4 minutes
Follow these five steps to streamline your credit union’s recruiting and interview process.
Various data sources, as well as our personal experience at Jobsoid over the course of 2020, have shown that the job market worldwide was hit bitterly during by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment rates skyrocketed as many people lost their jobs due to the inability to be present in the workplace. Since remote work is difficult to impossible in many sectors, restaurants and bars, industrial sectors and, to some degree, financial services, all faced the same problem—the lack of workers in the field.
The resulting lack of profit generation to meet operational needs led many businesses to downsize or resort to hiring freezes. That led to a wide range of the population (though certainly not everyone) seeking jobs in the middle of the pandemic and beyond.
2021 has seen an uplift in the economic climate, but mostly in the employer's favor. Although this is good news for most organizations, the sudden downpour of candidates for open positions will undoubtedly create an issue for human resources professionals. There is one major question that looms over recruiters in this midst of this flurry of activity: How should they deal with external recruitment during a deluge of resumes?
Ways to Hire Faster
1. Structure your hiring process. Having a well-thought-out recruitment process that defines your business goals and needs will drastically reduce the working hours you and your HR colleagues will have to undergo when sorting through hundreds and maybe thousands of applications. You can be as creative as you like with this structure, but make sure it is tangible, documented legibly, feasible and followed during the hiring process.
2. Write understandable job listings. Although recruiters understand the importance of offering valid and crucial information when posting job listings, many miss the opportunity to reach the best talents by putting a little more effort into the description. Consider this the first impression an applicant will have about your credit union. Describing the position adequately, summarizing the role, listing the responsibilities, sharing organizational values and culture, are some of the crucial aspects you should include.
3. Leverage software-based assistance. Here’s where ATS software, or applicant tracking system, shines. This is software that efficiently tracks every application throughout the hiring process and automates communication from the application stage to offer letters. ATS software also provides some crucial information regarding the mediums through which candidates are applying to your job listings. For instance, if you have posted positions over a wide range of job portals, it is wise to keep track of the sites that are fulfilling your purpose and receiving applications worth pursuing. With that information, you can steer clear of the mediums that are of no use and save your precious resources.
4. Use questionnaires. If your job listings require specific skills, experience, education or certification, questionnaires are a go-to tool for recruitment. Apart from being cost-effective and easy to analyze and manage, pre-screening the list of questions allows you to have better clarity as an employer. Some of the questions could ask for more details regarding the applicant's education and experience, for example. You can post questionnaires on your own website, portals like LinkedIn, various job boards that assist in publishing such questionnaires, or external organizations and websites that offer development and hosting services.
5. Speed up interviews. Interviews consume a lot of time and resources for HR as well as management. With multiple hiring levels and people to be interviewed, it is essential to pick only the best applications for the actual interviews in order to effectively manage hiring time. Think of it this way: If your talent pool only has about 2-3% of people whose initial screening and experience you found adequate, why would you drag the rest of them into the interview process only to reject them later? So, review resumes carefully, keep a note of the questions to be asked during interviews, focus on building the candidate persona by asking the right questions and train your hiring managers in this process.
De-clutter your head and your inbox by employing some of these practical solutions to help deal with the overwhelming amount of resumes coming into your office. Make sure to thoroughly plan and implement screening stages and effective assessment techniques to narrow down your applicant pool. Remember to follow appropriate legal guidelines by complying with all relevant laws to protect your organization. Lastly, standardize and consistently follow each aspect of your hiring procedure.
Kelly Barcelos is a content marketing manager for Jobsoid and specializes in HR. When Barcelos is not building marketing campaigns, she is busy creating content to help people hire better. She shares tips, industry insights, innovations and several other topics that helps a wide variety of audience in their hiring efforts. As a working mom of three, she knows the importance of time management and counts on her multitasking ability to get her through her to-do lists.
