High Volume Hiring: 6 Strategies to Get it Right

High volume hiring news appeals to job aspirants like nothing else. After all, it presents them the chance to realize their career dreams. But trust us, the high volume hiring is no simple cakewalk to companies. Recruitment teams, which always work with their handful will have to gear up with yet more power to handle high volume hiring.

Here we present six innovative strategies that help you do high volume hiring the right way. Before looking at them, let us understand why you need these high volume hiring strategies at all. So, let us begin with the high volume hiring challenges and what high volume hiring is.

What is High Volume Hiring?

High volume hiring is the term that describes the hiring process of companies when they plan to recruit in bulk, especially in a shorter span. Interestingly, there is no preset number of hires that indicates hiring is high volume. 

• According to Recruiting Daily, high volume hiring refers to filling 250 or more positions in a relatively short time frame.

• According to Jobvite, if a company advertises 59 or more positions at once, it comes under high volume recruiting. 

In general, a surge in a company’s hiring compared to the usual comes under high volume hiring. It can range anywhere between hundreds to thousands of positions in a year. 

Also called Mass Recruitment or Volume Recruiting, high volume hiring generally happens when a business is on its expansion spree. For instance, high volume recruiting can happen while a company opens new branches or plans to gear up on its human resources to meet the surge in the client’s demand.

On the other hand, high volume hiring is not meant only for a specific industry. The trend is visible across many domains, including and not limited to retail, hospitality, IT and Software, government sectors, warehouse jobs, production, and manufacturing, etc. 

Interestingly, there is no specific seasonality for this trend. It is up to the companies as well as the market trends. For instance, e-Commerce retailers may hire in bulk during the festive or holiday season, while IT giants may take their own decision based on their influx of new projects.

Now, if high volume recruiting is challenging, then why do companies resort to this practice in the first place? 

Well, that’s because high volume hiring has its advantages when done in the right way.

High volume hiring helps companies to:

Stay prepared: Hiring, in general, is a time taking process. Companies spend around 24 days filling one role when everything goes seamlessly. Any deviation in the hiring flow can take this time to hire to months. This adds up the cost to hire as well the workflow gap due to the unfilled position. High volume hiring prevents this. It helps companies stay prepared for their upcoming projects; thus, it cuts down recruiting time and cost as well.

Save time: The targeted headcount in high-volume recruiting may look daunting. But when strategized the right way, bulk recruiting can be a time-saver for recruiters. Studies suggest that with the right recruiting technology, candidates and recruiters can engage better during volume recruiting. 

Boost brand’s visibility: Companies with a higher headcount certainly have their advantage in attracting new clients and projects. Hence, businesses that want to take their market position to the next level focus on expanding their team’s strength via bulk-hiring. Alternatively, when a company is progressing rapidly, it can also trigger high volume hiring. 

High volume hiring challenges

Hiring in itself is a painstaking deal. Right from creating the job post to attract the top talent to effectively engaging the candidate throughout the hiring, every step of hiring in itself is a testing aspect for recruiters.

On this note, a finding of Jobvite needs a mention.

On average a job posting draws 50 applicants. When it comes to mass hiring, statistics say that the count is 250 per job advert!

This means, the workload just became 5 times on each head in the recruiting team during high volume recruiting! 

Thus, be it creating hundreds of job postings and diving deep into the thousands of applicants’ profiles, high volume hiring is no less than a taxing experience to the recruitment teams.

As a result of this added burden, any hiring bias gives rise to a high probability of losing a talented professional. Also, if the whole process is not effectively streamlined, it may impact the brand reputation, and not to forget the increased cost and time per hire.

Strategies for High Volume Hiring

Bulk hiring impacts an organization in many ways – branding, cost, resources, time, and efforts. Hence, high volume necessitates a solid strategy at every step – before, during, and after the bulk-hiring. Let us comprehend them in detail one by one below:

Focus on your branding

A company’s culture and values play an indispensable role in enticing new talent. Candidates today have more information available about companies. They prefer to be a part of an organization that has more than just a business appeal. Hence, before you begin high volume recruiting, a review of your branding is essential. 

Website:

Your website is the 24*7 advertiser for your brand. Make sure it compellingly tells your story. That said, do not overpromise or go overboard. Professionally design your website with a human touch. Let your website convey the message that you treat employees as humans and not as mere resources and that you value them as much as you do your clients.

Join Us and Our Team Pages:

When on a hiring spree, it is a good idea to create a “Join Our Team” page and optimize it for better engagement.

• Is your Careers page mobile optimized?

• Can candidates submit their profiles with minimal clicks through your Careers section?

• What is the visibility of your Join Our Team page on search engines?

• Is the content on the page engaging?

• Does it promote inclusion and diversity?

• Are you able to narrate the scope of career growth in your company for potential candidates?

• Did you include testimonials of happy employees?

• Are you showcasing the current team members’ pictures on your “Our Team” page?

These may seem trivial but matter most for candidates who try to understand your company’s culture.

Social Media Presence:

Candidates leave no chances unturned to understand about a company by researching their social media presence. Right from the page description to the posts you make, every single word describes the company’s values and culture. Candidates are keen to join organizations that allow them to explore more than just the daily grind. 

• Are you showcasing your company’s culture via videos on social media?

• Are you into any social causes? If yes, are you actively into their discussions on the digital platforms?

• Are you sharing clients’ and employees’ testimonials on social media?

Remember that your candidate looks at your company through the website and social media. Hence, before planning to expand your team through volume hiring, focus on your branding via these channels.

Leverage hiring technology and recruitment automation

High volume hiring commands multiplied workload at every step. Automating wherever possible and leveraging hiring technology is the perfect approach to make your volume hiring strategy effective.

