An automated talent acquisition process equals a more effective hiring process — plain and simple.
Not every facet of your talent organization’s recruitment marketing and TA efforts can or needs to be automated. That said, many important, daily recruiting tasks can and should be put on (relative) autopilot.
The benefits of an automated talent acquisition process are greater efficiency, productivity, and collaboration across the team. Realizing these benefits leads to other advantages too — notably, the ability to:
- Reduce the number of manual TA tasks, which often takes a lot of time and resources
- Outcompete other brands for top talent by evolving from reactive to proactive hiring
- Develop a more scalable and sustainable hiring program, thanks to predictive insights
- Ensure a high-quality candidate experience for both sourced talent and job applicants
As we’ve discussed, every brand’s talent acquisition strategy is unique and custom-tailored to their business.
However, a commonality among today’s top TA programs is the use of automation to streamline the recruitment process — and, in turn, boost the ROI from their sourcing, nurturing, interviewing, and hiring efforts.
Infusing automation in your talent acquisition process
Even the most successful talent acquisition teams still have tasks they must handle mostly (if not entirely) manually: from writing and revamping job descriptions to reviewing potential candidates to fill vacancies.
The most effective talent acquisition process, though, factors in automation to tackle tasks like these.
Connect critical tools in your TA/HR tech stack to your candidate database.
The best full-cycle recruiting programs are built around leading human resources and TA technologies.
These teams’ mutual goal of providing a top-tier CX is only possible when they use said tech in tandem to communicate with candidates, onboard new hires, and get feedback regarding the entire interview process.
With a complete ATS and CRM like Lever, talent orgs can integrate the solutions they use in their day-to-day (e.g., applicant-screening software, candidate-feedback platforms, referral systems, bias-elimination tools). Moreover, they can sync Lever with HR-centric tech (e.g., HCM/HRIS, people operations/analytics systems)
The interconnected ecosystem of TA/HR systems, each which offers distinct automation capabilities to enable smarter and faster hiring (e.g., real-time syncs of requisition and candidate-profile data, custom notifications for key stakeholders) — ultimately leads to better-coordinated, end-to-end recruiting strategies.
Ensure only the most relevant resumes/applications make it to you for review.
Maybe you only want to hire candidates for short-term work (i.e., part-time and/or seasonal workers). Or, maybe you need long-term, full-time workers to fill managerial and leadership roles across your business.
Regardless of the specific type of job seeker you’re looking to employ, you can ensure only the most pertinent candidates with the required qualifications are sent to you for evaluation by leveraging automation.
For example, Lever customers can configure an “Application form submitted” workflow. This workflow ensures only applicants who meet a pre-defined list of criteria (e.g., number of years working in a given role, highest level of education, specific certifications related to their field, location) make it in front of recruiters for review.
These auto-screening rules — along with our Fast Resume Review functionality — are especially helpful for TA organizations that get hundreds or thousands of applications weekly, as they automatically filter out candidates who simply don’t align with the needs for an open role.
Automatically archive candidates who weren’t made offers or rejected offers.
Even if a given applicant doesn’t end up being a good fit for the role for which they applied, that doesn’t mean they should be forgotten about forever. On the contrary: They should be ‘archived’ to revisit at a late time.
Archiving applicants — along with prospects who withdrew from consideration and candidates who were sourced but never interviewed — can be accomplished both manually and via automated workflows in Lever.
In many cases, answers to knockout questions inform whether a given candidate gets auto-archived or moved to the next stage of the recruiting process (i.e., screen to first interview). Many Lever users also auto-send emails to archived prospects to inform them they won’t be considered for the role in question at that time.
Once archived, Lever users can assign relevant tags to candidates and specific reasons for passing on them (e.g., low feedback score, lack of experience). These labels can come in handy weeks, months, or even years down the line, should these TA teams need to identify qualified candidates already in their database for new roles.
Build customized, email-nurture campaigns for single/groups of candidates.
