Hiring 7 min

5 Processes Automated Recruitment Software Can Speed Up

August 13, 2018
Updated December 1, 2021

It can take a while to find the right person to hire when you’re searching for the best candidates or specialized skills. On average, it takes a company 28 days to fill an open vacancy, with the most difficult and time- consuming -challenge being finding and evaluating qualified candidates.

Automated recruiting in human resources information systems (HRIS) offers a way to resolve these issues by reducing the time spent during recruiting. With a streamlined hiring process, you’ll be able to gain a competitive advantage and find the best candidates.

What Is Recruiting Automation Software?

Relying on technology like machine learning and predictive analysis, recruiting automation software makes talent acquisition easier and more effective by automating the process of qualified candidate sourcing, including posting open positions, screening applications, and scheduling interviews.

How Can You Use Recruiting Automation to Improve Your Recruiting Process?

We’ll go over how to automate and improve the recruitment process starting with these five recruiting tasks.

#1 Connect to Multiple Job Boards

You don’t want to miss a great candidate just because you didn’t post on the right job site (or on enough of them). Many candidates search on different job boards depending on the position they’re after and the industry they’re in. For example, an engineer may need to narrow their search to a few job sites compared to someone looking for an hourly warehouse job.

One advantage of modern recruitment solutions is the ability to post a job ad and then choose any number of job boards where it’ll be posted. No more spending hours copying and pasting the same requisition on a number of different sites. Instead, your recruitment team can dedicate their time to more important tasks while your HRMS recruitment module continues promoting your open positions and bringing in more qualified candidates to the talent pool.

#2 Identify Internal Candidates

Often your best candidates are right in front of you: They’re your own employees. A high-quality recruitment system should allow you to integrate your HRIS data directly into your system. Your employees can then be matched to posted positions based on their existing skills and invited to apply for them without the need to send company-wide vacancy emails.

Effective internal recruiting also improves employee retention; organizations that use internal promotions for middle-management positions experience almost half the rate of employee turnover than organizations that rely on external candidates. Sourcing internal candidates for career development opportunities fosters a positive company culture where existing employees are recognized for their hard work and then rewarded with career progression.

#3 Automatically Parse and Augment Resumes

Resume parsing is one of the best time-savers recruiting software can provide to recruiters. The increasing number of resumes submitted per job opening has added more pressure on recruiters, with 52 percent of HR directors citing this as a key reason for a much lengthier hiring process. Using an HRIS with automated resume parsing functionality can save your recruiters hours of manually entering data and reviewing resumes that are unsuitable for open positions. Some products also connect with social media or networking sites to provide a more complete candidate picture to a recruiter and hiring manager.

#4 Provide Paperless Contracts and Digital Signatures

In a traditional recruiting environment, you complete the hiring process is once you select a candidate you send out the offer letter and continue onboarding activities via the HRIS once the candidate signs the paper contract. With automated recruiting software, you can optimize this process by automatically generating a digital offer letter and allowing candidates to use e-signatures.

With an automated hiring process, you save time, eliminate the added costs of printing and mailing contracts to successful candidates, and get that new hire in the door more quickly. Digitizing and automating contracts and offers also saves your employees time, as they no longer have to sign and send back; paperwork or have candidates come to the office to sign in person.

#5 Integrate Your Onboarding Process

Mistakes happen when you have two systems storing the same data. Whether you use a recruitment module within your HRIS or a stand-alone niche recruitment system with an integration, the important thing is to have one data entry point. This allows you to seamlessly convert candidates to employees, eliminating redundant data entry and the possibility of errors.

Automation like this also reduces time spent on operational tasks, so HR and hiring managers can focus on getting to know their new hires and helping them succeed in their role, which is the ultimate goal.

These are just five ways automation can streamline your recruitment and hiring process; there are many more opportunities for automated recruitment software to make hiring more efficient as HR technology continues to progress.

Wondering whether or not to hire someone?
Check our our "Should I Hire This Candidate?" Flowchart!

What Are Additional Short- and Long-Term Benefits of Using Automated Recruiting Software?

Additional short-term benefits of using automated recruiting software include:

  • More productive recruitment. If you want to save time in your hiring process, recruiting software is how to do it. Automating mundane tasks frees up time to focus on important in-person tasks. Instead of focusing your time on paperwork, you can focus your time on your new recruit.
  • Improved talent pool. Rather than weeding through a bunch of misaligned applications, automated recruiting software uses predictive analysis to better understand each candidate and predict whether they will be a good match for a given role.

Because of the above benefits at the front-end of the hiring process, your organization will see other long-term benefits like:

  • Accelerated time-to-fill. With automation, you may see the time it takes to fill a job decrease considerably. Who couldn’t use more time in the day?
  • Reduced cost-per-hire. Because software is doing the work rather than live employees, costs go down, freeing up money to spend on other business needs.
  • Higher retention rates. Since candidates are pre-qualified and predicted to do well in a specific role, there is a greater chance of them staying at your organization as engaged, happy employees.
  • Insight into key metrics. Having your recruiting data at your fingertips, rather than having to pull all that information manually, will save you time and help you be more strategic when evaluating your recruiting process.

In short, having automated recruitment software and automated hiring software allows managers to keep working while the software handles time-consuming, manual tasks.

About the Author

Heather Batyski is an experienced HRMS analyst, consultant, and manager at HRMS World. Having worked for companies such as Deloitte, Franklin Templeton, and Oracle, Heather has firsthand experience with many HRMS solutions including Peoplesoft and Workday.

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