Successful recruiting is all in the scheduling: Here are 5 reasons why
The key to successful recruiting is good interview
scheduling, which is too often an overlooked part of the hiring process. When
done right, good interview scheduling will reflect well on your company,
improving a candidate’s experience and the likelihood the person will reapply
even if they’re not the right fit this time around.
Poor interview scheduling experiences
increase the time and cost to hire and can mean that candidates drop out and go
to competitors. They may also leave a negative review on a site like Glassdoor.
These reviews can make a huge difference to your employer brand and negatively
affect the candidates that apply for a role.
A poor interview scheduling experience also wastes the time of hiring managers and recruiters. They spend longer getting in touch with candidates and coordinating schedules instead of working on bigger, more important tasks. The time they waste on interview scheduling results in them missing targets elsewhere, leading to job dissatisfaction and a greater employee turnover.
When you add in the coordination involved, as well as finding available meeting rooms and equipment, the seemingly small task of interview scheduling quickly ends up taking more time than it should. That’s why successful recruiting depends so heavily on good scheduling.
So how do you claw back that time and create a friction-free interview scheduling process for candidates, recruiters and hiring managers?
Successful recruiting
Here’s how to create a better interview
scheduling experience for everyone.
Get everyone connected
The constant back-and-forth that’s required
to schedule an interview is time-consuming and frustrating for everyone involved.
Candidates may not be able to speak on the phone when at work, meaning that
it’s difficult for recruiters to organize a time that works and the time to
hire goes up.
Hiring managers can only provide candidates
with a handful of meeting times. If a candidate can’t make these times, or two
candidates pick the same time, they must reschedule.
Even just finding these times can be frustrating. Hiring managers and recruiters often must switch between multiple applications to check their schedules. If they forget to check one of them, they may find themselves double-booked, which then leads to them needing to reschedule one of their appointments. Our survey found that 61% of hiring managers often find interviews conflict with other appointments, meaning that rescheduling interviews or rearranging appointments is a regular occurrence.
When a hiring manager connects their
calendar to their interview scheduling software, they don’t need to worry about
the stream of emails or phone calls that interrupt their day. Recruitment
coordinators also don’t get caught in the middle between candidates and hiring
managers, trying to find a time that works for everyone.
Let applicants ‘self-book’
When candidates can self-book their
interview, it doesn’t matter if they work night shifts or can’t have their
phone with them at work. They can book a time that’s most convenient for them
while still factoring in the availability of the interviewer(s).
This creates a candidate-first hiring
process, which helps to improve your employer brand and the likelihood that
even those who are unsuccessful may reapply for future roles.
Hiring managers also don’t need to worry
about taking time out of their schedule to check them. The software can use
their most recent schedule to only suggest times when they’re free.
Think of Calendly. It allows us to schedule appointments with people based on their real-time availability. What if you could generate links like that, tailored to your specific interview needs, whether they were for a panel interview, a group interview or even a multi-part interview?
Schedule everything
When holding an interview, there’s another
key element that needs to be factored in: an available meeting room.
In a busy office, it can be difficult to find a meeting room that’s free, though, especially if there are only a handful available. This can create scheduling conflicts that lead to interviews or internal meetings needing to be rescheduled. For candidates on the receiving end of this, it creates a negative impression of the company that may cause them to drop out of the hiring process.
Calendars can also be set up for meeting rooms. These can then sync with an ATS and suggest times to candidates when both interviewers and a meeting room are free. This ensures that there’s somewhere to meet, removing the risk of double-bookings or any other conflicts.
Interview remotely
When you have a more diverse talent pool,
they may live too far away for it to make sense for them to visit the office
for an interview. Or, if they have other commitments around their interview,
they may be unable to attend in person.
Conducting remote interviews shows you
trust your employees to do their jobs whether they’re at a desk or not. It also
shows you welcome people from diverse backgrounds and are happy to cater to
their needs.
Allowing candidates to self-book their
interview guarantees that a time is chosen that’s suitable for the interview
panel and the candidate. This further improves your employer brand, showing
that you value your employees’ time, but you also appreciate candidates taking
the time to talk to you.
Organize multi-part interviews
Multi-part interviews are a useful way to
test candidates’ skills and company fit, but they’re a nightmare to organize. Finding
a day where candidates, hiring managers, HR staff, equipment and rooms are
available can take longer to organize than the interview itself.
When everything is connected to scheduling software, it can be organized up to 95% faster. The software can work out the best times based on the people, rooms and resources that are required. It can then present the options to candidates in the same way that it would for a normal one-on-one or panel interview.
While this is the most complicated type of
interview to organize, it doesn’t have to take up the recruitment coordinator’s
time. All they need to do is put each step of the interview into the software.
For instance, if they have a welcome from HR that lasts for half an hour, an hour for an assessment, then an hour face-to-face interview, this can be added to the software and the rest worked out automatically.
Recruiters don’t need to constantly
communicate with hiring managers or candidates about what times they’re
available.
It also means that companies aren’t
limiting themselves by only conducting interviews on certain days. This method
risks losing out on the best talent as not every candidate will be able to make
the set day. Companies may end up losing the right person for the role to the
competition because of their inflexible hiring process.
Whatever type of interview you use, the
more streamlined your interview scheduling experience, the easier it is for
everyone involved. It improves your candidate experience, making candidates
more likely to speak highly of your company, even if they don’t get the role. This
improves your employer brand and means that unsuccessful candidates may reapply
in the future, when they’re perfect for the role.
A better interview scheduling experience also helps to reduce the stress hiring mangers face during this period. Recruitment coordinators, meanwhile, have more time to answer candidate questions and help hiring managers to organize the best interview possible.
The post Successful recruiting is all in the scheduling: Here are 5 reasons why appeared first on HR Morning.
