How to avoid high volume staffing headaches
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High volume hiring strategies to avoid hiring headaches
Ask employers about high volume recruitment needs and you’ll see the challenges reflected in their facial expressions.
Finding niche, scarce skills is tough enough by itself. But hiring these skills at scale is even more challenging. High volume recruitment processes require a vast amount of work. This mammoth tasklist makes it one of talent acquisition professionals’ least favourite tasks. In this blog we dive into the frequent challenges and smart solutions that go hand in hand with high volume hiring.
What is high volume staffing?
High-volume staffing involves hiring many new staff members in a short period. If an organisation experiences rapid growth or seasonal fluctuations in demand, high volume hiring can provide an ideal solution.
However, with the benefits also come issues. Many qualified candidates often end up vying for the same open positions, resulting in headaches for talent acquisition teams. And recruiting for many job postings at once can lead to a compromise on quality. But that shouldn’t be the case.
What are the key challenges of a high volume recruitment strategy?
A lack of long-term, effective workforce planning
A high volume approach can prove challenging without effective workforce planning. For many large organisations this strategy remains an elusive goal. Internal recruiters need to remain responsive to all business functions. When internal recruiters encounter conflicting priorities with limited resources, scaling up becomes difficult. Long-term workforce planning is essential to keep an eye on the horizon.
When considering which resources to designate to workforce planning, business leaders need to ask themselves:
- How do you drive proactive talent pooling when the population moves so quickly?
- What action should you take when a lack of workforce planning regularly places you in reactive mode?
Unclear responsibilities of hiring managers
Throughout any high volume recruiting process, it is essential for recruiters to create a meaningful candidate experience. However, hiring managers often fail to understand their responsibilities in this process.
The aim is to screen every candidate that has applied for the role. But many managers lack the time to do so. This is particularly true when hiring for several roles at once.
On one hand there are so many applicants for roles that recruiters cannot respond to everyone. On the other hand, there is a shortage of good candidates based in the right locations for regional jobs. As such, it’s important to strike a careful balance for the screening process. Involve hiring managers at the most valuable point.
How can your organisation overcome high volume hiring challenges?
What are the key success factors in the world of high volume recruitment?
1. Analyse and assess your job descriptions
By analysing jobs effectively you can ensure that each job description accurately reflects the role. Analysis also offers a chance to check whether the job description aligns with the broader business strategy.
The best place to start is by talking to employees who are currently in the roles you are reviewing. First-hand accounts will give you relevant insights. Importantly, try to identify any gaps between the job description and what the role requires in reality. This process will streamline recruitment at all levels.
2. Establish robust selection practices for potential candidates
Putting robust selection practices in place will help to remove any biases. Define assessments that aim to demonstrate:
- A holistic view of each candidate.
- A direct understanding of a candidate’s ability to meet the requirements of the job.
- A sense of what skills a candidate might apply both now and in the future.
Consider pre-interview tasks carefully, to ensure that they answer the right questions. Then you will be in a good place to judge consistent, objective and fair assessments against a fixed set of criteria.
3. Design the application and interview process around the candidate experience
Candidates are also your customers. Therefore, it is important to design all talent acquisition practices and processes around the candidate experience. Recruiters need to make sure they:
- Identify candidate suitability quickly, rather than failing to inform a candidate of their progress.
- Engage with candidates through every step of the process with multi-faceted communication plans.
- Survey every single candidate, not just those who were successful.
- Use candidate survey data to continuously review processes.
Placing candidates at the heart of your high volume hiring strategy will help you to learn and iterate. Respond to candidate feedback to improve your processes and expedite future recruitment.
4. Harness the power of emerging technologies to secure top talent
Technology continues to evolve and become more integrated throughout the recruitment process. Now more than ever it is important to understand how emerging technologies can improve the candidate experience.
Technology plays a critical role in high volume recruitment. But you need to have a deep understanding of the candidate journey and where to apply digital versus human engagement. With the right use of technology, such as applicant tracking systems and chatbots, you can meaningfully engage with and respond to all applicants.
With so much to consider, it is understandable that companies are outsourcing their high volume recruitment. High volume hiring agencies and RPO providers, including Hays, can offer a streamlined solution.
How can RPOs help to find high volumes of suitable candidates?
RPOs provide the right level of high volume focus and expertise. The additional resource frees up your business and internal talent acquisition teams to focus on core and strategic roles.
RPO providers also stay on top of the latest emerging technology. Your provider will have a suite of tools that you can access and implement to drive better outcomes. After all, given the rapid rate of workforce change, flexibility and scalability remain highly relevant key benefits.
Offering job seekers a seamless experience is essential
As we’ve discussed, candidates are often your consumers. Therefore, you can't afford not to give them the best possible engagement experience with your brand. Whether you’re recruiting for one role or hundreds, it’s important to offer the same quality experience.
High volume recruitment is fun, fast-paced and requires a lot of energy! But it's not for everyone. So, if it’s a challenge for you or your organisation, perhaps you could consider the outsourcing route?
Explore our Outsourced Recruitment Solutions.
Learn more about recruitment strategies and potential outsource options for high volume staffing:
- Strategic Savings: Maintaining quality whilst optimising costs
- The value of RPO during uncertain times
- Volume Recruitment Solutions: Case study
AUTHOR
Paula Croeser
Head of Sales, Solutions and Bids, Hays
Paula has fulfilled multiple leadership roles in the recruitment industry and has spent the last 10 years specialising in the design and execution of MSP/RPO solutions.
Prior to that Paula has performed senior sales and leadership roles in traditional recruitment. Her strength lies in strategic level sales, sales leadership and overall business leadership. She has experience leading a start up business in the South African market, growing it into a very successful brand - employing over 150 staff.