How to Improve Your Overall Recruitment Process

As a recruiter, you’re always looking for ways to improve hiring workflows for your candidates and the rest of your team. That might mean working to make tasks more efficient, optimizing the candidate experience, automating different hiring stages, or using data and metrics for continuous improvement.

Learning how to improve the recruitment process can create more successful hiring outcomes, especially in the competitive job market we’re experiencing right now. Even small changes to your workflow can decrease time-to-hire and help you find top talent to join your organization.

These expert-informed strategies can teach you how to improve the recruitment process and find the best candidates for the job.

Why streamlining the recruitment process is crucial

Here are just a few reasons why you should start thinking about how to streamline your recruitment process.

Save time

When a role becomes available in your company, it can take weeks or even months to fill it. You probably have hundreds of tasks you need to do as a recruitment coordinator, including posting job ads, screening resumes, contacting applicants, and conducting background checks. According to our 2024 Hiring Insights Report, talent acquisition leaders say their recruitment teams spend 35% of their time just on scheduling interviews. Automating this job could give them back more than a day per week to focus on more critical tasks.

Speeding up this process frees up time for you and your colleagues to focus on higher-value tasks, such as building meaningful relationships with applicants and onboarding. Automating resume screening, for example, can help you identify qualified candidates quicker, ultimately improving time to hire. With ongoing automation, you can speed up other recruitment stages and maximize output.

Reduce costs

According to our report, 25% of talent acquisition leaders say that reducing cost per hire is an area they want to improve in the next 12 months. Recruitment coordinators who streamline tasks can help achieve this goal. By simplifying and automating various aspects of the hiring process, your team can make the most of their current resources and reduce their reliance on additional staff, meaning you can save labor hours and bring down hiring costs.

Streamlining also reduces hiring mistakes by ensuring candidates are qualified for positions. For example, AI resume screening tools can help you identify top talent based on their skills, resulting in fewer bad hires. This can reduce the costs associated with turnover and rehiring employees for a job role.

“Everything we do behind the scenes as recruiting coordinators is about hiring the best talent,” says Jennifer Walker, Global Recruiting Coordination Manager at Hubspot.”Our role is crucial because we directly impact the efficiency and effectiveness of the hiring process.”

Enhance the candidate experience

Streamlining your recruitment process can help make candidate experiences as positive as possible, no matter who you end up hiring. For example, automated interview scheduling allows applicants to choose an interview time that suits their schedule, meaning they don’t have to wait for you to contact them. That can result in a smoother experience which not only satisfies candidates but reduces workloads for your hiring team. 

Improving the candidate experience can reflect well on your company too: Job applicants could be more likely to leave a good review online after a positive experience. 

Key steps to improve the recruitment process

Enhancing your recruitment process requires attention to multiple areas. For the best outcomes, start by focusing on a handful of improvements rather than implementing everything at once.

“We have to pick our battles and prioritize the most important process changes because there are always so many options available,” says Ellie Harvey, Community Program Manager at GoodTime and former Candidate Experience Coordinator at Atlassian. “It’s crucial to focus on changes that will make the biggest impact.”

Here are a few of the most important steps to concentrate on.

Clear communication

Communicating clearly with job applicants at different recruitment stages can manage their expectations and help them understand your hiring procedures. For example, you can tell someone how long it will take to review their resume or carry out a background check. Keep in mind that 81% of job seekers say continuous status updates would greatly enhance their overall experience.

Optimizing job descriptions

Overly long, complex, or vague job descriptions might prevent job seekers from applying for positions in your company. That’s why making your descriptions as clear, concise, and engaging as possible is so essential—it helps increase the number of applications you get and raises your chances of finding the perfect person for the job.

Instead of just listing roles and responsibilities, think about how your job descriptions can attract the highest-quality talent. For example, consider highlighting growth opportunities that allow employees to progress in your organization or telling job seekers about your company’s culture, missions, and values.

Including salary information in your optimized job descriptions can be a good idea too. Four out of five workers are unlikely to apply for a position that doesn’t provide a pay range, while 77% said it should be illegal to not include salary details in a job posting. Making this information clear earlier rather than later can also prevent candidates from dropping out of your recruitment workflow. 

Collaborative hiring techniques

Collaborative hiring is a recruitment technique that’s recently gained popularity among some HR leaders, and for good reason. This process involves an entire group of people deciding whether or not to hire a candidate rather than an individual hiring manager, with the goal of limiting unconscious bias during the recruitment process.

Panel interviews are one useful way to make the recruitment process more collaborative. In panel interviews, different team members meet a candidate and ask them questions. These team members might consist of representatives from HR, the head of the department the chosen hire will join, and perhaps an even more senior leader. This allows for different perspectives to be heard when reviewing a candidate’s experience and skills after an interview.

Enhancing candidate experience

Improving the candidate journey is one of the best ways to optimize the recruitment process. Here are a few ways to do it:

Provide timely communication

Eighty-one percent of job candidates want continuous communication throughout the hiring process. By providing timely insights to applicants, you can prevent them from losing interest or getting frustrated with your hiring team. The result? You can create a more positive impression of your company.

Feedback loops

Feedback loops involve getting feedback from job applicants at different stages, which might benefit both candidates and your organization. Applicants can share any grievances with your company’s hiring procedures. You can then use this information to improve your overall recruitment process.

Also, consider sharing your thoughts with members of your team to improve recruitment outcomes.

“You should feel empowered to report on your area of the hiring process because nobody knows it better than you,” says Lauren Rupert, Staff Talent Acquisition Project and Program Manager at Cruise. “Your expertise can directly influence how we optimize and enhance our recruiting efforts.”

Process transparency

The more transparent you are with applicants, the better. Clearly explaining every stage of your recruitment process can keep candidates engaged and help them plan their schedules. For example, telling someone you don’t plan to review their resume for another month sets clear expectations and prevents them from contacting you about their application in the interim.

Using data and metrics for continuous improvement

One of the best ways to track recruitment performance and identify areas for improvement is by leveraging data insights. The latest analytics tools generate intelligence about your hiring process so you can streamline various tasks and engage with candidates more effectively.

Data-driven AI recruitment tools are a good choice. GoodTime, for example, provides instant visibility into various hiring metrics, including time to schedule. Our software lets you compare performance data against built-in benchmarks and continually improve how you hire new employees.

Make your recruitment process more effective

Enhancing the recruitment process is a complex process that involves streamlining tasks and enhancing candidate experiences. You can start by making small but impactful changes, such as optimizing job ads and setting up panel interviews.

Ultimately, making your recruitment process more effective should be a group effort, so call on the rest of your team to help. Also, talk to your talent acquisition team manager if you need certain technologies or other support to achieve your goals.

“Empowering recruiting coordinators to own their business means giving them the tools and confidence to drive change,” Rupert says. “It’s about influencing the hiring pipeline at every stage and ensuring we bring in the best candidates.”

GoodTime Hire might be one of those tools. It combines AI and human hiring experiences, allowing you to automate tasks such as scheduling an interview and workflow management. Our software doesn’t replace human recruitment coordinators but supports them, resulting in more successful hiring processes for both candidates and organizations. Get a demo now.