Tips to Implement Automation in Candidate Sourcing

Guest Blog by Zac Amos, Features Editor at ReHack

For growing companies with smaller HR and recruitment teams, leveraging automation to meet modern-day recruitment needs is a must. Not all software and tools require investing in artificial intelligence or expensive Internet of Things devices. Small businesses or non-technological sectors have just as much capability to use these resources as Fortune 500 tech-forward enterprises.

Turnover is higher than ever as workforces seek greater work-life flexibility and higher wages. Candidate sourcing tools can make the tedium less impactful on teams, keeping morale as high as possible in a department laden with repetitive tasks and obstacles.

What Candidate Sourcing Tasks Can Be Automated?

Candidate sourcing tasks can easily pile up. Teams must navigate existing staff and maintain files for company records on top of talent acquisition — it’s a lot to juggle in addition to the stress of constant applications. Here are the main focus areas for groups to seek automation tools, so talent sourcing is proactive instead of reactive:

Posting job openings
Advertising online through social media
Scheduling interviews
Sending messages to prospective applicants
Resume scanning
Administering skills assessments
Assigning onboarding paperwork
Data scraping
Following up on emails

Some more specific objectives may need higher capability tools, like AI. Businesses wanting to encourage diverse hiring or expand their operations globally for remote applicants may need more intensive resources with broader service offerings.

The larger the pool and the greater variety of jobs being offered, the more analytics teams will have to comb through. Hiring teams must ensure systems gather only relevant data to not obscure what’s integral to candidate sourcing. Too many numbers can distract from process discovery or efficient automation.

Finding tasks to automate can happen by undergoing process discovery about comprehensive HR operations. Though optimizing tools for current employees may not overtly assist with candidate sourcing, every asset that automates tasks allows recruiting professionals and hiring managers more time to devote to candidate sourcing, including streamlining all operations, not just recruiting.

How Can Teams Implement These Resources?

Teams must embrace the workflow and lifestyle changes automation brings. It will feel like a massive adjustment because it will be. Suddenly, calendars are freer, and workforces can invest more time in meaningful tasks.

Automated tasks will happen faster, more promptly and with greater accuracy than humans could accomplish — which is not detrimental to current HR employees. It only signifies a transition to more profound work technology can’t execute. These are the most important types of automation tools teams can look into that facilitate a sourcing funnel within a reasonable budget:

Job posting management software: This reduces the need to log in, optimize and manage job postings from individual websites, putting it all in a central hub.
Internal messaging systems: Websites like LinkedIn have internal features that can automatically scan profiles within a radius and directly message candidates that fit particular prerequisites. They can also send follow-ups and scheduling reminders. Third-party applications, like Dux-Soup, can also perform these tasks.
Applicant tracking systems (ATSs): Localize information about candidates, past and present, in a single database. Use automated scans to identify candidate strengths or categorize talent into skill-relevant pools.
Social media schedulers: Use scheduling tools, like Buffer, to suggest social media post optimizations and hashtag suggestions for reaching maximum engagement for job-related posts. When workers spend around 5 hours a day looking for content, it’s no wonder these platforms are so helpful. Advertise automatically based on preset dollar amounts and geotargets.
Pre-employment assessments: Platforms like Indeed and programs like Codility can automatically send candidates skills, proficiency and personality tests and rank them to help employers cull applicants based on their application progress.

Though centralized databases are ideal for managing countless names and faces, these won’t stay organized without a database manager or management system alongside productive data scraping tools. There is much metadata regarding candidates, like education, job history, skills, references and volunteer information. How can hiring teams achieve the automated life they desire if this isn’t standardized and imported harmoniously across platforms?

What Advice Should Departments Follow for Optimal Use?

The best way to successfully use automation systems is to identify and make plans to overcome the disadvantages. The first is the upfront investment, which will easily pay for itself in time — but only if companies seek trustworthy and resilient tools.

Some argue that automation — like a robot sending an automated DM to schedule an interview — feels less personal or human. Creativity and control may seem to walk out the door when a template guides communications. However, recruiters and hiring managers can use human-written responses for automated messaging and have multiple options to pick from to keep answers more organic.

It is important to note that while automation can save teams time, it can’t necessarily guarantee more or less success. Applicants are increasingly aware of the automation tools companies are using, and some do not want to interact with them, preferring human interaction. The more the populace educates themselves on these tactics, the more it will impact their responsiveness and attitude toward the strategies. Automation could bring in as many false positives and legitimate resumes — so it’s critical to stay vigilant.

Therefore, hiring teams shouldn’t immediately set high metric-related goals for new hires or incoming applications. Instead, they should focus on using the tools to meet present expectations and build from there as automation begins to free up their days for more impactful projects.

Eliminating Frustration and Repetition in Candidate Sourcing

Recruiters and hiring managers should look to automation technologies for candidate sourcing. They offer more benefits than drawbacks, which are easily worked around with a few creative adjustments. Teams can expect the same, if not more, engagement with job postings and higher turnout for interviews. Automating the minutiae of candidate sourcing leads to a constant stream of talent with only minimal oversight required for maintenance.

About the Author

Zac Amos serves as the Features Editor at ReHack, where he covers AI, big data, and automation. He is especially interested in how technological advancements can be applied to the HR sector.