What is a hiring app?
A hiring app, also known as a recruiting app, is a mobile application used to manage your company’s recruitment activities. Some recruiting apps focus on multiple aspects of the hiring process, while others focus on just one task, such as managing job advertisements or conducting video interviews.
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Common features of apps for hiring
Each hiring app is a little different, but there are several common features that can help you attract high-quality candidates, schedule interviews efficiently and keep track of everything all in one place.
Calendar management
Manual interview scheduling is more than a little frustrating, as candidates and recruiters have to email each other back and forth until they find dates and times that work for everyone’s schedule. If the recruiter has to reschedule for some reason, they have to send yet another email. All this emailing takes up time that could be spent on more productive activities.
If your hiring app has calendar management features, you don’t have to worry about all this back-and-forth communication. Just send each candidate a link to your calendar and let them choose an interview date and time that works with their schedule. You can also use a mobile calendar to schedule candidate assessments, preemployment physicals and other activities.
Sourcing
Sourcing is all about identifying people who might be a good fit for your company and making them aware of your job openings. It also helps you build a positive reputation among the potential applicants in your community. As part of your sourcing process, you may create targeted messaging campaigns or invite specific candidates to apply for open jobs—activities that would be extremely time-consuming if you tried to do them manually.
Many apps for hiring have features designed to help you streamline your sourcing process without missing out on high-quality applicants. For example, you can use a hiring app to manage a targeted messaging campaign or track your efforts across multiple platforms.
Related: 8 Tips for Inclusive Sourcing When Finding Job Candidates
Video interviews
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies turned to video interviews to fill open positions without violating government shutdown orders or putting recruiters and candidates at risk of getting sick. Now that the pandemic is over, a significant percentage of those companies plan to continue using video interviews as part of the hiring process.
If your company is one of them, you need an easy way to connect with candidates and make sure the interview process goes smoothly. Fortunately, many apps for hiring allow you to schedule and conduct video interviews all in one interface. Some apps even allow you to set up prerecorded video interviews, making it easy to collect videos from several candidates and use them to narrow down your list of potential hires.
Recruitment analytics
Recruiters deal with a tremendous amount of data, from how many applicants apply for a single job to how many candidates make it to a second round of interviews. They use this data to make important decisions, such as whether to continue advertising on a job board or partnering with a local nonprofit to source applicants.
To make it easier to manage all this data, many recruitment apps have built-in analytics tools. Each tool helps you turn raw data into something meaningful. For example, you may have 1,000 applicants, but how many of them match the minimum requirements for each job posting? A hiring app can help you answer that question.
Application screening
Before you even think about scheduling interviews, you need to screen each application carefully. Manual screening is a labor-intensive process that takes time away from other recruiting activities, so many apps allow you to screen applications automatically. For example, you may be able to use your hiring app to determine if each applicant has a certain amount of work experience.
Candidate relationship management
Sourcing and recruiting are all about relationships. A good recruiting app allows you to maintain positive connections with applicants, helping you build a positive reputation. You may even be able to use a hiring app to invite past applicants to apply for new job listings.
Referral management
If you have an employee referral program, look for a hiring app that allows you to manage referrals and incentives without relying on a separate tool. Instead of spending time tracking paper forms, you’ll be able to track referrals in one place, making it less likely that you’ll miss out on a good one.
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Advantages of using a recruiting app
Using a recruiting app has many advantages, but one of the biggest is time savings. Before recruiters had computers and apps to help them with their work, they had to do everything manually, from writing job advertisements to reading through dozens of applications. Hiring apps automate time-consuming tasks, giving your HR team more time to focus on building relationships and filling open positions.
Another advantage of using a recruiting app is that it’s much easier to collect and analyze data. If you had to do everything on paper, it would be difficult to determine how many people applied for a job, how many of them met the minimum requirements and how many candidates you interviewed. Recruiting apps track that information for you, making it easier to make data-driven recruiting decisions.
Relying on hiring apps may even help you improve your company’s reputation, as they make it much easier to communicate with applicants and candidates. With the right app, you can automate many recruitment-related messages, ensuring potential hires receive timely responses to their inquiries.
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Disadvantages of using a recruiting app
The main disadvantage of using a recruiting app is that you need to learn how to use it. You may have to spend a few hours learning the interface and figuring out how to perform common tasks. If it’s a full-featured app, you may even have to go through an onboarding process for new users. Although there’s a bit of a learning curve, you’ll earn that time back when you start to see the benefits of using an app to manage your hiring process.
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Hiring app FAQs
How do recruiters find employees?
Recruiters find employees by posting job advertisements, attending career fairs, asking for referrals, partnering with college alumni networks and professional associations, staying active on social media and using other effective recruitment techniques.
What is a hiring platform?
A hiring platform is a software package that allows you to manage the hiring process from start to finish. These platforms are similar to job boards, but they’re more comprehensive, as they allow you to track every aspect of hiring instead of just posting job advertisements and managing applications.
