Your recruitment funnel can be one of your organization’s most costly endeavors. The expense of hiring and training employees is ever increasing, thanks to a constantly tightening labor market and a scarcity of in-demand talent coupled with widening skills gaps. 

The average recruitment cost per hire is around $4,000, and it’s estimated that training a new hire can cost up to 38% of their annual salary. How can you reduce the costs of recruitment and still manage to land top talent? Automation is the answer.

1. How to optimize job postings in your recruitment funnel

Start by creating a job posting for every position in your company. When developing job descriptions, avoid words like “guru” and “unicorn” and find ways to clearly and efficiently describe the responsibilities of the job, the requirements for candidates, and the benefits of the position. Don’t forget to state clearly what your company does. Then, automate your job postings by using a job site to kick out your position to best-match candidates.

2. Improve the recruiting funnel by streamlining the candidate search

In addition to using indirect recruiting methods like posting to job sites, consider going directly to the source by seeking qualified active and passive candidates on career building sites like LinkedIn. You might be able to whisk an ideal candidate away from their current position even if they weren’t actively seeking new employment. If all of this sounds like a lot of hit or miss work, consider a solution like Crosschq Recruit to provide you with candidates who are close mathes for your needs and ready to hire on quickly. 

3. Candidate screening can be automated through the recruiting funnel

Once you have candidates in your ATS, automate refinement of the pool by activating screening to find candidates who are close matches to the top of your search and drop those with missing “must-haves” in the way of experience or education to the bottom. However, make sure your automation software isn’t accidentally bumping highly qualified candidates out of the running. Monitoring how your candidate deselection process is working is just as important as tracking who makes it through your filters.

4. Candidate reference checking

Reference check questions can take hours or even days to complete for each candidate on your shortlist. Using a solution like Crosschq 360 makes it easier to get reference checking done in a fraction of the time, and provides clear, easy to compare reports that can help you make a reasoned, informed decision. Being able to compare “apples to apples” instead of relying on scattered, disjointed information can help you rank candidates more accurately for a specific position.

5. Automate initial onboarding in the recruiting funnel

Onboarding needs to start before your candidate even shows up (or signs on) for their first day, and should continue at least through the first six months of their employment - preferably a year or more. High-impact onboarding can help you spot any dissatisfaction early on, and take steps to remedy it before losing an employee and having to start the expensive process of replacing them. Automate repetitive or routine processes with mobile friendly apps that get employees set up with critical logins and access to software.

6. You can automate key steps in benefits enrollment

HR divisions can speed and streamline the documentation side of things by automating key steps in the enrollment process. Get employees set up swiftly and accurately in your company systems for payroll and tax withholding, insurance, 401K, and other normal parts of signing on with a new employer. Each step completed should trigger the next step to start on, and keep things moving until all processes are complete.

7. Learning and development has become easier to automate

In an age of e-learning, L&D is easier than ever to automate and manage. Employees can choose what they want to take advantage of in the way of career building, and you can even arrange systems to allow for PTO used for L&D to be doubled as an extra incentive for and investment in employees. By making learning something that can be done without sacrificing leisure hours and family time, you can build strong company loyalty.

8. All employee surveys can be automated throughout the recruiting funnel

Finally, take regular surveys and get feedback from your employees. The insights you can gather from new hires can be used to help inform future recruitment campaigns. Crosschq Analytics can be invaluable for developing a survey and reporting system that lets you know where your recruitment systems are working well, and where improvements need to be made for long-term retention. 

Are you ready to begin the recruitment automation process? Start at the top of the funnel with proven technology and maintain your company’s speed and efficiency of hiring while creating processes that encourage employee engagement and retention.  Contact us for a free demo and find out what Crosschq can do for you.