Finding the right candidate for a job is hard, even at the best of times. Technically, you know that you need to select the best candidate for the position. However, nowadays, this is harder than ever because unemployment rates are extremely high. Another problem is that the gap between the skills people have, and those businesses need is getting bigger. The point is then to hire people who can quickly develop the skills that the company requires.
When talking about high-volume recruiting, the situation is even more complicated. Undoubtedly, high-volume hiring comes with various benefits. Sometimes it is considered essential for the development and growth of the company. But it also comes with many challenges that we don’t see with the regular recruitment process, which drastically increases the pressure related to it. If you are a recruiter who needs to prepare for high-volume hiring, you may be curious to read about these challenges. Let’s dive in.
What Is High Volume Hiring?
High-volume hiring is the process of recruiting a larger number of people in a short time. Companies often do this when they open a new branch or when they need to hire more people for a specific task. High volume hiring also refers to the hiring process, which includes plenty of interested candidates for one position.
If you follow business news, you probably saw that Amazon hired almost 200 000 people over several months in 2020 to meet the increased demand during the pandemic. This is what we mean when talking about high-volume hiring. Of course, most companies don’t hire that many people, but the process is pretty much the same.
One of the tools that can help you with high-volume recruitment process is SignalHire. It is a cloud-based software designed to help with recruiting and analyzing cost per hire turnover rate, etc. Here you will find all information you need before you start to use SignalHire.
High Volume Recruitment Challenges
Before we move on, we will say that there are plenty of misconceptions related to the job of a high-volume recruiter. The thing is that many people think it is a simple job because in their view you only need to find the right people and place them in the appropriate positions. In reality, though, besides plenty of other things you need to do, you are also the first person the candidates will see. That said, their desire to work with your company and the overall impression will depend on your performance. So, let’s see the most common challenges high volume recruiters face.
It Is Important To Know The Job Description
Here is the thing. When hiring for many positions simultaneously, knowing what each of them entails and what the company looks for is quite a challenge. As we mentioned above, this process is done when the company expands. Thus, it is safe to assume that there is a bit of guesswork when it comes to understanding how everything works. However, if you can provide detailed job descriptions for each position, hiring the right candidates will require way less effort.
The Volume Of Candidates Varies
You will certainly have to deal with a different number of candidates at different periods. The biggest challenge of high-volume recruiting is finding talented candidates for the job. The pandemic showed how unstable the labor market is and how quickly we can arrive at the point of a huge gap between the demand and offer. One problem is not getting enough applicants. But another, and maybe harder to solve, is having lots of applicants that are not qualified or skilled for the job. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t skilled candidates out there. It means that you need to find and develop the right strategies to attract them.
High-volume recruiters in other companies can have another issue, too. They may have too many candidates, both skilled and not. In that case, they might spend too much time and money trying to figure out who is the best for the job in question.
Delays In Hiring Might Make Candidates Give Up
Delay in hiring is a very common problem high volume recruiters face. An increase in entry jobs and the similarities between companies make it difficult for a business to stand out. The fact that the companies are interviewing many applicants and that the employment process takes a lot of time gives an advantage to the candidates. They can easily find the company that suits them, or even change quickly if they are not satisfied with conditions.
Plus, if you hire low-paid jobs in the tourism or hospitality sector, you are likely dealing with younger generations. In these cases, the chances are that they want to get hired sooner rather than later. That means that if you don’t give them the job within several days, they will look for another position. It is necessary to know that more than half of candidates, regardless of age, quit if the process is too lengthy or complicated.
With all that in mind, we can conclude that it can be useful to have a simpler way to reach top candidates. Luckily, add-ons like this the email finder extension allow us to find emails and phone numbers of candidates who have profiles on LinkedIn, GitHub or other business social media. With this SignalHire extension, we can have access to contacts, and more information about the potential candidates.
A Lot Of Time Goes On Updating Requirements
It is another challenge you may expect to face. When hiring many people at once and for different positions, you will find that HR and managers don’t see eye to eye regarding the qualifications, experience, and skills. If you are hiring multiple people for the same or similar position but in different locations, you might come across another problem. You have to deal with every requisition separately, which takes an enormous amount of time.
If you are in a hurry to hire new people, you may think that it would be a good idea to forgo the requirements altogether. If you find yourself thinking about it, you should know that you are not the first one with this idea. However, forgetting that bringing new employees includes background checks and scheduling orientation leads to unsuccessful onboarding experiences.
There Is Not Enough Data To Support Your Decisions
Many companies that hire many people at once have the issue of collecting and saving the data. The same problem occurs when the company has branches in different locations, and each branch has its own strategies, processes, and tools. Besides, even though everyone knows that it is essential, most people do this on top of other responsibilities, and they don’t have enough time to recruit. Hence, they hire based on the availability and work experience after barely looking and the candidate’s curriculum.
The lack of data makes the recruiters hire people based on gut feelings. Even if there are some assessments, they are usually in the form of reports that are prone to interpretation. This way, the higher management has no idea about how the hiring process is made. In itself, this doesn’t have to be the problem. But there is a chance that the hired candidate isn’t suitable for the job. Therefore, they will be fired or quite quickly. All this can make the hiring process last too long, which will lead to candidates giving up.
Bottom Line
As we mentioned, even regular recruiting is challenging. But high-volume recruiters face even bigger challenges, as you can see from everything we described above. It is not easy to find suitable candidates, so as a recruiter, you need to go above and beyond to reach out to them.
What challenges did you have? Share your experience with us.