High-volume hiring presents several challenges that simply don’t come up in regular recruiting. As a recruiter, you’re already juggling multiple tasks at once, which is amplified tenfold when you’re hiring at scale.
When you’re recruiting for a smaller number of roles at once, as is often the case in corporate recruitment, interview scheduling is much easier—you can schedule interviews with candidates manually, one by one.
However, in high-volume hiring, this approach simply is not sustainable. That’s why you need a solution for reducing manual work and scheduling multiple candidates at once.
So let’s look at what you can do to scale interview scheduling when mass hiring.
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Main challenges with regular interview scheduling tools
Before we dive into best practices for interview scheduling at scale, let’s take a look at some of the main challenges with regular interview scheduling tools that aren’t designed for volume hiring.
Inability to sync with recruiter calendars
Many of the interview scheduling tools available today lack the ability to synchronize all recruiter calendars, both with one another and the applicant tracking systems (ATS) used to store candidate resumes.
When that’s the case, recruiters don’t have an overview of all upcoming interviews in one tool, forcing them to constantly switch between tools, which adds a significant amount of manual work.
Only scheduling for one role at a time
When candidates can only schedule interviews for one role at a time due to software limitations, they’re just that: limited.
For example, for quick-service restaurants jobs, a candidate may apply for an open role at one location, but be more well-suited to fill a position at a different store. The ability to apply and schedule interviews for multiple roles at once is better for the candidate and the recruiter.
Difficulty avoiding overlap and double-bookings
Many of the regular interview scheduling tools available today are not set up to avoid overlap, because they’re not built for volume.
The largest majority of recruitment and interviewing tools are built for regular use cases, just like most tools in the physical world are built for right-handed people. If you are left-handed, you have to work around the drawbacks of most tools and find ways to make them work for you.
When a recruiter has to manually review open applications and send invite links to candidates one-by-one, it’s difficult to avoid overlap and double-booked slots—especially when scheduling interviews for a high volume of candidates at once.
Manual work slows down the time to hire
All this manual work creates a big problem for recruiters: it slows down the time to hire, requiring candidates to wait for the recruiter to review their application before they receive a link to schedule an interview or some proposed dates.
This can lead to missed opportunities and losing top talent to competitors—especially in the current market, where job seekers have the upper hand due to the sheer number of jobs available.
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How to scale interview scheduling in volume recruitment
Even amid the ever-present challenges and stresses that come with high volume recruiting, there are still various ways to scale interview scheduling.
According to Julie Coucoules, Glassdoor’s Global Head of Talent Acquisition, “Recruiters have a challenging task of coordinating multiple interviews in addition to ensuring each candidate receives the necessary information to evaluate an opportunity. The good news is that this and the top frustrations that job seekers have with the recruitment process can all be improved.”
Want to make your own interview process more effective and positive? Here’s how.
1. Use pre-hire assessments to narrow down your interview pool
Pre-hire assessments are a great way to narrow down your interview pool by screening candidates on a variety of desirable attributes, soft skills, and personality traits. For example, you can use pre-employment assessments to evaluate a wide variety of qualifying factors to predict on-the-job success and identify top talent, including:
- Personality traits
- Cultural fit
- Learning agility
- Cognitive abilities
- Situational judgement
- Multitasking abilities
- Language skills
These pre-hire assessments not only streamline interview scheduling for volume hiring but also help to mitigate unconscious bias during the hiring process. Below you can see some of the assessments available in the Harver library. You can see all the pre-employment assessments here.
2. Invest in volume hiring software to streamline scheduling
With a clear idea of the biggest challenges high volume recruiters face with regular interview scheduling tools, you can better choose the right tools to interview at scale.
Choosing a volume hiring software like Harver that provides interview scheduling capabilities will help ensure your organization is equipped to handle a large number of applicants at one time, optimizing and streamlining your overall hiring process.
On top of that, with a more efficient interview scheduling stage, you can free up time to spend talking with more qualified candidates who are most likely to be a good fit for your organization and the role in question.
If you’d like to see how Haver can transform your hiring process,
book a demo here!
