How to Be a More Efficient Recruiter: What You Need to Know

As a recruiter, it’s very important that you take the time to find the right job candidates for your employer. No company can thrive without strong workers. It’s your responsibility to find them.

That said, the cost of a lengthy recruiting process can be significant. Because helping the company save money whenever possible is also one of your responsibilities, you need to take steps to boost your productivity and efficiency — without sacrificing quality. Finding the right candidates for vacant roles is still of the utmost importance, but this can be accomplished while saving time and money.

If you’re trying to be more productive when recruiting employees, keep the following tips in mind. They’ll maximize your efficiency without limiting the quality of candidates you find.

Consider Internal Candidates and Resources

When recruiting, it’s important to cast a wide net. You want to post a job listing on boards where it’s likely to be seen by genuinely qualified candidates. You also want to post it on enough boards that applicants notice your listing.

Odds are good you already know this. Taking advantage of all applicable resources is key to finding the right candidates. Thus, you could take this a step further by considering internal resources you may have overlooked in the past.

For example, you might consider keeping a file of applications from earlier job candidates. While an earlier candidate may not have been the best fit for the role available at the time, they might have the skills necessary to succeed in another position. Having their information on file makes it easier to reach back out to them when such a position becomes available. There’s a chance they’ll still be interested.

You should also consider hiring internally when it makes sense to do so. Although this won’t always be an option, there are instances when you could save time and money by promoting someone who already works for the company.

Schedule Tasks Back-to-Back Whenever Possible

Recruiting the right employee for a job typically involves conducting multiple interviews. In the digital age, these interviews may often occur via face chat apps rather than going through the process of inviting a large group of candidates to come in and interview at the same time.

This has certainly yielded productivity boosts to some degree. When you can easily conduct interviews through an app, you don’t need to spend as much time coordinating with applicants. Just make sure this minor boost in productivity doesn’t cause you to schedule interviews at many different times throughout a given week.

Why? Because researchers have found that when a person switches from one task to another, it takes them some time to focus on the new task. There’s a reason why experts insist multitasking isn’t something people are genuinely capable of.

That’s crucial to remember when scheduling your own work. For instance, perhaps you have five interviews planned for the upcoming week. Let’s say you schedule one on Monday morning, one later Monday afternoon, two on Wednesday morning, and one late Wednesday afternoon. Every time you complete those interviews and return to other tasks, you’ll be less productive than you would have been if you conducted all the interviews back-to-back.

This principle applies to any regular tasks you perform during recruiting. When you schedule your work so you can focus on the same kinds of tasks consistently, instead of trying to shift your mindset several times throughout a day, you’ll be much more efficient.

Leverage Artificial Intelligence

Taking advantage of the right technology and tools is one of the best ways to improve your overall performance as a recruiter. Periodically, you need to stop and research your options to determine what new innovations you should be leveraging. Artificial intelligence is one of them. Despite long being associated with science fiction, AI is now a very real technology with many potential applications for a recruiter.

For example, one of the reasons recruiting can take so much time is simply because people who are not a good fit often apply. Sifting through the weak resumes to find those worthy of your attention can be very time-consuming. This is a task where AI could provide assistance.

An AI program could analyze data from former job applicants and current employees, identifying resume details (education, training, certifications, etc.) that tend to correspond with strong job performance. Additionally, the program could identify red flags that indicate someone isn’t a good fit for a role.

You don’t want to rely solely on AI to make hiring decisions. AI is still prone to human bias because humans are still the ones programming it. However, using AI to streamline the process can help you sort through job applications much more quickly.

Make a point of implementing these tips the next time you’re recruiting employees. Spending too much time on this process costs time and money. By boosting your productivity, you’ll boost your employer’s profitability, as well as your own value at the company.