Hiring for a single position in today's candidate-driven market is no easy feat for recruiters. But having to fill dozens (or even hundreds) of positions in a short amount of time can quickly overwhelm even the most experienced HR teams.

Whether your business needs to ramp up for the holiday season, staff a brand new location, or recover from a wave of turnover, having effective high volume hiring practices in place can be an immense competitive advantage for organizations large and small.

Luckily for the modern recruiter, we have come a long way from Rolodexes and yellow pages—there is an arsenal of technologies and modern techniques available to help alleviate much of the hassle and make the whole process far more intelligent and efficient.

1. Smarten up your sourcing

Talent acquisition leaders say the hardest part of recruitment is screening candidates from a large pool, and for good reason. Quickly sourcing qualified candidates for just a single opening can take weeks in such a tight labor market like today's—ramp those demands up to 75 or 300 positions, though, and things get exponentially more difficult.

Successfully and consistently identifying the right candidates is the foundation of effective volume hiring, and leveraging technology to optimize your sourcing is one of the first steps to take. We'll touch on a few technologies that we recommend you consider incorporating:

Programmatic Job Advertising

When implemented correctly, programmatic job advertising can save recruiters massive amounts of time by automating much of the manual job ad buying process. Using real-time data and a pre-established set of rules, programmatic advertising technology can make accurate buying decisions in seconds (much faster than a hiring manager, even on their best day). The user simply sets the parameters (required qualifications, experience, availability, etc.) and then lets the software do the work, freeing up their time for higher-level decision making.

Chatbots

These helpful bots are aggressively talking their way into the recruiting space. As the AI behind the tech rapidly improves, conversations with website visitors become much more natural and sophisticated. These bots can quickly collect information such as resumes, contact information, ask screening questions, and even rank and categorize candidates on select parameters. Much can be gleaned from potential candidates without requiring any direct time from the recruiter, drastically boosting your screening efficiency and capability.

2. Simplify the application process

If your sourcing practices are optimized, the last thing you want is a lengthy, complicated application process deterring your prospective candidates. Nearly half of job seekers find lengthy applications the most frustrating part of the application process. Refine the steps involved in your application, pare down the number of questions, and make the whole experience for candidates as hassle-free as possible.

Part of enhancing your candidate experience is making sure your site and application process runs smoothly on all mediums. 58% of job seekers use their mobile devices when they job search, so a site that's slow, clunky, or poorly formatted for mobile will quickly lose the engagement from candidates that your sourcing efforts have earned. Finding candidates is the hard part; don't lose them to a lousy site or frustrating application process.

3. Automate resume screening

If you've aced steps one and two, you'll have hundreds (if not thousands) of resumes flooding your inboxes. Unfortunately, for the typical high volume job posting, the vast majority of those resumes will be underqualified.

Manually skimming through these mountains of applications just to throw most of them out is a time-sink you can't afford. However, this kind of data-heavy, pattern-matching task is perfectly suited for AI—so use it. There are numerous resume screening software available that utilize AI to exceptionally screen resumes, separate the good from the bad, and present you a curated list of candidates who you can use.

4. Talent rediscovery

Even though the majority of resumes you receive will go unused for a certain round of hiring, it doesn't mean they should be entirely discarded from your database.

While they may not have been ideal for a particular role, these resumes still contain value as these candidates may be a better fit for an opportunity down the road. Once again, though, scale becomes an issue—it's much harder to take advantage of the value buried in your ATS without a reliable means of extracting it.

For its final encore in this blog, AI once again takes the stage to save the day. Software designed for talent rediscovery can accurately identify past applicants that align well with new positions as they open within your business, supplying you with qualified candidates while circumventing many of the time-consuming steps in the hiring process.

High volume hiring becomes much more manageable when you automate lengthy, menial tasks with the appropriate technologies and practices, freeing up your time for the higher-level decisions you have to make.

5. Partner with a high volume staffing firm

If your internal hiring department simply doesn't have the time, resources, or ability to take on the year-round burden of high volume hiring, partnering with a staffing firm that specializes in this exact niche can be the most reliable and affordable solution.

At Bear Staffing, we firmly believe that high volume shouldn't lead to lower expectations. We intimately understand the unique and involved challenges that companies face when having to hire large groups of staff repeatedly. Our team of experienced staffing professionals, in-depth screening process, and wide-reaching network of candidates allows us to consistently exceed our client's expectations.

Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help you get the most out of your high volume hiring efforts.