Recruitment Is A Waste Of Time (What To Do About It)

For years, human resource departments and hiring managers have followed the tried and tested recruitment process when hiring new employees. Hours spent reviewing resumes and in interviews. It is the same for applicants who spend hours upon hours tailoring application letters with no acknowledgement or interviews. Once the candidate finally commences, you can’t even be certain they can do the job. What a waste of everyone’s time. 

Recruitment shouldn’t be an arduous and time-costly process. There is a better and more effective way to ensure you only hire rockstars for your organization, whether you’re an established organization or a start-up looking to scale quickly.

The Traditional Way

Steps in the traditional recruitment process normally go something like this: 

1. Manager to HR, “we need to hire a software remote developer now”. 
2. HR finds job description and writes job ads
3. HR reviews hundreds of resumes and applications
4. HR spends hours interviewing candidates based on pieces of paper
5. Hiring Manager spends hours interviewing candidates
6. Hiring Manager then spends hours in second and third interviews
7. Candidate may do a skill-set assessment and either passes or fails
8. HR performs reference checks
9. Candidate accepts the job position and starts in four weeks (after serving out notice period).

Phew. That’s a lot of human involvement and time during every stage! The entire process from HR request to the successful candidate actually commencing can take three to four months. This is hardly ideal when you urgently need to scale your software engineering teams. When you think about it, it’s a very long process which can and should be done better for everyone involved.

How Traditional Recruitment Impacts Business Productivity

Tick tock. No, it’s not the popular video app (although there are lots of videos about company hiring application processes uploaded on it!) That’s the clock ticking each and every time an employee touches anything to do with recruitment. Especially since the great resignation, higher employee turnover means responsible hiring managers spend more hours in interviews, recruitment and onboarding to replace team members.

When hiring managers and team leaders spend more time replacing team members, they naturally have less time to spend on their own deliverables and project KPIs. Frequent new employee onboarding also impacts project continuity, as team members take the time to onboard new employees. This refocus by key stakeholders away from their core deliverables means their regular tasks aren’t being completed, potentially impacting overall business productivity.

Traditional Recruitment is A Waste of Time For Candidates

It’s not only business productivity impacted by traditional recruitment. Candidates invest hours for applications including researching companies and tailoring cover letters and CVs for very little response. In fact, one of the most frustrating aspects for job seekers is to wait or not even hear back about applications. A recent Indeed.com survey found that 48% of respondents said that waiting to hear back from employers is ‘highly frustrating’.

With candidates becoming frustrated, it can also negatively impact employer branding. Several online portals such as Glassdoor offer candidates the opportunity to leave reviews for employing organizations. If you’re looking to position yourself as an Employer of Choice and attract the best candidates, having an arduous application process with negative candidate experience will not benefit you at all.

Are You Really Getting The Best Candidates?

Naturally every organization and team wants to hire the best candidates possible. The traditional recruitment process has one real flaw - it allows for candidates who look good on paper or have an unfair advantage (ie they went to the right school), to shine, while candidates who have a lot better skills can easily be overlooked.

A lot of time and money is invested into onboarding successful candidates, only to find they haven’t got the skills the role really needs. On paper it seems they have a great skill set, and in reality they just can’t do the job. Especially when you’re hiring multiple roles, it can be frustrating to have to constantly restart the process each and every time.

How To Save Time On Recruitment

There is a better way to save time and recruitment costs. By restructuring and automating the recruitment process to be more skills and aptitude focussed rather than resume driven, you can see candidates who have got the skills you really need up front. Have skills testing as the first step of the process before even reviewing resumes. Then once candidates have progressed through your skills testing, only interview those candidates you know can do the job. Imagine the time saved by everyone!

For example at Crossover our entire application process is made up of four simple steps: a 15 minute Critical Cognitive Aptitude Test (CCAT), an English proficiency test and a real world job skills test. Once candidates have proved they have what it takes to succeed in the role with the first three steps, the final step is an interview with hiring managers to see if they are a good mutual fit.

The Future of Recruitment

Since 2014, Crossover has focussed on a streamlined application process, which sees quality candidates receiving job offers in as little as one week. Our testing process and quality is set very high as we only work with the top 1% of candidates globally. Imagine your future organization working with the best of the best globally, and without the stress of spending hours in skills testing and interviews. Reclaim your time and start truly driving your business - Contact us today.