You may not yet realize it, but it’s a warzone out there. The battle to attract, attain and retain top talent has restarted and intensified.
With the national unemployment rate sinking to 6% in March 2021, down from a historic peak of 14.8% in April 2020, it’s clear that organizations are once again getting back to business.
Despite the hiring drive happening right now, recent research from the Manpower Group reveals that nearly 70% of U.S. corporations are struggling to find quality hires.
To win the war, or at least a few key battles, your recruiting game must be strong. That’s where recruiting operations come into play. These roles, processes, and systems are on the rise, all designed to not only help you find ideal candidates but also to impress them and provide a unique candidate experience, making them an essential part of any organization’s battle strategy.
Recruiting Operations Defined
The demand for recruiting professionals has increased by 63% since 2016 according to LinkedIn’s 2019 Future of Recruiting report. Finding the right talent has become mission-critical for businesses, causing recruiting operations to rise in priority as recruiters work to keep up with quickly changing hiring needs.
Recruiting operations are like project managers. They focus on keeping the team agile while prioritizing candidate's experiences throughout the recruiting and hiring process. Recruiting operations make sure that the infrastructure is in place and kept up to date. Recruiting operations is like the glue that keeps the recruiting team working smoothly, effectively, and cohesively, ensuring that everyone understands their roles and the bigger picture is kept top of mind while overseeing logistics, including scheduling interviews and onboarding new hires.
There’s no single accepted definition of recruitment operations. Every business approaches it differently to best serve its individual needs and business model. The function of recruitment operations, however, is the same everywhere. Recruitment operations teams are tasked with minimizing friction throughout the hiring process. It provides the tools and data needed to make sure both human resources and the recruiting department are both operating efficiently.
Data-Driven Decisions Make All the Difference
Like nearly every other department, recruitment operations rely heavily on tech. Everything from applicant tracking systems to employment assessments to job postings is done digitally. This has created an ecosystem that looks nothing like what it did a decade ago. Today's recruitment operations team uses a variety of platforms, each of which enhances the financial and time efficiency of the recruiting process.
The right tech solutions are key. And data is at the heart of recruitment operations' success. Data from both the company's and the candidate's perspectives empowers teams to measure every step in the hiring process, pinpointing the areas that need to be improved. In turn, this allows teams to make essential changes and optimize the recruitment process.
Even more importantly, it allows organizations to answer several key questions, including if they know where to locate top talent, where their organization's hiring practices need improvement, and whether they've integrated the processes to attract top talent.
Optimizing the Interview
Another essential function of recruitment operations is training everyone on the frontlines. That means recruiters, interviewers, coordinators, and more. Recruitment operations is the key to creating a seamless experience for candidates. Given the importance of a phenomenal interview experience (it can be the deciding factor for top talent to sign on and it helps organizations further determine if the candidate’s a good fit) the critical nature of the role of recruitment operations can’t be understated.
Recruiters are tasked with providing an interview environment that's conducive to allowing candidates to showcase their unique skills. Interviewers are the face that helps up-sell the organization. Recruiting operations train everyone involved, providing anti-bias training and training to help interviewers best respond to candidate questions. This is the team charged with making sure there's a system in place to track feedback and ensure a candidate experience that's flawless, efficient, and impressive from end-to-end. In today’s environment, that also includes training interviewers on conducting virtual interviews and telephone screening.
The rapid changes in today’s business landscape make recruiting operations more important than ever. From staying on top of remote working and the latest trends to making sure the recruiting team is working efficiently, this is the team that will provide the competitive advantage your business needs to attract and attain top-tier talent. These are the teams that will help reduce the number of businesses struggling to find hires that meet their needs.