier, it also enhances a candidate’s experience with your team and your company.  Here’s how:

Caters to Your Candidate’s Schedule

It’s a candidate’s market; talent teams must schedule to accommodate their candidate’s calendar, not just their own. Intelligent automation puts this in motion.

Perhaps an interviewer’s first available time slot is too far into the future, and you don’t want to keep your candidate waiting too long. (They’ll either lose interest in you, or another company will scoop them up!) Have no fear: intelligent automation knows how to ignore certain scheduling restrictions to schedule the interview sooner.

Yet sometimes, getting a candidate in front of your team as soon as possible isn’t the priority. Maybe you’d rather schedule a time when interviewers with the most relevant skills can speak to the candidate. (This is a surefire way to improve the candidate’s interview experience!) In this case, smart automation can schedule a meeting time that’s a “best fit” for this factor.

Enriches the Hiring Experience With Personalization

Personalization makes people feel special, and the same applies to candidates. It’s why you always see personalized name keychains in gift shops; people love a personal touch. It’s only human nature.

Sending automated, personalized meeting reminders adds a human element to the hiring process. This fosters meaningful connections with candidates and makes the scheduling process feel less “robotic.” When it comes to enhancing a candidate’s hiring experience, the best automation to use is the kind that feels a little less automated and a little more human.

Eliminates Delays and Keep Candidates Interested

If you‘ve ever had interviewers bow out or change their availability, you know how many bottlenecks that can cause. To make matters worse, candidates lose interest when they’re met with scheduling delays. Luckily, the right scheduling automation can eliminate this problem. 

Smart automation sorts through countless scheduling options to identify the top choice. Even if an interviewer or a candidate’s availability changes, smart automation adapts to display the best options. No bottlenecks mean happy candidates.

Schedule Smarter and Win More Talent Today

If you’re thinking, “There’s no way that a software can handle the complexity of our scheduling process,” think again. Start scheduling smarter today with GoodTime. 

GoodTime Hire’s new Flexible Scheduling delivers scheduling automation that you won’t need to second-guess. Recruiters who use Hire’s Flexible Scheduling know they can trust the solution to make the right interview scheduling decisions, no matter the complexity.

Learn more about how Hire’s Flexible Scheduling can revolutionize the way that you schedule.

Remote Hiring 101: How to Convey Company Culture

Posted on by rachel
Recruiter conducting remote hiring.

In any hiring process, there’s a fair chance that candidates will ask, “How would you describe the company culture?” Candidates deeply care about company culture; 72% would reject an offer because they feel disconnected from the culture. Yet in a remote hiring process, culture can get lost in translation.

Touring an office and shaking hands with employees makes the intangible concept of company culture incredibly tangible. But with remote hiring now the norm, recruiting teams grapple with conveying culture through a Zoom screen.

Recruiters must take a thoughtful approach to sharing company culture—a difficult task, but not impossible. Read on for our top tips on how to communicate culture when hiring remotely.

Before the Remote Interviewing Stage

While most hiring teams focus on conveying culture during interviews, you shouldn’t ignore the pre-interview stage. First impressions matter; it’s important to communicate your culture before candidates even walk through the (virtual) door.

Optimize Your Careers Page

The careers page is much more than a place to display job openings. With the proper optimization, your careers page can act as a gateway into your company culture.

Our friends at Greenhouse gathered several examples of careers pages done right. Here are some elements from those pages that make company culture stand out:

  • Clearly defined mission and values
  • Company story
  • Quotes from employees
  • Videos/photos of employees collaborating
  • Engaging interactive features
  • Strong brand voice and tone

Fine-tune Your Interview Scheduling

Don’t underestimate the significance of the interview scheduling stage. The way that you navigate this stage reflects your company culture. To communicate a culture of understanding and empathy, you need to show it through your scheduling.

For instance, accommodating a candidate’s schedule conveys that you value their time. Be sure to ask for your candidate’s availability upfront. 

Another way to communicate an empathetic, flexible culture is by straying away from all-day interviews. Scheduling all-day interviews suggests that your company doesn’t value a work-life balance. Most candidates would much rather interview in chunks across several days. 

During the Remote Interviewing Stage

Once you reach the interview stage, it’s time for all systems go. This is the prime opportunity to relay what your company culture is like. 

Nearly all (90%) of the companies from our 2022 Hiring Insights Report said that they designed their interview process to reflect their culture. However, 47% said that they don’t actually communicate their culture to candidates. 

Don’t be like those companies. Here’s how to make your culture loud and clear.

Train, Train, Train Your Interviewers

Your interviewers are your company’s spokespeople. Their interactions with candidates should align with your culture. That’s why it’s essential to have each interviewer participate in interviewer training. 

Interviewers should learn how to speak about company culture in a vivid, true-to-life manner. This doesn’t mean listing a jumble of different adjectives. (What does having a “fun” culture even mean?) Instead, interviewers should share concrete, specific examples that paint a picture of your company.

Emphasize Diversity in Interview Panels

Remote hiring opens the door to a broader talent pool—and more diverse candidates. These candidates want to know that DE&I is vital to your company culture. But they don’t want to be told that your company cares about DE&I—they want to see that your company cares about DE&I.

One of the best ways to show that DE&I is crucial to your culture is by increasing the diversity in your interview panels. Candidates from underrepresented groups want to be interviewed by diverse interviewers with whom they share traits. Seeing employees similar to them makes candidates feel represented by their potential employer.

After the Remote Interviewing Stage

The post-interview stage can be a nerve-wracking period for candidates. “Did the interviewers like me? Did I interview the best that I could?” How you approach this stage says a lot about your organization and company culture.

Keep Consistent Communication with Candidates

Is there anything worse than a recruiter who ghosts candidates? Interviewing can be a high-stress ordeal for candidates, and dropping contact with them out of nowhere can kick their stress into overdrive. 

Ghosting reflects incredibly poorly on your culture; if candidates feel mistreated before joining your company, how can they expect it to be any different as an employee?

Be sure to maintain consistent communication with candidates. If setting up a second interview takes you longer than expected, give candidates a quick update to show that you haven’t forgotten about them. Not only will this reflect positively on your culture, but it’ll also dissuade candidates from looking for opportunities elsewhere.

If Rejecting Candidates, Do it With Tact

No one likes to deliver bad news—especially when it’s employment-related. Rejecting candidates is an unfortunate yet necessary part of being a recruiter, and there’s a right and wrong way to do it.

The way that you reject candidates says a lot about your culture. Tactfully rejecting candidates sends the message that your company has a heart. A personalized email with thoughtful wording breaks the news in a considerate manner. 

And remember: delivering bad news is better than providing no news. A survey found that a whopping 75% of candidates never hear back from an employer. Receiving no response after trying your hardest in an interview deals a significant blow to your self-esteem; deliver the rejection as soon as possible so that candidates can move on and discover the job that’s right for them.

Level Up Your Remote Hiring Process Today

Amid your recruiting tasks, never lose sight of your company culture. It should permeate every corner of your remote hiring process (and it’s much easier to convey than you think). Successfully communicating your culture can be just the thing that gets candidates to a “yes” when it’s time to deliver offers.

To cultivate a remote process that’s head and shoulders above the competition, you need some extra firepower in your corner. You need GoodTime Hire.

Hire harnesses Candidate Relationship Intelligence to automate coordination, build relationships during interviews, and provide actionable insights to continuously improve your hiring process.

Schedule a demo to learn more about how Hire can transform your talent acquisition process.