Recruiting & Hiring Blog for HR Professionals

We’re proud to announce that Hyrell placed as a “Contender” in the FrontRunners quadrant for Applicant Tracking powered by Gartner Methodology! The ATS quadrant is a data-driven assessment of products in a particular software category to determine which ones offer the best capability and value for small businesses.

As the economy has rebounded, the job market has started to heat up and recruiters are also starting to feel the heat. A recent study by SHRM found that over two thirds of HR professionals (68%) are experiencing difficulty recruiting candidates for full time positions. However, organizations that attract highly qualified candidates have a leg up over the competition. One way to make this a reality is to develop top notch recruiting content.

Most HR professionals today have some experience working with HR Tech. In fact, from recruiting, to hiring, to onboarding, to training, to succession planning, software has become an integral part of the employee lifecycle. However, even if you have experience using some type of HR Tech, the idea of selecting and implementing something new can be overwhelming.

As a new year approaches, it’s traditional for people to make resolutions and commit to making changes. On the HR front, 2016 may be a good time for leaders to initiate organizational change.

Why not take a two-pronged approach? Use a top-down approach to make the case for strategic HR in the C-suite and simultaneously, focus on a bottoms-up, grassroots movement to increase employee engagement and create cultural change from within. Here are some tips to jumpstart both initiatives.

You’d like your company to invest in an applicant tracking system, but the key decision maker is afraid the software will miss qualified candidates. This concern may be fueled by personal experience—perhaps he felt he was wrongly passed over when he applied to a company that used this type of software. Alternatively, he may simply have been misled by inaccurate information on the Internet.  

You shouldn’t let the conversation about implementing an applicant tracking system fall by the wayside, however. A persuasive way to alleviate fears is by educating decision makers about how an applicant tracking system screens candidates and comparing it to the manual process your team uses today.  

Here are four facts you can use to help decision makers see past their concerns.

Some career experts say job seekers should always be actively looking for new job opportunities. If job seekers are always looking, should companies also continuously search for top candidates?

The answer is yes. Even if your business does not have a job opening right now, actively seeking out top candidates can lead to finding and expediting top quality new hires when a position opens up. Here are three reasons why you should always be hiring:

There’s no denying searching for jobs can be a lengthy process, so when job seekers find a job they feel is a good fit, they get hopeful. They send in their application materials and eagerly await HR’s response. But more often than not, they never hear back.

Poor follow up consistently ranks as one of job seekers’ biggest grievances about the job search. Improving communication between the HR department and job applicants is something you’ve been trying to remedy at your company for a long time. Through your research, you’ve found applicant tracking software (ATS) may be your solution to keeping applicants better informed throughout the application and consideration processes.

There’s just one problem: Not all of the decision makers at your company see improved communication with applicants as a priority, especially not one that necessitates spending money on a third-party tool. They don’t see why it matters if HR does not respond to every candidate.

HR teams are understandably concerned with filling positions quickly while finding the best candidates possible. Delivering a positive applicant experience is a proven way to achieve these goals, as well as to reinforce the organization’s overall brand and create goodwill. But what does it take to create a positive applicant experience? 

Virtual interviews (or video interviews) are no longer a hiring trend—they’re commonplace. According to an August 2012 study, 67 percent of of HR managers said they conducted video interviews in the hiring process “very often,” while another 10 percent said they did so “somewhat often.” Today, we can assume those numbers are even greater.

It’s easy to see why more HR reps and managers are incorporating video interviews into the hiring process. For one, virtual interviews often save time. Some sources suggest it’s possible to conduct up to 10 one-way video interviews in the time it takes to conduct one 30-minute phone interview. Virtual interviews also allow HR reps and job candidates to get a chance to see and interact with with one another in ways phone interviews can’t match.

We are very excited to announce that we’ve added yet another member to Team Hyrell! Jeremy Geadrities may be the office “newbie,” but he joins Hyrell with many years of customer experience under his belt, along with the drive and passion to take on any new challenges that come his way.