6 Challenges Only Volume Recruiters Will Understand

Being a high-volume recruiter is probably one of the most rewarding careers, as you’re literally changing candidates’ lives every day. But it’s also one of the toughest, as you have to be a marketer, sales person, psychologist, and data person, all in one.

While others might think that your role is “simply” to find people and place them in their jobs, you’re actually the first point of contact most candidates have with the organization, so their first impression and desire to work for your company will depend on your performance.

You’re also the one tasked with selling the job to applicants who, more often than not, don’t really care about your brand. So if your job reqs aren’t getting enough applications, or your new hires end up leaving after only a few days or weeks, you’re probably the one who has to figure out why.

Below are just a few of the problems volume recruiters face on a daily basis. We understand these challenges, and have a solution for you, so read on.

The volume of candidates can vary greatly

The Covid-19 crisis has shown us just how unpredictable the labor market is, and has accentuated the gap between the supply and demand of workers. But in volume hiring, this is a constant struggle for talent acquisition teams.

It is relatively common for job seekers to move between companies when barriers to entry and exit are low, especially if one provides slightly higher pay or a more flexible schedule. So attrition rates are high across industries, and the volume of applicants can vary greatly from one location to another.

Thus, in multi-location organizations such as global retailers or restaurant and hotel chains, it’s not uncommon for volume recruiters to receive too many applications for one locations, and to struggle to find workers interested in other locations.

Now that many entry-level workers were furloughed during the pandemic, multi-location recruiters are facing difficulties attracting candidates, resulting in understaffing.

What’s the solution?

• Have an agile process in place that uses standardized reqs to attract and assess a constant flow of applicants.
• Use matching technology in the form of pre-employment assessments not to filter candidates out, but to assess their skills, identify their skill gaps, and then match candidates to available roles.
• Use geo-matching to route candidates to locations with fewer applicants, if their profiles fit the vacancies.

Candidates won’t just wait for you

Delays in employment is one of the most typical high-volume hiring challenges faced by recruiters. 

The proliferation of low entry jobs and similarities between companies make it challenging for employers to stand out in the crowd. Facing huge staffing requirements and low barriers for candidates to move between positions, applicants have the upper hand in finding employment or changing companies quickly.  

Volume hiring candidates applying for hourly, low-skilled roles in the hospitality and retail sectors prioritize paycheck and security. Most of these candidates are millennials and Gen Z applicants, so they expect to be employed sooner, not later. Take a look at the following statistics: 

• Statistics from G2 cited that 60% of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity.

• They expect instant communication with employers. The DaXtra Candidate Experience survey showed that more than half of the applicants are okay with live chat communication during recruitment. 

• Most candidates in entry-level positions are only in the market for ten days. In research by Workable, the average time to hire is 25 days for warehouse, transport, utilities, retail, and BPO industries, while for manufacturing, it’s 30 days. 

• In research by IBM, candidates are almost 40% more likely to accept a job offer if they are satisfied with the application process. While it is always essential to make a good impression from the start, it can be even more critical when recruiting many people. 

• Candidates expect job security, even in entry-level positions. They are more inclined to resign if the job isn’t fulfilling both professionally and personally. Often, candidates want to work for employers that align with their values and offer career growth opportunities. 

Slow hiring will also hurt your employer brand image, resulting in a decrease in the number and quality of the applications you receive.

You recruit for the same roles, again and again  

Dealing with multiple roles at once, hiring managers face the difficulty of knowing precisely what specific skills each position demands, and what the candidates expect. Mis-hiring leads to high attrition rates, eventually forcing employers to recruit even more. 

Some companies organize job fairs where the HR team and candidates go through lengthy job interviews. Other employers conduct 1-minute applications, which is a time-saver for job seekers but can be frustrating for hiring managers due to little candidate information to make a successful talent acquisition.  

Recruitment teams use these methods to minimize the callback stage. However, they don’t yield satisfying outcomes because they are usually one-sided.

In addition to misaligned expectations that eventually lead to early attrition, a hasty recruitment process makes it impossible for companies to share their employer value proposition or EVP, a vital element in selling the job and persuading candidates to choose your organization over others.

A large part of your day is spent updating job reqs 

Because you are recruiting a massive number of people and sometimes for various positions, there could also be a potential disagreement between line managers and HR staff regarding new hires’ mandatory qualifications, work experience, and skills. Moreover, when hiring multiple people for similar roles but different locations, each requisition needs to be treated as a separate one, so you end up spending a copious amount of time posting, updating, or closing job reqs.

Sometimes, department managers needing additional staff perform their interviews and make job offers, ignoring the standard HR processes to fill vacancies quickly. They forget to consider that bringing new employees includes background checks or scheduling orientation. Skipping these critical tasks leads to compliance issues and an unsatisfactory onboarding experience. 

You have little data to back up your decisions 

In many organizations who hire at scale, data is lacking or is collected in a fragmented manner across different tools. This makes it difficult for recruiters to have the full picture of their talent acquisition efforts, especially when hiring is done for multiple locations, and each location has its own strategy, processes, and tools.

On top of this, many hiring managers see recruiting as extra work to be performed on top of their primary responsibilities. Thus, they are quick to hire based on availability and work experience after merely scanning the candidate’s resume. And if they’re not good at hiring people, they’re more inclined to generate turnover, resulting in additional recruitment. 

Limited access to objective candidate data can make this problem worse, prompting recruiters to hire based on gut feeling. In volume hiring, if the data infrastructure isn’t properly designed, it’s very likely for talent teams to have to work with little to no candidate data. And even when they use assessments, the results are often delivered in the shape of reports that need to be interpreted.

In multi-location businesses where recruitment is decentralized, location managers are tasked to employ new staff. With this approach, the head office has no idea how local managers hire people. Manual recruitment can stretch hiring time up to weeks. With such long waiting times, applicants will reject the job offer and go for the competitor. 

The solution? A properly designed data architecture. We’ve detailed the topic below.

Your tech stack often works against you

Having a disorganized recruitment system can wreak havoc if you’re recruiting at scale:  

• You’ll struggle to manage the ever-expanding data you collect from job seekers. Switching between software and processes can complicate things.
• If your recruitment tools are not correctly synced with each other, accurate tracking of data and trends will be an issue. Crucial candidate data can get lost in between screening resumes, interviewing applicants, or making job offers. 
• Accessing real-time data can cause problems like viewing duplicated, inaccurate information or seeing them in different formats can yield wrong insights. 
• You’ll risk losing top candidates to competitors. Slow hiring time can negatively impact your candidate experience and damage your employer brand.

Next steps

To summarize, recruiting at scale for entry-level, low-complexity jobs poses volume hiring problems that can’t be solved using conventional hiring strategies. Just like physical tools made for right-handed people are inherently different from those for left-handed people, volume hiring requires different tools from those used for regular recruiting. 

If you’d like to see how Harver supports recruiters in addressing volume recruitment challenges, you can book a demo below.