To find the best employees you need to sift through a lot of applicants. While applicant tracking systems and hiring automation can help ease the pain of this process, one lingering problem remains: What do you do if you don’t have enough applicants?
Even the most seasoned HR professionals encounter applicant flow issues. Sometimes it’s due to the geographical location of the job, or the position may require a lot of technical expertise. Whatever the reason, a shortage of qualified applicants can be a frustrating experience for any hiring manager.
To help discover a solution to this persistent problem, we asked a few of our team members to answer the question: “How can I improve my applicant flow?” Here’s what they had to say:
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Implementation Specialist, Lisa Hellene, says: The best way to increase applicant flow is to utilize free job boards in your local area. This is a great way to spread the word about your open positions for little to no cost to your company. Also, decide exactly how you want to collect information in the application process. If the candidate must provide the same information in 3 different areas of the application, they may become frustrated and fail to finish the entire process. As a result, you may lose a large portion of potential applicants. |
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Account Executive, Emily Russen, says: Make sure to always list your open positions on your company website. When an applicant is looking for a job, it is not uncommon for him/her to go right to your company website. Also, if you get a lot of walk-in applicants, post directions that detail where to go for employment opportunities. Another great suggestion for walk-ins is setting up a kiosk in your main lobby so applicants can apply for a job when they walk in. |
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Community Manager, Jessica Palmeri, says: If you have a strong presence on Social Media, take advantage of your online communities and spread the word that you’re hiring. Recent studies found that 14.4 million job seekers in the U.S. have used social media to search for a job -- so use social recruiting to your advantage and find the best talent on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. |
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National Account Executive, Jamie Monahan, says: One way you can improve your applicant flow is to post generic job titles when you are looking to hire. Business owners post the most technical job title terms that have no search value within search engines and/or Internet job boards. I always tell our clients to put themselves in the candidate’s shoes and ask: “What would they search when looking for a job?” I recommend our clients to go online and do a few test searches for job titles to see what works and what doesn't work. That's always a helpful exercise. |
For more applicant flow tips, download Hyrell’s Online Recruiting Guide: 11 Steps to Attract More Applicants.