Ideally, every company wants to hire reliable, competent hourly workers who are engaged and willing to stick around for the long term. But the fact remains that work environments such as retail and fast food are subject to significant turnover. And overworking existing employees while you are trying to hire new people just makes things worse. Being able to hire hourly workers faster helps keep your organization working like a well-oiled machine.
Fortunately, many of the best practices for hiring quality employees also make it simpler to speed up the hiring process overall. Hiring faster should not mean cutting corners. It should involve streamlining and automating processes wherever possible. Here are seven common areas for improvement.
#1 Get Your Job Descriptions Right
Every recruiter knows that dozens, if not hundreds, of people will apply for a job without even considering whether they meet the qualifications. There’s no avoiding that. However, having an accurate job description does make it a lot easier for candidates who are a good fit to find and apply for the position. To get this right, keep it simple and focus on the essentials. Use keywords your prospective job candidates would use to search for a job. Don’t just feature the ones that make sense in “HR speak”. To attract more motivated candidates, explain what you bring to the table as an employer and not just what you will expect from them as an employee.
#2 Leverage Existing Employees
An employee referral program can cut through a lot of the work in sourcing good job candidates. In fact, it’s one of the least expensive ways to go about finding qualified applicants for two reasons. First, current employees know exactly what the job entails and whether someone in their network would be a good match. Second, you only pay a referral fee after a new hire successfully completes their probationary period. However, a referral program needs to be easy for workers to use. To increase the performance of your referral program, create job postings in formats that workers can readily share with their network on social media sites like Facebook rather than just LinkedIn.
#3 Mobilize the Application Process
Many applicants for hourly jobs are using a mobile device rather than a desktop or laptop computer for their job search. In addition, they are often more readily and reliably available via text and phone than email. A good recruiting process must include a mobilized job application platform. That includes publishing forms that can be easily completed even on a tiny screen. And remember to let job candidates choose their preferred method of communication. This way, they don’t miss important updates about their application. For example, recruiters may find it’s easier to set up interviews via text than trying to play the voicemail game.
#4 Prescreen, Prescreen, Prescreen
Screening out unacceptable candidates and finding the right ones should start with automated processes. Use skills tests, aptitude tests, and even customized tests that determine an applicant’s ability to follow simple instructions. They’re all helpful for culling those candidates who should not move on to the interview process. Online tests that don’t require a candidate to come on site can save time and expense. Thus, you can hire hourly workers faster.
#5 Improve the Interview Process
Interviewing fewer candidates is the most effective way to cut down time spent in the hiring of hourly workers. Start with phone or video chat interviews rather than in-person encounters. This automatically screens out people who can’t be on time for a virtual interview or who can’t communicate effectively. If you have the capability to do group job interviews on-site as well, this can help keep things moving. In any event, standardize the questions (while allowing room for ad-libbing) to keep interviews on point.
#6 Streamline Processes to Hire Hourly Workers Faster
The fewer sequential steps an applicant has to go through, you can hire hourly workers faster. On the technology side, that might mean using an online application. Choose one that automatically populates duplicate fields rather than having a candidate retype information they already supplied previously. On the recruitment side, it might mean asking for references earlier in the process instead of waiting until right before making an offer. It’s better to have these reference contacts and not need them than to need them and not have them when you want to make a fast decision.
#7 Implement an Applicant Tracking System to Hire Hourly Workers Faster
An automated, mobile-first applicant tracking system (ATS) is one of the most useful tools in recruiting hourly workers faster. It allows you to source candidates more effectively, create workflows that eliminate bottlenecks, and replaces paper processes. Plus, it analyzes which activities and job boards are bringing results and which ones are simply bogging things down. Once the right candidate is hired, all the information from the ATS can also be imported directly into an onboarding system to get your new hourly worker up and running as soon as possible.
Learn more about how Efficient Hire’s Smart Chat Apply can get you started to recruit, hire, and onboard faster – request a free demo today!