Hiring is hard. Sifting through resumes, going back and forth with candidates, scheduling interviews, and writing follow-ups are all time-consuming tasks. And these are just a few of the things it takes to find and vet a qualified candidate.
The struggle is real, but there is a better way. When you bring your small business CRM and automation software into the equation, you don’t have to dedicate hours upon hours every time you want to find and hire someone new.
This technology is well known for automating marketing, sales and service tasks, but fewer users know that this software can also take on your internal processes like hiring.
Read on to see how a business automation and CRM platform can help you save time and optimize each stage in the hiring process.
Recruiting
When it comes to landing sales, you want to attract qualified prospects. Your search for employees probably follows the same logic, so it only makes sense to apply the same automation strategies: landing pages and forms.
With business automation, you can create a branded employment page embedded with a custom form. Link to this page on social media (think LinkedIn job postings), job boards, ads, QR codes at job fairs and anywhere you might conduct recruitment efforts.
The best part about this is you don’t even have to have a current job listing. You can keep your landing page and form up and running year-round, inviting people to submit their name, email, and resume so they can be the first to know about new job opportunities. Your small business CRM will be ready to catch and store their information, and automation can notify them of any new positions.
The best part? Over time you will build up a storehouse of potential candidates you can reach out to if you post a job that fits their experience. This will cut down on your manual tasks and shave off hours from your recruitment efforts.
Applications
When you do have specific jobs to list, business automation and CRM software can save the day again with similar features and strategies:
Forms: Easily and efficiently create custom forms that ask all the information you need from applicants. You can do this for each job posting and use a custom landing page to host all open roles and their corresponding applications.
Follow up: The application process can be stressful for applicants. However, once they send off their application, the ball is in your court, so make sure they don’t have to face any additional stress. You can do this by automating confirmation messages to let them know their application was received. Then, use business automation’s follow-up features to also notify them of the next steps in the process so they know when they can expect to hear from you and what comes next in the process.
Reminders: If your application process is multiple parts, reminders can keep applicants in the loop and nudge them to complete all required steps. For example, if your candidates need to email you a writing sample after they’ve submitted their resume, let business automation send reminders until you receive it. Automating application reminders like this will benefit you and your employee prospects, helping them remember crucial steps and keeping you from missing out on talent because of incomplete applications.
Information storage and organization: When it comes to collecting and storing all the information applicants submit, a small business CRM is the answer. Gone will be the days of using random documents or notepads to record candidate details. Instead, everything you know about your potential employees will be safely stored in your CRM.
Interviews
Automated reminders, follow-ups, forms and data storage can all be put to work throughout the interview process too.
After you’ve selected applicants you want to move forward with, use automated appointment scheduling to invite them to schedule an interview. Your software can then put their selected day and time on your calendar so all you have left to do is prepare interview questions. This is especially helpful when you have to coordinate multiple interviews - phone screens, manager interviews, team meetings and more - with every candidate you’re considering.
To notify people about upcoming appointments, opt for automated reminders at preset intervals. Then automation can trigger follow-ups once an interview is complete, letting each interviewee know when they can expect to hear back with a decision.
Don’t forget to automate your reference requests too. Automate an email leading to a landing page with a form where they can submit all their reference information. This prevents it from getting lost in your inbox and keeps you from having to reach out manually.
Decision & onboarding
By this point in the hiring process, you will have spent a lot of time with the final few applicants, so you will likely want to reach out to each one personally and let them know the decision you came to.
If you’ve included automation and CRM software in this hiring process, you can simply turn to your CRM database to find details on every single candidate. This will help you craft meaningful messages to those who didn’t get the job, as well as the one who did.
And because you took the time to personalize your messages (rather than ghosting or sending a generic notification), the candidates who weren’t chosen will be more likely to apply to future positions with your company or be open to you reaching out when new jobs are listed.
Pro tip
Applicants you want to stay in touch with can be segmented into their own group. Then, you can set up an automation to notify them any time you have an open position.
Hiring automation and beyond
Automating your hiring process falls into the operations automation category, but did you know there are three other categories you can automate?
Business automation is made up of marketing, sales, service and operations. So, if hiring is what you need to help with, start automating those operations tasks first. But don’t forget about the other areas.
When you take time to automate each category, you maximize the benefits you, your team, and your leads experience (plus, you get the most value from your software). If that’s something you’re interested in, explore the details of business automation and discover what each automation category consists of.