3. Automate interview scheduling to improve process efficiency
Volume hiring recruiters can drastically improve their process efficiency through automation. By automating the interview scheduling step with technology designed for high-volume recruiting, you can eliminate the need for manual processing and speed up your organization’s hiring efforts as a whole.
Rather than wasting time on repetitive, time-intensive tasks like going back and forth over email chains to find a suitable time, you can use automation technology to improve and speed up your decision-making processes. As a result, you can cut your time to hire in half and greatly improve your applicant satisfaction rate when hiring at scale.
This can also help to avoid errors and unwelcome schedule changes, which is essential with half of the job seekers citing interview scheduling changes as one of the most stressful parts of the job search after poor pay and benefits information.
4. Allow candidates to self-schedule interviews right away
Another great way to scale interview scheduling in volume hiring is to allow candidates to self-schedule immediately after completing their pre-employment assessments. Should they fit your criteria, you can then automatically move them along in the process, eliminating the need to manually send invitation links or reach out by phone or email to find a time that works for both parties.
Plus, allowing candidates to self-schedule their interviews creates a better, more modern applicant experience that’s more likely to result in them accepting an offer—especially when it helps to significantly speed up your company’s time to hire, which is particularly important with at least 57% of job seekers losing interest in a job if the hiring process takes too long.
5. Use video interviewing to make the process even more efficient
While some recruiters prefer meeting face to face, it simply might not be feasible when you’re scheduling interviews and hiring at scale. After all, you’re already very busy – it’s likely that you don’t want to waste countless hours interviewing hundreds of candidates. That’s why video interviewing is a game-changer for high-volume recruiters.
With a virtual interview tool, you can incorporate either asynchronous or synchronous video interviewing that offers you a holistic view of each candidate—all while saving time and improving your decision-making in the process.
Plus, on-demand video interviews are often more appealing to candidates. In fact, 92% of candidates like on-demand video interviews because they see them as flexible, innovative, and a chance to make an impression beyond their resumes.
6. Synchronize all recruiter calendars to collaborate effectively
The interview scheduling tool you choose to scale your volume hiring efforts should offer the ability to synchronize all recruiter calendars with one another. This way, you’ll always have access to a quick, at-a-glance overview of your upcoming interviews at every moment, empowering you to be better prepared to effectively screen candidates.
Additionally, synchronized recruiting calendars enhance your ability to collaborate with other members of your recruiting team.
For example, maybe you have a busy day and need to hand off a candidate interview to another recruiter. Or, perhaps one of your recruiters has to call in sick, and another needs to pick up the slack. Either way, having fast access to the right interview details will make the process easier and more efficient
7. Choose a tool with features to guide decision-making
Your selection matters when choosing a volume hiring software to streamline your interview scheduling process. Opt for a tool that offers the option to see each candidate’s resume, pre-hire assessments, and any other relevant information during the interview itself. This can help you interview more effectively and efficiently.
Also, when looking for software that allows you to schedule interviews with more candidates at once, keep an eye out for one that lets you see interview recordings afterward. This is particularly helpful should you need to review something again before making a decision, or share with another recruiter or the hiring manager to get their opinion before making your candidate selection.
8. Make sure your solution integrates with your ATS
Finally, make sure your interview solution is integrated with your company’s ATS. A solid ATS can help you navigate just about any part of your high-volume hiring process, from posting the initial job ad to helping increase efficiency during interview scheduling.
The ability to quickly and easily access all the relevant candidate details and interview information at one time will help you keep a real-time overview in one convenient, centralized location.
Integration with your ATS also saves you and other members of your recruitment team from needing to manually input new applicants into the system for each and every interview, freeing up time that can be better spent getting to know the top candidates that you move along in the process.
Next steps to scaling interview scheduling in volume hiring
Interview scheduling is a tricky part of the recruitment funnel—especially for high-volume recruiters who need to schedule a number of applicants at one time. However, with the right technology and the right strategy, you can make drastic improvements to your process, allowing you to interview and hire at scale, each and every time.
If you’d like to see how Harver can help you design an interview scheduling process that is easy to scale and solves your current volume recruitment challenges, you can book a demo below.
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