8 Tips for Recruiting Smarter, Not Harder

The shift toward a more remote workforce expands the talent pool but adds uncertainty to the hiring process. Companies compensate by adding work assignments, extra interviews, aptitude tests, and personality tests, hoping to leverage technology and innovation to hire top talent.

The average time-to-hire rose to an all-time high of 44 days in 2023. While technology, data-driven insights, and innovative strategies are essential to effective hiring, a shorter hiring process will invigorate hiring managers and candidates.

Read on to get our eight expert tips for recruiting smarter, not harder!

1. Start with a Hiring Plan

A well-written hiring plan will save your company time and money while improving the quality of your hires. It outlines your hiring goals and the steps to achieve them. Here is what you want to include.

Hiring goals—Your hiring goals include the next few months to a year of your company’s hiring needs. How many and which will you need? How do these hires align with the overall goals and objectives?
Timeline—Establish a realistic timeline for hiring, accounting for the time it takes to source, screen, interview, and hire qualified candidates.
Hiring budget—The hiring budget includes the cost of advertising job openings, screening candidates, conducting interviews, and making job offers. Research the current hiring trends in your industry. What are the salary ranges for the employees you are looking to hire? What are your competitors offering for the same or similar roles?
Recruitment strategy—How will you find qualified candidates? Where will you advertise your job openings? Will you rely entirely on your in-house team or partner with a staffing agency?
Selection process—How will you evaluate and hire candidates? What criteria will you use to select the best candidates? The selection process should be fair, objective, and designed to identify the most qualified candidates for the open positions.
Review and update—Your hiring plan is a living document that must adapt to the ever-changing employment landscape.

What Our Hiring Experts Say

Looking for more expert advice? Insight Global hosted a webinar with hiring experts Matthew Coats and Rebecca Farno. In this excerpt, they explain how to evaluate the need for new head count.

Want to watch the full webinar? Expert Talent Sourcing and Retention Strategies is available on demand. Sign up now!

2. Maximize the Impact of Your Job Description

When you take the time to craft an effective job description, you streamline the next few steps in your hiring process. An inclusive job description that is accurate and contains keywords your candidates are using to search for jobs will bring you more qualified applicants.

Whether you take the increasingly popular skills-first approach or are hiring for a position with specific education and experience requirements, you want to outline the mandatory skills and qualifications upfront so candidates can easily assess their fit.

Toward the end of your job description, some relevant details about your company culture and benefits can make your posting more appealing to qualified job seekers.

A more targeted approach reduces the number of applications and increases the chances of finding the right fit faster.

3. Expand Your Reach

While it’s easy to get a pile of responses to a job posting, you want a handful of highly qualified candidates you can interview for role-specific experience and cultural fit. The best way to do this is to cast your net as widely as possible as soon as you post the job.

Some employers rely on a single job board. This can be effective, but you inevitably miss out on candidates who aren’t active on that board when you post.

Make your post easy to find by sharing it on multiple high-traffic or industry-specific job boards, sharing it on your company’s social media accounts, and asking employees to share the posting on their accounts.

You can also expand your reach by working with a staffing agency with a database of candidates actively and passively searching for jobs!

4. Less Is More When Recruiting Smart

Examine your hiring process for steps to simplify, automate, or eliminate. What do you need to know from each candidate? Get those details upfront and look for ways to streamline and simplify your process.

From screening resumes to scheduling interviews, hiring software and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can automate repetitive tasks and allow you to focus on strategy and talent.

5. Communicate Throughout the Process

Don’t risk losing top candidates by leaving them in the dark. Maintain communication throughout the process. Inform your talent what they can expect and when they’ll hear about next steps.

Consistent communication keeps candidates engaged and gives you feedback about whether they’re still available and interested.

6. Pre-Screen Candidates You Plan to Interview

The interview process can be time-consuming for your team and department managers. A quick, standardized digital interview before in-person or on-camera interviews can help weed out applicants who look good on paper but won’t be a good fit for your company.

You can do a phone interview or have candidates record their responses for your review.

You can ask candidates about their reasons for leaving, recent work history, interest in your company, preferred management style, pay expectations, and availability. It’s a simple strategy to efficiently review each candidate’s preparedness, skills, and cultural fit before committing the time and resources to a full interview.

7. Leverage the Network and Skills of an Established Staffing Agency

A staffing agency has the expertise and candidate network to help you find and hire qualified candidates faster while saving your company money. From developing job descriptions and to sourcing the best candidates, a staffing agency can help hiring managers achieve their goals.

You can leverage a staffing agency to help with a range of tasks, including:

Sourcing Candidates

Staffing agencies have an extensive network of qualified candidates ready to explore new opportunities, which can save you time and effort.

Screening Candidates

From screening incoming resumes to organizing phone interviews for top candidates, a staffing agency can help you narrow the candidate pool to a manageable number.

Schedule and Conduct Interviews

A staffing agency can schedule interviews with candidates on your behalf. They are also skilled interviewers and can conduct the initial interview to assess applicants’ skills, experience, and cultural fit.

Making Offers

Your trusted staffing agency can make offers to the candidates you select and oversee negotiations. Since recruiters are deeply entrenched in the industry across multiple locations and companies, they can help you make competitive offers, increasing your chances of securing top talent!

Oversee Onboarding

From background tests, verifying references, giving new employees first-day instructions, and completing the onboarding paperwork, your staffing agency can oversee the onboarding process.

8. Standardize and Simplify the Interview Process

The interview process is a time-consuming and critical part of hiring. A shorter and simpler interview process can conserve resources and increase the number of potential candidates. Check out these methods for ways to standardize and simplify it for better results:

Create a Consistent Interview Structure

Every interviewer should have a clear and consistent format to follow. This ensures all candidates are evaluated on the same criteria, making comparisons more straightforward and accurate. It can also reduce bias and ensure that essential questions aren’t overlooked.

Limit the Number of Interview Rounds

While it’s crucial to vet candidates thoroughly, multiple rounds of interviews can be exhausting and counterproductive. Determine the essential number of interviews for each position. If several people need to talk with the candidate, consider panel interviews. This speeds up the process and respects everyone’s time.

Ensure Interviewers Are Well-Prepared

Interviewers should be familiar with the candidate’s resume, the job requirements, and the questions. A well-prepared interviewer can get to the heart of a candidate’s suitability faster and more efficiently.

Training sessions ensure your interviewers are aligned with the company’s hiring goals and can effectively assess candidates. You may want to include training on unconscious bias, effective questioning techniques, and how to evaluate responses.

Get Feedback and Refine Your Process

After the interview, have a structured way for interviewers and candidates to provide feedback. This consistent input ensures your interview process is efficient and effective.

Recruiting Smart to Secure Top Talent

The difference between efficiently securing exceptional candidates and frustrating and fruitless efforts lies in your recruitment strategy. Streamlining your process positions you to attract and onboard top talent.

As a people-first staffing agency with a nationwide database of job seekers, Insight Global is your trusted partner for any hiring needs. Whether you need talent for a hard-to-fill position or have to ramp up staff for a new project or department quickly, we can help.