From freshly sourced talent you deem perfect fits for open requisitions to inactive prospects you haven’t heard from or engaged with in some time, automated email-nurture campaigns can help you engage and stay top of mind and in touch with with all candidates in each stage of the talent relationship management lifecycle.
Passive candidates, in particular, are ideal for nurtures. With Lever, you can set up an email cadence (e.g., six touchpoints over a three-month span) that can be sent to prospects when added to the campaign in question.
If a campaign concludes without a reply from a prospective hire, you can archive them automatically. This helps you keep your pipeline clean. It also allows you to focus on nurturing active candidates who are likelier to convert.
Nurture campaigns can be set up for a single prospect or group of candidates in Lever. The former approach allows for truly individualized messaging. However, even nurtures geared toward a broad talent segment (e.g., 10 sourced candidates you’ve identified as qualified for a given role) allow for personalized messaging.
For instance, you can auto-insert details (e.g., name, current or past job title and company) for each person in a group-based campaign so each person gets a personalized version of each email incorporated in the campaign.
Alert stakeholders of changes regarding a requisition or candidate’s status.
Amid their sourcing, nurturing, and interviewing efforts, it can be easy for talent acquisition professionals to forget to keep relevant internal stakeholders in the loop regarding the latest status for specific prospects.
With the right tech, these status updates can be shared with these stakeholders (i.e., other talent specialists, hiring managers, business leaders) automatically. That means it’s one less task TA pros need to worry about.
Let’s say you have five stages in your interview process. If Lever was your primary ATS + CRM, you could ensure emails were automatically sent to hiring managers informing them of the stage change as well as related context about/reasons for the stage progression (e.g., high feedback scores, passing of role-based test).
It’s not just talent specialists who can keep hiring managers abreast of candidate-status changes. The latter can use Lever’s automated workflows to keep the former up to speed on changes regarding a requisition (e.g., new, must-meet hire date; changes to job description, which impacts who a ‘qualified’ candidate is).
(Side note: Integrations with apps like Slack also make it easy for TA orgs and hiring managers to stay on the same page regarding candidates. Lever customers use Slack for tasks like reminding interviewers to provide feedback, notifying stakeholders of interview schedule changes, and relaying when a hire has been made.)
Book interviews with sourced talent and applicants using automated scheduling.
Putting ‘holds’ on interview panelists’ calendars during times they can all meet with candidates, then ensuring candidates themselves are available during at least one of those periods used to be painstaking for talent orgs.
Today, it can fully streamlined within your talent acquisition process. Look no further for proof than Lever users.
Our Easy Book functionality syncs with every interview panelist’s calendar. This allows TA pros charged with scheduling interviews with individuals to only provide them with times every panelist is available to meet. With just a few clicks, candidates can self-schedule their interviews and receive email confirmation and reminders.
On top of automating scheduling, TA orgs with Lever can also arrange the order in which each interview panel member will speak with prospects and how long each interview should last. via our interview-planning feature.
After each interview, panelists then share feedback through feedback forms in the interview plan created for the role. All panelists receive the same form with the same questions regarding their thoughts on a candidate.
All this adds up to a structured, consistent interview process — a benefit for both interviewers and interviewees.
Auto-send questionnaires to candidates to determine the quality of their CX.
Securing feedback from internal stakeholders on candidates is a must. But don’t forget the value of asking candidates to evaluate your interview team and share their thoughts on their interview experience at large.
Whether you use a dedicated CX platform like Starred, which integrates with Lever, or our built-in candidate experience surveys like those offered in our TA suite, you can automate the process of getting candidates to offer their assessment of your brand and recruiting approach.
In Lever, users determine the questions they want to ask candidates (this usually differs by role and/or team) as well as the delivery criteria (i.e., to whom and when surveys are sent) and they’re set up for CX success.
Learn how to automate your candidate nurturing and improve your CX efforts in our eBook.
