Imagine this: You are a recruiter for one of the esteemed companies. And you are assigned the task of hiring hundreds to thousands of top candidates instead of filling your normal quota. And that too within a specific time frame. Sounds daunting?  Right?  And that too in this era of the “Great Resignation,” where employees are quitting their jobs at record-high rates.

Recruiters who hire large numbers of employees face a challenging task, especially in a shrinking talent market. But with the right hiring strategy, tools, and processes in place, you can manage an effective high-volume hiring process. This can give your company an edge in the fierce competition for top talent.

This blog will give you a glimpse of the high-volume hiring challenges and the top strategies to overcome them.

What is High-Volume Hiring?

High-volume hiring refers to the process of filling numerous job openings within a relatively short amount of time. This can range from hundreds to thousands of vacancies. And that depends on the size of the employer or the types of positions they want to fill. It is also referred to as bulk hiring or mass hiring.

This type of hiring is typically required by organizations that have a high turnover rate or are expanding rapidly. Companies also conduct bulk hiring when they need to fill multiple positions across different departments or locations.

High-volume hiring typically involves a streamlined recruitment process that is designed to handle a large number of candidates efficiently. This may involve using technology, such as applicant tracking systems and pre-employment assessments. These tools help automate some parts of the recruitment process and reduce the workload of recruiters.

What are the Challenges of High-Volume Hiring?

Do you know that the average job posting attracts fewer than 50 applicants? But the average high-volume hiring attracts more than 250 applicants?

This means recruiters will spend endless hours screening and shortlisting the resumes of a large number of candidates.

And this is not only a battle that recruiters deal with. High-volume recruitment is packed with challenges.

Let us look at some of the key challenges of mass hiring.

1. Attracting a large number of qualified candidates: In high-volume hiring, organizations need to attract a large number of qualified candidates in a short amount of time. This can be challenging, especially in competitive job markets where many companies are hiring for similar positions.
2. Managing large volumes of applications: With a high volume of applicants, recruiters may be inundated with resumes and applications to review. This makes it difficult to identify the most qualified candidates in a timely manner.
3. Ensuring a consistent candidate experience: It is no easy feat when you are assessing hundreds of candidates at one time. Hence, it becomes challenging to ensure that all candidates receive a consistent and positive experience throughout the hiring process.
4. Maintaining quality and standards: High-volume hiring can lead to the temptation to lower recruitment standards or overlook certain qualifications to fill positions quickly. However, doing so can lead to a high rate of turnover and lower overall performance from employees.
5. Streamlining the hiring process: High-volume hiring requires a streamlined and efficient recruitment process that can handle a large volume of candidates. This can be a challenge for organizations that do not have proper recruitment systems in place or rely on manual processes.

5 High-Volume Hiring Strategies to Implement

High-volume hiring can be a daunting task for any organization. Whether it is due to seasonal spikes in demand, rapid growth, or turnover, managing large volumes of candidates is overwhelming. However, with the right strategies in place, managing high volumes of hiring can be made more manageable and effective.

Some of the top strategies to manage high-volume hiring include:

1. Use Technology to Streamline the Hiring Process

Technology can play a significant role in managing high volumes of hiring. These days, plenty of online automation recruitment tools are available to make mass hiring easy and effective. Software like the Applicant Tracking System helps automate tasks such as resume screening, tracking applications, and candidate information.

Using ATS, you could screen resumes contextually. It means you would know right away which candidates match the job requirements and the hiring culture of your organization. This can help reduce the time and resources required to manage large volumes of candidates. It allows recruiters and hiring managers to focus on other critical tasks.

Another time-consuming process is interview scheduling. A recruiter needs to go back and forth with candidates and the interview panel to fix the time slot.

Use interview scheduling automation that could fix the time slot for both the candidate and the interviewer automatically based on mutual convenience. It helps speed up the selection process and allows recruiters to evaluate candidates more efficiently.

2. Prioritize Candidate Experience

With so many candidates to manage, it is easy to forget the importance of the candidate’s experience. However, a poor candidate experience damages your employer’s brand and makes it harder to attract top talen t in the future. To avoid this, it is essential to prioritize the candidate’s experience throughout the hiring process.

This includes clear communication, providing regular updates, and ensuring that the interview process is fair and transparent. Candidates must be communicated with all the time. They must get all the details about the job. Try to write a great job description that is compelling. Also, make sure your job application is mobile-friendly.

Keep your job application process short. Use minimal steps to receive job applications. You could use resume parsing to automatically extract important information from the resume. So that a candidate does not need to fill out all the details.

3. Adapt Inbound Candidate Sourcing

When you are dealing with high-volume hiring, the best strategy to receive job applications is the inbound strategy. It means candidates are applying for the jobs on their own, rather than recruiters reaching out to them.

In inbound candidate sourcing, the goal is to create a strong employer brand that attracts high-quality candidates to your organization. This can be achieved by leveraging social media, developing targeted advertising campaigns, creating engaging content, and building a talent community.

The focus is on creating a positive candidate experience that encourages candidates to apply to your organization. Rather than actively searching for job openings, This can help you build a pipeline of potential candidates for future job openings. It also reduces the time and costs associated with traditional recruiting methods.

4. Leverage Employee Referrals

Employee referrals are another effective way for successful high-volume hiring. Not only do referrals tend to be higher-quality candidates, but they can also speed up the hiring process. By encouraging employees to refer their friends and networks, you can tap into a wider pool of potential candidates. It also increases the likelihood of finding the right fit for the role.

5. Use Data to Make Informed Decisions

Data can be a powerful tool in managing high-volume hiring. By tracking the key metrics given below, you can identify areas for improvement and make more informed hiring decisions.

• Time-to-hire: This measures the time taken from the moment a job is posted to the moment a candidate accepts an offer. Here, reducing time-to-hire is crucial, as it allows you to fill positions quickly and avoid a backlog of open roles.
• Cost-per-hire: This measures the cost of each new hire, including advertising, recruitment software, employee referral programs, and recruiter salaries. It is important to keep the cost-per-hire low, especially in high-volume hiring where the costs can quickly add up.
• Applicant-to-hire ratio: This measures the number of applicants you need to attract to make a single hire. A low applicant-to-hire ratio means that your recruitment efforts are effective, and you are attracting the right candidates.
• Retention rate: This measures the percentage of new hires who stay with the company for a certain period of time. A high retention rate is a good indicator that your recruitment efforts are effective. It suggests that you are hiring the right people who are a good fit for your organization.

Additionally, data can help you identify which sourcing channels are most effective. It allows you to focus your resources where they will have the greatest impact.

Conclusion

Managing high-volume hiring requires a combination of effective strategies and the right tools. By following the tips given above, you can make high-volume recruiting a pleasant experience for both the recruiters and the candidates.