Establish company culture

Your brand identity and company culture underpin the entire recruitment process. If you put job ads out into the world without carefully crafting them to appeal to the specific type of person you’re looking for, you’ll end up interviewing random people with random skills.

The first step to creating a scalable hiring process is to set your company culture in stone. Be as specific as possible about your brand identity and the values that drive the decision-makers in your company. You can weave these principles and behaviors into hiring and onboarding documentation, such as job ads and descriptions, offer letters, core values and training materials.

By showing off your company culture before candidates become employees, you attract like-minded people. You also have a chance to get them aligned with your way of thinking and doing things before they’ve even started, which saves time and effort down the line.

Identify toxic behaviors and red flags

While it’d be nice to only expect the best from people, anyone who’s recruited knows that a certain amount of cynicism is necessary. Sometimes, a person who has all the skills and qualifications on paper can end up pulling down the entire team’s morale. As such, you need to sit with the hiring team and make a list of behaviors and red flags that are deal breakers.

There are certain traits you can spot in an interview that are almost universally indicative of toxicity, such as:

• Complaining about a previous job, colleagues or boss or demonstrating a tendency for blaming
• Giving answers that conflict with a resume or cover letter
• Not answering questions, i.e., saying “Sorry, I don’t know” in answer to an interview question
• Communication warning signs such as speaking over the interviewer, not listening and not being aware of tone
• Making demands or trying to dictate terms
• Victim mentality, e.g., “I work so hard and no one ever appreciates it”
• Lack of passion
• Not asking questions

Assemble a trusted hiring team

Something else that underpins the quality of a high-volume hiring process is the aptitude of your hiring team. They should be able to spot red flags in resumes and interviews, be shining examples of your company culture and be technologically savvy. The latter is because software is likely to play a key role in any scaled-up recruitment process.

Use an automated applicant tracking system

An ATS is practically nonnegotiable if you’re looking at recruiting en masse. It’ll let your hiring team create streamlined job requisition workflows so they can filter candidates and quickly approve and post requisitions.

They can also create job ad and description templates that only need to be tweaked here and there for different roles. Then, you can post them on multiple free and paid job boards instead of trawling through each site and posting one at a time.

Optimize job descriptions and ads

While having streamlined processes in place is essential for a high-volume hiring process, it’s not the full picture. To successfully hire a lot of people at one time, you’ll need your documentation to do some work for you.

You can do this by optimizing your job descriptions and ads so they resonate with the type of people you’re looking to hire. The better you can match up the style, personality and imagery of your brand to your hiring documentation, the higher quality of candidate you’ll attract and the better suited they’ll be to your company.

Employees and consumers alike are becoming increasingly invested in brand messaging. So, if there’s a charity or cause you’re working with, be sure to include it in your company’s literature. Remember, it’s a job advertisement, so make sure you use language and include statements that sell your role to the ideal candidate.

Be clever about benefits

Perks and benefits are key selling points when you’re aiming to attract the best talent. If you’re offering the same salary and a similar position but another company has more appealing perks candidates will flock to the competitor.

You don’t have to break the bank by promising a ton of financial incentives, though. In fact, modern job seekers are usually more concerned with the following:

• Opportunities for promotion
• Nationally recognized learning and development options
• Flexible working options
• Inclusive benefits such as childcare, floating holidays and remote working options
• Paid days off for volunteering
• Partnering with other brands to offer access to discounted self-care, such as massage, gym membership or a cycle-to-work scheme

Check language for inclusivity

In the court of public opinion, inclusivity, equality and ethics have taken center stage in recent years. Younger and older people are behind a drive to move away from discrimination and into a more positive world. This isn’t just for the sake of morality; it’s also highly practical.

If the language you use in your job ads is skewed towards men, you’re probably missing out on applications from highly qualified women. With the workforce more tuned-in to phenomena such as unconscious bias, you should check everything you post publicly for inclusivity.

Savvy, modern candidates might be put off if they spot bias, even if they’re not from an under-represented ethnic minority or oppressed group. Some tips for promoting inclusivity include using a diverse hiring team, removing names from shortlisted applications and asking each candidate the same interview questions.

Write smart prescreening questions

A great way to eliminate unsuitable candidates before you get to the interview process is by using prescreening questions. You can be as practical or focused on soft skills as you like. Here are some good examples:

• How far are you prepared to commute?
• What are your salary expectations?
• What is your ideal work environment?
• When are you available to start?
• What are your ideal working hours?
• Where do you see yourself in three, five and 10 years?
• Which social causes mean a lot to you?
• Why do you want to work for us?

These open-ended questions give you key insights into candidates’ attitudes and intentions. By including these in a pre-interview or application form, you avoid unnecessary interviews with unsuitable candidates. Minimizing the number of people you interview one-on-one is probably the best way of streamlining the recruitment process.

Curate group interviews

One of the best ways to capture top talent from a large pool of candidates is by holding group interviews at the early stages of the hiring process. This saves you a bundle of time and money as well as giving your hiring team an opportunity to develop their skills.

Group interviews give you a real-time picture of how a candidate interacts with a team. Plus, a one-on-one interview is significantly easier to prepare for than a group session, and the additional opportunity for spontaneity means you get a more accurate first impression of each applicant.

It’s important that the hiring team is observant, is attentive and fully expresses your company culture. If applicants have read your core values but the team in front of them isn’t demonstrating them, you’ll lose the best ones. You’ll also need to carefully structure your group interview so it’s engaging, professional and well-timed. Here’s an example:

1. A senior team member and the hiring team introduce the company and themselves.
2. Each candidate introduces themselves with an icebreaker.
3. Host a group discussion.
4. Do a team exercise.
5. Ask questions about the company.
6. Take questions from applicants.
7. Wrap up with a sales pitch.

Scaling the hiring process FAQs

Now you that know all about how to scale up your recruitment process, here are some general tips to keep in mind.

How do you simplify the hiring process?

One surefire way to reduce the time spent on the hiring process is by streamlining it as much as possible. Here are some tips for simplifying your hiring process:

• Sell your job opening instead of copying and pasting a generic ad.
• Develop a pipeline of candidates and use social media to generate a buzz around your brand.
• Consider conducting group and individual interviews remotely.
• Automate as much as possible, for example, using an ATS and pre-configuring documents such as offer letters.

What are the steps in the hiring process?

Every company’s hiring process will look a little different, but here’s a general idea of how it should look:

1. Identify gaps in the workforce.
2. Create a recruitment plan.
3. Write job ads, job descriptions and offer letters and ensure they’re aligned with your core values, mission and vision statements.
4. Post your job on the job boards.
5. Use social media to headhunt.
6. Let your ATS eliminate unsuitable candidates.
7. Review applications.
8. Conduct phone/video/group interviews.
9. Invite shortlisted candidates to an interview.
10. If relevant, arrange a trial shift for candidates.
11. Use measurable metrics to compare applicants.
12. Make a decision.
13. Check references.
14. Make a job offer.

How do you evaluate the hiring process?

The job market is changing faster than ever, which means you should evaluate your hiring process on a regular basis. These are the steps you can take to assess and refine your recruitment procedure:

• Gather anonymous feedback from applicants.
• Rewrite job descriptions according to market trends and updated core values.
• Use data and analytics to analyze cost, speed and quality, as well as discovering where you find most hires, so you can zero in on these boards.

A lot of the work you do when scaling up the hiring process is about streamlining. Make sure you’re using your job ads, job descriptions and website to showcase company culture and attract like-minded candidates. The rest of it is about process, so implement a plan and use software to reduce repetitive tasks as much as possible.

By putting these tips into practice, you’ll be able to make quality hires at high volume.