As the lockdown rolled over the world, almost all organizations had to transition to remote work in a hurried fashion. Unfortunately, many organizations were not prepared to do this, especially in the tight timeframes. This raised an enormous upsurge in the need for digital transformation, and recruitment is no exception. Many of you may ask, what does it have to do with the staffing and talent recruitment sector. According to a Deloitte survey, more than 50% of companies are trying to adopt digital tools for their hiring team. With such an unprecedented transition in the recruitment process, the talent acquisition sector and HR also recognize the need for effective and reliable digital solutions to aid their hiring process in this ever-evolving employment market.
Recruitment technology is more evolved than ever and it helps you in more ways than you can imagine, including freeing up your bandwidth for other important strategic roles. Even though digital transformation sounds like just another catchphrase, trust me, it is worth exploring the positive impact that it could have on your overall recruitment process. The organizations that have implemented digital recruitment strategies have a clear advantage over their competitors.
So, how is digital transformation serving talent seekers and recruiters to adjust to this new environment and shift towards virtual hiring? Let’s read on to find out.
Role of Digital Transformation in Recruitment
Digital transformation in recruitment refers to the application of digital solutions and technology to eradicate or simplify mundane and administrative tasks, while at the same time increasing the efficiency of your recruitment process and the hiring teams. Keeping that in mind, the application of digital transformation in recruitment is increasing for solving the common & frequent challenges in the hiring process such as the increasing volume of candidates, fluctuating hiring requirements, budget cuts, staff shortage and incapacity to organize in-person interviews and meetings.
Besides this, many organizations are using digital transformation in recruitment to reduce candidate turnover and dissatisfaction.
It is still very enthralling to see how methods such as online video interview, digital assessment, and digital candidate on-boarding, etc. changed from being “nice to have” to ‘business-critical’ requirements. In the current scenario, organizations are adopting digital transformation to keep the recruitment process effective and budget-friendly.
How Digital Transformation Impacts Recruitment Positively
Now is the right time to look at the upside of digital transformation for recruiters and staffing teams. Let’s see how.
Larger access to the talent pool
Recruiting solutions help talent seekers find more and better-qualified candidates faster than mainstream sourcing techniques. Using advanced technology solutions, you can share your job posts to multiple job boards with the click of a button. Further, AI-based tools help reach out to people you wouldn’t meet otherwise.
The use of digital transformation technology not only applies to hiring people, but it also has great application in enhancing the skillsets of employees to benefit your organization from the transformation.
More job opportunities to talent seekers
While we already discussed the availability of larger talent tools to recruiters, we cannot miss the talent seeker’s side of it. With the popularity of remote working, digital transformation is helping talent seekers have wider access to global job opportunities. Not only this, using technology they are also doing video resumes to present their candidature.
- Increased productivity and time to hire
Digital hiring solutions help you speed up your hiring processes in various ways like automating administrative tasks, applicant documentation, screening or scheduling interviews, etc. Recruiters who use tools like the Application Tracking System (ATS) will screen candidates faster, as the ATS will share all important candidate information immediately in one place.
An important thing to note here is that it is not just recruiters who save time adopting digital transformation, candidates will also be able to apply for jobs faster with auto-filling application forms and single-click apply buttons.
Not to mention, that when the candidates receive more personalized communication, with regular feedback or follow-ups, they have a better outlook on your organization and overall positive experience. As a result, the chances of them engaging with you is much higher.
- Enhanced metrics
Gathering and analyzing data manually is very time-consuming, and often inaccurate. For the benefit of recruiters, most recruiting platforms will automatically collect data and metrics and present a snapshot of your recruitment process. This helps you recognize and clear holdups in your hiring process.
With the right data, you can identify gaps and experiment with solutions before they start affecting time to hire and cost per hire.
- Easier candidate evaluation
Digital transformation helps you in your candidate assessment also. AI and digital tools help screen applications faster without any bias. Further, there are many online assessment tools to help you test and shortlist candidates from the huge pile of prospects.
- High Volume Recruitment
Digital Recruitment technology enables recruiters to manage a large volume of applicants smoothly. According to a report by Glassdoor, every job opening receives at least 250 applications on average.
With the help of suitable hiring technology, recruiters can easily scrutinize the applications and shortlist the most eligible candidates. Despite the volume of applications received, you will be able to maintain your high quality of hiring, regardless of the volume of applicants.
There are a lot of technology solutions that can help you manage bulk applicants easily, such as pre-employment assessment and interview scheduling.
- Data Analytics on The Go
Recruitment technology solutions provide you exclusive access to real-time data overview. It allows you to identify areas of improvement that will help you to implement the finest recruitment strategy. Furthermore, it will also provide you real-time updates and data on the current situation with the employees that allow you to adjust and make changes in the present processes as per your requirements.
Using data received through recruitment technologies, for instance, online assessment scores, you can automate interview schedules.
While this is one instance, there are multiple other ways AI is helping automate the interview scheduling and other recruitment activities.
- Data Security
With people working from home, cybersecurity challenges have also risen. Sharing of confidential information of candidates, important documents, salary records, etc., should be kept safe and shared without any risk of security breaches or data leaks.
Digital transformation is essential to manage cybersecurity issues. Digital transformation helps in boosting security policies and procedures and provides a cloud-based infrastructure to efficiently deal with the increase in candidate traffic and storage demands. Along with this, what is required is an awareness amongst the employees regarding digital security.
Are You Prepared for Digital Transformation in Recruitment?
A great number of the organization have sped up their digital transformation initiatives because of numerous factors, primary being needs that have formed due to COVID-19. Organizations are spending more on collaboration tools, security, cloud storage, etc.
With the adoption of digital transformation, you spend less time with a spreadsheet, paperwork and manual work and spend more productive time eliminating your organization’s recruiting process gaps. If you want to keep the recruitment game on top, digital transformation is the way to go.
Your recruitment process won’t change drastically overnight – but arming yourself with advanced processes and modern recruitment technology will help you bring in unexpected improvements in your overall hiring process.