Automation in Talent Acquisition - Part I: Candidate Sourcing

Technology and human resources are syncing more and more closely as the future of work continues to develop away from the traditional office and into a brave new world of workforce distribution. 

With the Great Refresh driving a revolution in what employees want and how they are willing to work, and demand creating a vast shortage of highly qualified talent, organizations are turning to technology to help them source the candidates they need to fill critical roles.

Some of this technology is concrete, focused around hardware and software that makes it easier to hold interviews remotely and onboard new employees without ever having them set foot in a physical office. 

Other new technological advantages are process-based, like automation of repetitive tasks to make recruitment smoother, more effective, and faster. With top talent flying off the market as quickly as it enters, automation can help hiring managers identify and source qualified candidates before they accept other offers.

Improve Hiring Processes With Candidate Sourcing Automation In Talent Acquisition 

According to the LinkedIn Global Recruiting Survey, 46% of hiring managers state that one of the biggest recruitment challenges is sourcing qualified candidates from high-demand talent pools.

Even when a qualified candidate is found, bottlenecks in the hiring process can cause those high-value candidates to slip through an organization’s fingers. Nearly half of candidates who decline job offers do so because they've already accepted an offer somewhere else.

Sourcing candidates needs to go hand-in-hand with streamlining internal processes so hiring decisions and job offers can be made quickly. Automation in talent acquisition can be a game-changer.

Why should companies use recruiting automation?

Recruiting automation tools can make a significant dent in the amount of time it takes to source candidates and rank them in order of suitability for the role. By speeding the sourcing process and making it more efficient, hiring managers can be empowered to act swiftly and decisively on their top picks.

Automating as much of the candidate sourcing process as possible can free up time for hiring managers to spend on tasks that need a more personalized approach, like candidate interviews and soft skill evaluations. Automation in talent acquisition should always focus on taking repetitive tasks off of recruiters’ plates without compromising the integrity of the process.

What areas of talent acquisition can be automated?

There are several key points in the recruitment funnel that lend themselves to automation. Candidate sourcing is the first. 

Job post distribution 

Automation of job post distribution can be achieved with a tool that allows hiring managers to send job descriptions to and monitor job posts across a wide range of job boards and platforms like Glassdoor, centralizing applicants no matter what source they come from. Recruiters can edit, update, or pull job posts as needs change or positions are filled. Automation populates and repopulates postings across all sites.

Automated talent sourcing

Tapping into a pool of candidates who have shared large amounts of data about themselves, their skill sets, and their job requirements can drive faster, more informed hiring practices. Crosschq Recruit provides access to high-potential, motivated talent, ensuring hiring managers have a pool of qualified candidates ready to hand when hiring needs arise.

Mobile candidate nurturing

Automated text campaigns can be leveraged to nurture passive candidates with regular notifications about job postings, benefits, and other relevant messaging. Automated communications can keep these candidates engaged and interested without taking time away from other HR tasks.

Candidate engagement scoring

Talent teams can utilize automated engagement scoring to track candidate interactions build a picture of interest based on engagement metrics. This fosters opportunities to build personalized relationships with the most eager candidates, narrowing the field to those who have a high-interest level.

Data hiring analysis

Crosschq Analytics provides a clear view into what hiring channels are providing candidates who go on to be high performers. Automation of data analysis makes identifying red flags effortless and finding high-potential candidates easier than ever.

What talent acquisition automation tools are commonly used?

A large part of automation in talent acquisition is front-loaded or located at the start of the candidate sourcing process. 

Outreach

To begin, automation can be set in motion by using tools that scan professional profiles on sites like LinkedIn to find active and passive candidates who match a preset list of keywords. These potential employees can then be approached and nurtured. 

Programmatic advertising can be another helpful tool. This can be set up to automatically present job ads to candidates surfing the web, showing open positions to viewers who have previously been identified as seeking similar employment opportunities.

Filtering

Once applications start to come in (currently at an average of 250 applicants for each open corporate position), the challenge becomes finding the best candidate in the deluge of resumes. Recruiter time is valuable, and trying to weed through piles of resumes can mean losing a top candidate before their name even shows up in the stack.

Taking the entire application process digital allows automation to begin at the top of the selection funnel. As applications enter a company’s applicant tracking system (ATS), nearly 75% of resumes can be weeded out through the use of filters that pull best matches from the system based on skills and qualifications. 

In addition to using an ATS, many organizations also leverage talent management software that analyzes applications for keywords and relevant experience. Overall, no more than 25% of applications should ever make it through to a hiring manager’s shortlist, and these should be pre-ranked for review based on skills and other desired qualities.

Reference checking

Candidate reference checks can also be digitized for faster, more effective hiring and improved results. Crosschq 360 automates the reference checking process, building a solid source of qualified, active talent and creating detailed reports based on self-references as well as references from peers and managers. 

The Critical Role of Candidate Sourcing For Hiring Success

Candidate sourcing is a major early step in the hiring process. The more effort put in at this level, the better the outcomes of an organization's hiring choices. Failing to leverage automation at this stage can derail recruitment completely.

Why proper candidate sourcing is the key to long-term retention

Not harnessing automation to surface top candidates and shift non-qualified applicants out of focus leaves too much work on the table for HR teams or recruiters to handle efficiently. The result is decisions made in a rushed manner or based on incomplete information.

Bad hires can lead to massive turnover. Some 66% of workers have at some point accepted a job that they later realized was a bad fit; of these, half quit within the first six months of employment. Each bad hire can cost a company an average of $14,900. By sourcing candidates that align well with company goals, needs, and culture, turnover can be dropped to a minimum.

Diversity: the foundation of strong teams

Candidate sourcing is also where diversity starts. Companies that only hire based on referrals from current employees run the risk of homogenization. Once a pattern is set, it’s hard to break out of, and hiring qualified candidates gets harder.

According to Forbes, nearly half of recruiters say job seekers are inquiring about D&I initiatives more year over year, and 44% say that candidates they approached have turned down an interview or job offer due to a lack of diversity in the company’s workforce.

Crosschq’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusivity, and belonging makes it easier to create a company culture that in turn attracts diverse candidates. By automating candidate sourcing with Crosschq Recruit, it's possible to boost qualified hires from underrepresented groups by up to 200%. 

How automation in talent acquisition can reveal hidden value

By implementing automation in talent acquisition and streamlining candidate sourcing, Organizations remove unconscious bias and can surface candidates that might otherwise have gotten lost in the shuffle. Automation strips away the likelihood of personal preference, boredom, tiredness, job burnout, or inattentiveness on the part of a recruiter causing a highly qualified candidate to be skipped over.

Automation also makes it easier to widen the talent vector, drawing in candidates from passive as well as active pools and engaging them. Broader candidate sourcing leads to more filtering tasks to complete, but automation steps in here as well to speed the process and help identify the best candidates for the shortlist.

The secret to quality candidate sourcing is finding the balance of human-powered efforts and automation in order to:

• Source the best talent available from across the board
• Draw high-value candidates in and engage them
• Filter and refine the results to reach acceptable shortlist volume
• Analyze past hiring data to compare with the freshest candidate pool 
• Identify potential risky hires and potential top performers

Crosschq’s Platform is powered by the Talent Intelligence Cloud. We help hiring managers and recruiters to achieve their goals through various automated processes, from providing a ready-made pool of opted-in talent for fast, effective candidate sourcing to streamlining reference checking and delivering actionable insights on past, present, and future hires. To learn more, contact us for a free demo today.