Why do you need to leverage hiring technology for bulk-hiring?

According to Ideal, every high-volume recruitment job advert attracts around 75% of unqualified candidates. Aggregating the high number of candidates hire, the total number of candidates that need to be filtered can be amassing. 

This translates to hundreds of wasted hours, added cost, and wasted efforts of the recruitment team. Instead, use Application Tracking Systems and Resume Screening Tools to cut down these monotonous tasks.

By automating resume screening, the time to filter qualified candidate profiles, your recruiters can use these hours to sieve the candidates from the existing database or to get in touch with the passive talent, who is yet another considerable pool of candidates.

Interestingly, automation in recruitment is a great choice to enhance the experience of recruiters and candidates alike. Chatbots, for instance, can play a vital role in candidate engagement. Similarly, onboarding software helps your organization to extend a warm welcome to the selected candidates.

Such recruitment automation software comes in handy, especially during bulk high volume recruiting, where there is a multitude of candidates recruiters need to engage with. It can lessen recruiters’ burden and promotes brand value from the candidates’ viewpoint.

Related: Ever wondered what the cost of a bad hire could be?

Hunt for the candidates on the right platform

High volume recruitment can often include a diverse pool of candidates. This is because most teams are interlinked with each other in any organization, and an increase in the number of a given team’s headcount relates to added work on the others too. 

Thus, it is crucial to search for candidates related to each profile on a relevant platform. For instance, you may find temporary talent quickly on Upwork or Fiverr, while LinkedIn or Indeed can be a great source to hire a permanent workforce from across the globe. 

Other ways to find your candidates include employee referrals. Studies say that candidates referred by existing employees tend to stay longer in a company than their counterparts. 

Thus, creating a strategy about the headcount in each team and then planning prior about the platform to start with candidate search is essential to save time and cost in volume hiring.

Focus on offering unparalleled candidate experience

Candidate experience can be a deal-breaker when it comes to hiring. Especially, when dealing with a mass number of candidates, this can be a game-changer. 

Why should you care about candidate experience, and what should you consider to improve the same? Here we go:

Candidates get the first impression of your company through your hiring process. The job advert, the application process, the interview procedure, the communication, and the onboarding – everything gives them a perception of how you treat your employees.

Studies find that – 87 percent of candidates are willing to reapply for a company even if they are rejected the earlier time, but had a great candidate experience. Hence, it is crucial that you count ways to enhance candidate experience into your high-volume hiring strategy.

To improve the candidate experience, consider incorporating these steps into your high volume hiring strategy:

• Ease the process of the job application. Make it convenient to the candidates and let them submit their profile with a single click if possible or with minimal steps, if not. 

• Keep the job description crisp and precise. Make everything transparent, including roles and responsibilities, perks and pay, the experience you are looking at, how a day looks like in the given role, etc. If you are not keen on publicizing the pay, add a salary range in the description. 

• Make the whole job description readable and easy to scan. Candidates wish to know what they can expect from the role and the company from the job posting, rather than more about your company’s history and accomplishments.

• Keep the interview process to a minimal number of stages. A long procedure can demotivate candidates in giving their best shots at every round. Instead, craft an interview strategy to assess multiple aspects about the candidate in a fewer number of rounds, if possible. 

• Accommodate the needs of candidates. When the world has shifted to a virtual working style, you should make your interview procedures candidate-friendly. Some candidates might be new to the interview technology, while others may need some accommodation. Provide such amenities and offer guidance to make the candidate feel at home.

• Even if the candidate is rejected due to certain reasons, make sure to give them positive feedback. Encourage them to apply for the next hiring season. This boosts the candidate’s morale and gives a positive opinion about your company and its culture.

Keep a tab on time to hire and quality of hire

It is oft said – hire for attitude, you can always train skills later on. Specifically, when you need hundreds or thousands of candidates, finding skilled candidates may not be possible all the time. Have some relaxation and choose candidates who are willing to learn and deliver. Otherwise, your time to hire may extend, adding up the cost on your company every single day. 

Even otherwise, if the time to decide on a candidate keeps increasing, the candidate may lose interest in your organization and can drift away to other offers. Thus, focus on the quality of hire to cut down the time to hire and attract talent during high volume hiring.

Plan your sourcing strategy meticulously

Now that you have a clear understanding of what to do and what not to do during high-volume hiring, it is time to check your sourcing strategy. Assess all the above potentialities and chalk your hiring strategy. Estimate your budget, time, and the number of candidates you need in the given timelines. The following questions may help find better clarity about your hiring strategy:

• Do you have an adequate headcount in your recruitment team to meet the bulk-hiring challenges?

• Does your budget allow the expansion of your recruitment team?

• What is your cost and time per hire?

• Which channels and job portals you wish to leverage?

• Do you have ample time to screen every candidate? Or you need vetted candidates to simplify your hiring?

• Can you meet the hiring targets in the timelines set? Or you need a helping hand in sourcing candidates?

High volume hiring can be stressful, especially when you are time-crunched and lack experience and resources. Working with a trusted hiring solutions provider can be one of the most effortless ways to make your high-volume recruitment successful.

And, here is where we excel.

We have been providing proven hiring solutions to global companies. Our recruitment teams spanning across multiple countries can help to handpick candidates your organization needs precisely. Either you are a growing startup or a middle-range business with a tight budget, we have custom staffing solutions for you.

Please reach us at hello@cloudely.com to know more about our hiring services. We also excel in delivering Salesforce Solutions and Quote to Cash implementations. Explore our wide range of services in Salesforce, Recruitment, and Quote to Cash on our website www.cloudely.com. Follow us on LinkedIn to receive our latest updates.