We sat down with William Tincup, President at RecruitingDaily, and Jessica Morales, New Business Verticals, Recruiter at DoorDash to discuss high volume hiring. They shared everything from their thoughts on process optimization, to how to better engage candidates, and what exactly they find useful to minimize ghosting!

With the market for talent as scarce as it is, we’re all struggling to meet reqs and transform this narrative of candidate ghosting.

Most recruiters are feeling a tension between creating processes that ensure quality hires while trying to scale for volume and deliver on their reqs. It leaves many of us thinking:

• Should you focus on speed and rely heavily on automation?
• Should you be focused on creating a human-oriented process to build trust and deeper relationships?
• Is it even possible to find a balance?

Well, here’s what Jessica and William suggest.

 

How to Get Comfortable with Automation

William Tincup, President at RecruitingDaily, encourages us to think about all the other areas of our life where we outsource things.

“Who mows your grass? Cleans your pool? Shapes your trees?”

Knowing we only have so much time in the day. We have to decide what we enjoy enough to do, then focus on getting things we dislike off our plates. When we do that, it’s called outsourcing!

“As we think about TA as a function, what would it look like to outsource the tasks we either can’t keep up with or don’t like?”

– William

If you’re struggling to embrace using automation in your volume-hiring process, William suggests asking:

• Where am I strong?
• What am I struggling to accomplish?
• Which tasks would I focus on more if I had more time?
• If I could outsource something, what would it be?

Leveraging automation is an easy way to outsource your cumbersome tasks. In this case the thing you would be outsourcing to would include softwares, because they are built to do it more efficiently.

 

How to Leverage Texting to Engage Candidates

“My number one struggle is candidate ghosting. With the market as wild as it is now, I’m backfilling reqs left and right. I see candidates back out at the last minute every single day.”

– Jessica

For her and her team, texting has made a big difference in helping to counteract the candidate ghosting plague.

Jessica suggests building out automated texts, and scheduling follow up texts.

“Candidates usually won’t respond to the first one, but once they get a second, they usually reply saying ‘oh I thought this was a robot!’”

Since initially implementing text as a channel, Jessica and her team have baked this communication method into every stage of their process.

Jessica personally experiences a 44% response rate. There’s no denying it’s the channel to invest in.

“Candidates are so much more inclined to respond to a text than they are to an email. It’s the easiest and quickest way to hear back from them.”

Jessica and her team, leverage automated follow up texts 24-48 hours after they send the original message. She notes that the second text helps candidates realize they are talking with a person, not a robot.

“I think it promotes a lot of open communication with the candidates I’m working with.”

For Jessica, the human element is the differentiator.

 

How to Create Undeniable Offers for Candidates

Both Jessica and William agree that the most compelling experiences aren’t solely related to speed, so what can you do to help manage drop off at the offer letter phase?

William suggests having the candidate set the pace. In your early interactions ask:

• When would you like to make a decision on this?
• How motivated are you to move quickly?
• We are happy to move with you, how quickly are you looking to make this decision?

His closing thoughts include changing the process as a whole. Don’t take days to send an offer letter because things change. Take the extra 5-minutes while you still have them to ask, “what would it take for you to sign this today?” Then get it to them ASAP.

Jessica believes that compelling offers aren’t solely based on the speed of the process. She notes that candidates have options and they will pick the option that affords them no surprises or inconveniences. If they can get a dollar more per hour and a shorter commute, that’s the job they are going to take.

For Jessica, it’s about asking “when would you like to make a decision about this” as soon as she can. If a candidate can’t give you a serious answer, chances are, they aren’t serious about the job.

 

So, What Does This Mean for Your Volume Hiring Process?

 

Don’t be afraid to outsource things that are burdensome.

Allow yourself the freedom to do a few things exceedingly well, in place of doing everything good.

 

Lean into the channels your candidates are reachable on.

Why swim upstream if you can float down the river? If your candidates are willing to fire off text messages, it’s not worth the fight to solely use email.

 

Work in collaboration with your candidates to provide undeniable offers.

Being able to serve candidates a completely customizable experience at scale by letting them set the pace is a game changer. Lean into this collaboration to minimize your ghosting.