Mass recruitment is one of the most challenging tasks for recruiters, even in the modern recruitment landscape. Although it sounds the same as regular hiring except for large requirements, it isn’t easy. This article jogs you through what mass hiring is, its challenges, and effective tips for recruiters to successfully perform mass recruitment.
What is Mass Hiring?
Mass hiring is the practice of recruiting a large number of employees in a short time frame. Unlike the traditional recruitment processes, mass or bulk hiring involves attracting, qualifying and onboarding a high volume of employees at a time.
While any type of hiring pays attention to time to fill and time to hire, mass hiring focuses special attention on these metrics. A mass hiring strategy is mostly used when a company grows fast or requires many employees at once. In this technique, recruiters generally focus on automation, hiring speed, and efficiency.
Challenges in Mass Hiring
When hiring in bulk, companies can come across two potential challenges:
- Compromised quality of hire
- Poor candidate experience
The other challenges of mass hiring are:
Time Limitations
Mass recruitment consumes lots of time. Processes such as candidate sourcing and screening take a lot of time and resources and pressure your recruiting team.
Talent Attraction
If the job advertisement is not done correctly or not promoted on the right platform, talent attraction fails. Failure to get qualified applicants will delay the whole hiring process. When hiring in bulk, companies also miss out on finding potential candidates in huge traffic.
Candidate Engagement
This is one of the significant challenges in mass hiring. When recruiters have to reach out and communicate with many people, it’s pretty natural to compromise proper engagement with them. Furthermore, due to delays in finding the right talent and limited time, communication may take a back seat during the mass recruitment process.
Mass recruitment is undebatably challenging, especially in this candidate-driven job market where candidate experience is one of deciding factors for candidates. However, there are some effective tips for mass hiring.
Mass Hiring Tips: How to Ensure a Smooth & Successful Mass Recruitment
1. Create a Mass Hiring Plan
Mass hiring is all about planning the process firsthand. So, a proper mass hiring plan is crucial to the successful process. However, it’s not easy to plan for a bulk recruitment process. Breaking down the plan into smaller tasks will help you streamline your recruitment funnel and make the process easier.
2. Expand Sourcing
According to multiple recruitment surveys, hiring managers say candidate sourcing is one of the most challenging tasks. When it comes to bulk recruitment, traditional candidate sourcing methods won’t pay much. It is quite essential to expand your candidate sourcing strategies.
Here’re some strategies to grow your talent pool:
- Reach out to a wider candidate base through multiple channels.
- Widen your activities on social media.
- Host recruitment events.
- Reconnect with staffing agencies.
- Launch a reward program to encourage your employees to refer potential candidates.
Note: It is also essential to keep your job descriptions and requirements in focus while reaching a broader candidate pool.
3. Track Candidates Effectively
When you post a mass hiring requirement, it’s likely to receive floods of applicants interested in the positions. This may lead to the loss of some potential applicants. To avoid such cases, you need to track your candidates effectively.
An Applicant Tracking System can help you track candidates accurately throughout their journey and not let any of them slip through the cracks. Furthermore, an ATS can also automate many mundane tasks and speed up the process.
4. Automate the Screening Process
Although automated screening using an ATS is the fast way to reduce time-to-hire, it isn’t effective. Screening candidates based on their resumes will eliminate many good candidates who are more than their resumes. This is where automated skill assessments come to the rescue.
Automated skill assessments help you find qualified candidates avoiding hiring bias.
5. Plan Interviews Smartly
Now comes the crucial step of the entire recruitment process. This is where major hiccups may happen. When hiring in bulk, it’s impractical to interview candidates one at a time. Group interviews and pre-recorded video and phone interviews save time and help you identify potential candidates for further rounds.
6. Follow-Up
Follow-up is the most vital part of hiring. Candidates are always eager to know about the interview’s status and the next steps of hiring. Hence, it is essential to inform your candidates and prepare them for further action.
Especially during mass hiring, it is easy to compromise on communicating with candidates and their experience. Following up with candidates and updating them on their interview status will help you improve your employer brand.
7. Ask for Feedback & Referrals
According to a survey, 82% of employees rated employee referrals above all other sourcing options. Ask your existing and new employees about how the hiring process was and ask them for referrals. If you’ve provided them with great experience, they will take the opportunity to refer candidates and post a review on Glassdoor or other social platforms.
Bottom Line
Mass hiring is a complex process that creates enormous stress for recruiters and hiring managers. Also, there is no foolproof solution for it, and reviewing the process constantly should not be avoided. However, with this guide and proper planning, you can overcome it successfully.
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