Benefits of an Automated Recruitment Processes

While the expectations being placed on HR teams have never been higher, they are notoriously overstretched and under-budgeted. It’s hard to think strategically if you’re mired in transactional (though essential) tasks like recruitment. This is doubly the case for smaller organisations, where recruitment tasks often fall to one person, or to a manager who has many other responsibilities – so doing more with less is a priority.

Here are 9 key benefits why the addition of cloud-based technology, such as ELMO Recruitment, can transform how your organisation handles talent acquisition.

1. Improved quality of hire

Quality of hire is one of the more elusive benefits of recruitment automation – mainly because there is no “one size fits all” metric for quality of hire. Instead, this depends on what your priority is. LinkedIn reports the top 3 ways to measure quality of hire are:

• Retention: The length of time new hires stay at the company (e.g. measured as a rate of new hires staying vs. new hires leaving 90 days post-hire or within the first year of hire).
• Time to fill: The time it takes to fill a job posting (e.g. measured by the number of days taken).
• Hiring satisfaction: The satisfaction of the hiring managers (e.g. measured by how satisfied they are with the new hire from 0-10).

Other common quality of hire metrics include:

• Ramp-up time: An employee’s time to full productivity.
• Job performance: Measured by supervisors’ performance ratings or objective data like sales.
• Employee engagement:Measured by the new hire’s self-ratings.
• Cultural fit: Measured by 360 ratings from the new hire’s colleagues and supervisors.

The above metrics are obtainable if your recruitment software is integrated with onboarding and performance management software. Ultimately, quality of hire will be positively impacted when the more mundane recruitment tasks are automated, as this allows recruiters to focus on what really matters: writing effective job descriptions, building an effective employer brand, and conducting in-depth interviews. Recruitment automation can also help by providing data on previous and current hires, so you can replicate success in your recruitment efforts.

2. Improved cost to hire

The time wastage associated with manual recruitment processes is reason enough to seek alternatives. However, on-premise recruitment software can also be expensive. You need to cover the price of the software, the maintenance of that software, and even administrators to make sure everything is running smoothly. In addition, you’ll need to pay additional license fees each time a new upgrade is released.

Cloud-based recruitment software such as ELMO Recruitment is considerably more cost-effective, as it typically operates on an annual or monthly subscription fee. Included in that fee is access to the vendor’s support team, and automatic upgrades to the software. Use ELMO’s Recruitment ROI Calculator to determine the savings possible from automating recruitment tasks.

3. Improved time to hire

Getting the best talent into your organisation as quickly as possible is a key priority, and this is best achieved by automating certain tasks. Automation helps both employers and candidates. For candidates, in addition to digitising tasks such as filling out forms and submitting CVs, recruitment automation plays a critical role in boosting communication between individuals and organisations, personalising the recruitment process, and building trust between candidates and employers. By creating talent pools, employers can nurture future candidates by keeping them informed of company news and alerting them to job openings – ultimately resulting in reduced time to hire.

4. Improved productivity

Cloud-based recruitment software can remove many manual aspects of recruiting or can schedule them to occur for certain times or dates. Employers are already using automating tools that do everything from sourcing candidates to scheduling interviews, through to screening applicants and even conducting background checks. This automation allows you to turn your attentions to other strategic tasks such as workforce planning – or at the very least, holding in-depth interviews. Also remember that recruitment is a 24/7 job. Mobile functionality enables recruitment software to be accessed any time of the day, which can enhance productivity and allows you to respond to queries and applicants “on the go”.

5. Improved collaboration

Effective recruitment involves multiple stakeholders. From the decision-makers (direct managers, department heads, HR) to input from future peers and those involved in panel interviews, collaboration is often required to get the best results. Modern recruiting software allows multiple people to access candidate profiles, add notes, update content and provide feedback. Integrated recruitment, onboarding and payroll software can also ensure the stakeholders involved in each step are kept in the loop whenever a new employee starts.

6. Streamlined data collection

From candidate names, contact details, resumes and notes, a recruiter gathers plenty of data that must be stored and tracked. Keeping this data stored on a work computer – perhaps tucked away in an email folder or spreadsheet – is not only a security risk, it’s prone to going missing. Cloud-based recruitment solutions store all data in one place and allow you to organise and access data regardless of where you are. By connecting various platforms and tools through your recruitment solution, each system can “speak” to one another, sending data, updates, and information. Think how much easier life would be if your onboarding, payroll, even learning management and performance management platforms were connected.

7. Enhanced reporting and analytics

The increased volume of data being churned out by businesses and the speed at which it can be analysed makes it a very useful tool for talent managers. Do you know where your most successful candidates have been sourced from? Or how long it took to fill a particular role? A major benefit of automated recruitment technology is the ability to gather and dissect data, and then make improvements to hiring processes.

8. Better candidate experience

Not only does automation make life easier for HR, it also improves the candidate experience. Without automation it can be difficult to find the time to acknowledge applications, let alone inform candidates that they have been unsuccessful. Recruitment software can generate automated emails that can be personalised and sent out to candidates to keep them informed of their progress. In addition, automation ensures each step of the process is as seamless as possible for candidates, who are able to move swiftly from uploading their resume to answering pre-qualifying questions and submitting their application.

9. Paperless processes

For those still burdened with manual HR and payroll processes, it’s likely you’ll have cabinets of employee records dominating the office, bundles of onboarding paperwork, and stacks of resumes, job applications, job descriptions and job ads. Digitising all these processes dramatically reduces the need to print documents – keeping the dream of a paper-free office alive and benefitting the environment as a result. Using a cloud-based system can also improve the audit trail. Eliminating paper-based systems will ensure that different business units can be easily tracked and monitored.

Securing the services of an employee who fits your culture, has the required knowledge and experience and who wants to excel is the ultimate goal of any HR team or hiring manager. You may just need a helping hand to make it happen. To find out how ELMO Cloud HR & Payroll can help with an integrated, end-to-end platform, contact us.