Many of the greatest advances in business efficiency are the automating of non-critical tasks. Today, it’s easier than ever to send a message (email, text or chat, anyone?), schedule a meeting or meet long-distance without ever leaving our desks. The world is moving at the speed of the internet, and it’s usually a great thing.
Except when it’s not.
Sometimes technology is so instantaneous that we can't always keep up. But when used thoughtfully, technology can bring us together in better ways and with more improvements in the experience than ever before.
Case in point is recruiting. Unless you’re leveraging the immediacy of text messaging, you’re probably relying on email to communicate with most of your candidates. Today, email is typically more efficient than phone. After all, most recruiters are reaching out to candidates during business hours and most candidates are already working at a business during these hours. So unless either party enjoys a good game of phone tag, the experience is not preferable for anyone. Email provides a new level of convenience for allowing candidates (and recruiters) to respond on their own time. However, this capability creates its own set of challenges.
Imagine that you’re reviewing resumes from your latest job posting and replying to your top candidates. You’re on a mission to schedule interviews, so you quickly respond to six candidates with your available times. Your message is engaging; it’s personal to each candidate’s experience and your invite is warm and welcoming.
Then the responses roll in and the requested times all overlap. Back to square one.
What are your other options? Send an email and wait for the response before sending the next invite? Or never send overlapping time slots? What recruiter has that much availability on his or her calendar?
Perhaps the answer is to give the power to the people the candidates. That’s right, turn over your calendar to your candidates. The results are promising.
Leveraging free or low cost tools like Google Calendar, Calendly and Sidekick Meetings by Hubspot, sync your Google Calendar to show which timeframes you’re available and allow candidates to select a time that works best for them. Only available times are shown, so the rest of your calendar stays private. The best part: updates in realtime. So you’ll never double book, and the candidate can choose the time that best suits his or her schedule while still suiting your own. Most importantly, a better candidate experience.
The invitation:
Sample schedule view using Sidekick Meetings by Hubspot:
Source: Sidekick Meetings by Hubspot
...10 minutes later, interview booked! By utilizing simple technology, recruiters and hiring managers can simplify the hectic process of scheduling interviews with multiple candidates. As a result, you can stay more organized and worry less about losing great candidates to scheduling conflicts or mistakes. Competition for top talent is already fierce, don’t risk losing great candidates to scheduling issues or delays.
Interested in learning more about how technology can improve your recruiting and candidate experience? We have ideas and tips that we're happy to share, just email us.
