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Improving Hiring Processes with a Unified Pipeline

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There are many ways talent relationship management (TRM) leads to better hiring processes for recruiting orgs. Arguably the two biggest benefits of embracing a TRM approach, though, are:

  • 1) Increased consistency with one’s recruiting and acquisition efforts
  • 2) The ability to generate cleaner, more robust, insightful talent data

At the heart of modern TRM programs — the key ingredient that enables TA teams to realize these benefits — is a talent acquisition suite with a unified pipeline that’s widely accessible to everyone in the recruiting org and empowers them to work smarter, not harder.

More to the point, today’s top talent teams rely on a complete ATS + CRM solution that enables them to build clearly defined, mostly automated workflows around said pipeline.

How unified ‘parent’ and ‘child’ pipelines can enhance your talent team’s hiring processes

Talent acquisition teams that thrive today are the ones whose work is based on the same goals (e.g., specific OKRs set by their recruiting director) and from the same candidate data sets.

It’s this latter element of successful TA strategies that enables recruiters and talent specialists to work in a more streamlined and organized manner, ensure they ‘speak the same language,’ and — at the end of the day — meet their respective hiring quotas/objectives.

And a unified pipeline is the engine that powers these professionals’ efforts (as well as those of hiring managers) to source qualified candidates, move them swiftly through the interview process, extend job offer letters to top candidates, and hire new employees.

Moreover, it gives talent leaders a clear line of sight into recruiters’ sourcing, outreach, and interviewing efforts. This helps them see the ‘health’ of their near- and long-term hiring efforts, pinpoint strengths and weaknesses with processes, and improve in key areas.

Here’s how Lever customers use the unified pipeline in LeverTRM to streamline their work:

  • A ‘parent’ pipeline provides a comprehensive view of all recruiting and acquisition activities. It also enables LeverTRM users to set up custom ‘child’ pipelines based on different roles for which they hire. That is, each talent specialist can use Lever in a bespoke way to execute their respective duties.
  • For instance, one recruiter who specializes in hiring engineering positions can apply distinct steps and workflows, use custom-tailored interview kits, and leverage specific tech integrations (e.g., tools that offer technical assessments, help with writing job descriptions, and aid with background and reference checks) when evaluating applicants and engaging and interviewing candidates.
  • Meanwhile, another recruiter who specializes hiring for, say, the marketing department can use a different set of workflows and integrations to hire for those particular roles.
  • What’s more, the candidates the engineering-centric recruiter brings in to interview will meet with a different interview panel and answer different job interview questions than marketing prospects. Even the way panel members score these candidates could differ. (That said, Lever offers a standardized candidate-scoring system to help recruiters build consistency with structured interviews.)

So, while the parent pipeline gives talent leaders a high-level view of all TA data, these child pipelines (and related operational sequences) help recruiters tackle their distinct hiring tasks.

Ultimately, it helps them move prospective hires seamlessly through the recruiting funnel: from sourcing them on job boards and social media, to conducting phone interview screens with them, to bringing them in for the interview process, to hiring the best candidates.

As for what this looks like in LeverTRM, the process of creating and leveraging different child pipelines will look much the same to each recruiter. It’s simply the ‘rules’ for each hiring workflow (for specific roles, as noted above, or perhaps for different teams, departments, and locations for which recruiters hire) that can be customized accordingly.

hiring processes

Why you need a system that offers customizable workflows to streamline hiring processes

Working with a one-size-fits-all approach to hiring isn’t a viable option for today’s talent teams.

Rather, they need a system that stores key candidate data, offers critical recruiting capabilities (nurturing, feedback collection, archiving, analytics), provides integrations with critical human resources and hiring software, and helps them develop bespoke workflows for each recruiter is now required to succeed with your recruiting.

Let’s go back to LeverTRM users. In our Candidates screen, ‘admins’ (i.e., talent directors and/or operations managers) and recruiters can get an at-a-glance view of their talent pool:

  • The former can see the entire team’s activity and progress and set ‘milestones’ (e.g., sourcing, screening, and interviewing a specific number of candidates weekly/monthly) to ensure recruiters stay on track with team objectives and improve crucial metrics (e.g., time to fill/hire).
  • The latter can track their own efforts around these milestones and advance tasks and candidates forward in the recruitment process based on the latest prospect activity (e.g., résumé and cover letter reviewed, phone screen conducted) and their respective pipeline workflows.

Measuring their daily activities is essential for recruiters with Lever to elevate their performance. But implementing granular workflows in Lever that automate repetitive work and help them hire smarter and quicker is equally important to long-term growth.

Consider the application-submission workflow many LeverTRM users implement:

  • Once a prospect submits their application through a Lever customer’s job site, a workflow that denotes which recruiter that candidate should be assigned commences.
  • Who the candidate ends up with is based on workflow conditions set in Lever (e.g., who the hiring manager and/or posting owner is, what location and/or position was applied for).
  • Based on these rules, the individual in question is ultimately assigned to the most relevant recruiter, who can then evaluate the individual’s résumé using Fast Resume Review.
  • During this review process, the recruiter can take one of three manual actions: skip them for now, archive them to potentially revisit later, or advance them to the next stage.
  • If they deem a candidate a good fit, they can click “Advance” and move them to the next, most appropriate stage (more often than not, a phone screen, but other stages can be selected), which starts an entirely new workflow to kick off the interview process.
  • When both specific workflow triggers and conditions are satisfied, automated actions can be taken. In this instance, an email could be automatically sent to the prospect in question to let them know they’re invited to interview for the role for which they applied.
  • From here, they can self-schedule the phone screen with Easy Book, which shows the up-to-date calendar availability of the recruiter in question.

No hiring processes are ever ‘perfect.’ But taking advantage of automation workflows such as this — and with the aid of a unified pipeline in a complete ATS + CRM solution like Lever — is your clearest path to unifying and empowering your recruiting org, eliminating tedious manual labor, and creating unforgettable hiring experiences.

Watch our webinar with Lever integration partners Hired and Gem to learn how you can improve your hiring processes and drive real change with your diversity hiring practices.

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