If you have doubts about whether you should automate parts of your recruitment process over concerns that it will make people lazy or sound robotic, have no fear. These myths need debunking. Recruitment automation doesn’t replace the need for human interaction or insight. Instead, it will relieve recruiters and in-house teams from repetitive and time-consuming tasks like data input, tracking follow-ups and keeping on top of admin. It will also do it faster, better and more accurately than humanly possible.  Organizations using automation effectively are seeing huge revenue gains, yet less than one-fifth are taking advantage of it. Are you?

What does good recruitment automation look like?

The key to good recruitment automation is correctly differentiating between the tasks that need to be automated from the ones that still need the human touch. Repetitive email composition, remembering to send and block out time for follow-ups or CRM data entry are just some examples. The general rule of thumb is if the action is repetitive, you can safely assume automation can take care of it. When used effectively, automation should simplify the recruitment process and empower teams to focus on more strategic and human-centric tasks.

If you’re unsure of what a good automation framework will look like in your business, a good place to start is to invite feedback from your team. What would make their jobs easier? How can existing processes become more efficient? What’s the biggest drain on their time?

How automation can positively impact your bottom-line

There are many benefits to automating the recruitment process. It can lead to a reduction in overhead costs, provide the ability to scale without adding headcount and ultimately, drive more revenue. If your team is working 50+ hour weeks, using automation in the right ways can streamline existing processes, drive greater efficiency and empower your business to:

1. Save a considerable amount of time by removing inefficient processes 

There is no point in spending time doing repetitive (sometimes mindless) tasks that can be done faster and more accurately using automation. The last thing you want is for your team to feel depleted, demotivated and struggling to prioritize the parts of the job they enjoy the most. This decreases effectiveness and can negatively impact team morale, leading to individuals being less invested in their work. Let automation take care of the administrative tasks for you so time can be better spent on business-critical tasks like engaging the right people, growing your brand and developing trust and credibility in your chosen market.

2. Deliver consistently good recruitment experiences 

A massive turn-off for candidates and clients is outdated technology. Particularly in a digital age, recruitment businesses need to keep up with increasing expectations in a society that’s ‘always-on’. As consumers, we expect fast response times and instant information. If not, we’ll go elsewhere. It’s that simple. Outdated technology will hurt your ability to offer competitive recruitment experiences, so it’s imperative to harness the power of new and emerging trends. Automating parts of your recruitment process - like follow-ups with 100% of prospects so your team never misses a beat - is just the beginning.

3. Refocus time on high-value tasks to drive productivity 

When considering what parts of the recruitment process you should automate, the key is to identify where time is best spent. Is it best spent sending 200 identical follow-up emails? Or would it be better to whittle down the list of your target contacts to ensure that only the best are being reached out to? We all know what the right answer is. Rather than spending hours each day trying to stay on top of repetitive admin tasks, your team should be focused on parts of the process that require human insight to drive strategic thinking. This approach is more productive and efficient and will generate better results.

4. Accurately track data and activity straight into CRM/ATS

We are all aware that humans are prone to error, even when getting into a rhythm of doing the exact same thing every time. One little detail can be forgotten and turns into a day (or two) of fixing errors. With automation, you only need to program the action once, double-check it and let the machines do the rest. Accurately tracking data and activity straight into your preferred CRM/ATS is a perfect example of this.

How SourceWhale uses automation to support the recruitment process 

With SourceWhale, your team can automate parts of the recruitment process that don’t require human judgment or decision-making. This frees up your team’s time to focus on the tasks that do require their attention and expertise like refining strategy, measuring success and scaling best practices, picking up the phone and building and nurturing relationships with prospects to drive more revenue.

1. Sourcing and BD outreach 

Our platform automates outreach for sourcing and business development. Simply define the number of steps you would like to include in your campaign, pick the channels you’d like to use (e.g. email, InMail, SMS, phone etc.) and use our in-house conversational AI WhaleGPT to create personalized and relevant content for you.

2. Track replies

Our platform will automatically stop any scheduled outreach if the prospect replies (though users can turn this setting off if they wish to nurture leads regardless of whether a contact has replied or not). It will also automatically stop any other outreach if a contact is manually marked as replied, interested or not interested within your system of record and if they’ve booked a meeting with another member of your team.  

3. Use sentiment analysis to automatically categorize email replies 

Our in-house AI can determine whether an email response is negative or positive. The system gets smarter with every response and we can even categorize the reasons for a contact coming back as not interested like salary, location, skills, fit, time, industry, budget etc.

4. Sync contact activity and data with your CRM/ATS

It does this exactly the way you want and ensures that all data entry from any outreach sent is also logged against each candidate or contact. Our platform creates new contacts and candidates within your CRM/ATS and can determine if they already exist in the database, to avoid creating duplicates. 

SourceWhale will also record any outreach sent to the contact via the platform, as well as any email replies and conversations after the contact replies to the initial outreach. In addition, you can determine which fields will be populated and updated within each contact or candidate page such as hotlists, distribution lists, jobs, functional expertise and much more. Your team will no longer need to worry about clean data entry!

5. Schedules your manual tasks in your to-do list 

SourceWhale sends an automated task list every morning to remind you what you have to do each day. The system can remember your task list for you, saving huge amounts of time and maximizes productivity by empowering your team to focus on completing their daily activities and prioritize compiling targeted and well-researched lists of prospects to reach out to improve open and reply rates.