It’s no secret that working in recruitment involves a lot of manual processes that lead to inefficient ways of working and inconsistent responses from candidates and clients. But it doesn’t need to be this way. Recruitment automation is a great solution to this problem and can help teams achieve more in less time by streamlining existing workflows.

When used effectively, recruitment automation can save teams up to 8 hours a week. Automating manual and administrative tasks empower teams to refocus their time on high-value activities like sourcing, nurturing relationships and creating better experiences for both candidate and clients. Having more time to spend on these strategic daily tasks is key to business growth and standing out from your competitors. 

What is recruitment automation?

Recruitment automation involves technology that enables teams to automate tasks that were previously done manually. It has hugely impacted the industry and is fast becoming intrinsic to successful hiring, as it has the potential to augment and enhance existing processes, rather than replace them.

How to automate the recruitment process

Businesses can choose to automate different parts of the recruitment process depending on their need, but common methods involve:

• Automatically tracking data into CRM/ATS

This ensures candidate and client data is kept up to date and your CRM/ATS can act as a single source of truth. It also removes the risk of human error, improves data hygiene and ensures record consistency which is essential for businesses (particularly growth businesses looking to sell). 

• Automating candidate communication 

Combining automation with hyper-personalized multichannel messaging is great for businesses looking to streamline their outreach and ultimately, drive more revenue. Not only does it mean you never miss a follow-up, but it also gives you the ability to nurture contacts down the funnel by providing multiple touchpoints. Gone are the days of having to manually track who you’re talking to, who's replied and when to follow-up.

• Automatic daily task reminders

Structuring your day as a recruiter can be a challenge as you're constantly spinning many different plates. With so much prospecting, candidate sourcing and admin, it can be extremely difficult to stay on track with what needs to be done and when. 

Automation can be leveraged to organize existing workflows and ensure teams optimize their time by providing automatic updates, to-dos and reminders.

Top 5 benefits of automating the recruitment process

Recruitment automation helps keep recruiters sane. It can help businesses obtain improved efficiency, increase their brand awareness and reputation and reduce cost per hire. Other benefits include:

1. Saves time for personalization 

Automating tedious manual tasks can save teams 5-8 hours a week. This means they have more time to focus on adding hyper-personalization to their candidate and client outreach. This pays dividends in increasing your chances of a response, but also helps teams build long-standing relationships by facilitating a strong human element throughout the entire process. 

2.  Never miss a follow-up

Forgetting to follow-up with those candidates and clients that didn’t reply can end up in a missed opportunity. Particularly when 71% of conversations are sparked from the follow-up, not the initial contact. Automating outreach means teams can rely on messaging sequences and add contacts to a series of steps that ensures they continue to receive multiple touchpoints.

3. Improves candidate & client experience 

Both candidates and clients enjoy an engaging experience, quicker responses and faster hiring decisions. Recruitment automation can trigger personalized and contextual interactions with contacts at different stages of the recruitment process. This means teams can focus on providing great human experiences and nurture relationships at scale. 

4. Reduces time-to-hire

Any time recruiters can get back to focus on business-critical tasks is highly valuable. Not only does automation speed up the recruitment process by making it more efficient, it also allows teams to spend their time on important tasks like sourcing and engaging the right candidates. 

5. Scalability 

Once you have established best practices and have fully integrated automation into your recruiting process, it’s easy to scale what works and drive consistent results. Then you will have a well-oiled recruiting machine working alongside your day-to-day activities, helping to supercharge your output.