Too Many White Collars at Once. How to Maintain the Quality of Multi-Recruitment Projects?
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"High-volume recruiting" is a term that most in the HR industry would refrain from using to describe projects involving professionals and managers as it implies that quantity does not equal quality. However, we should not bother with stereotypes when there is a pressing business need resulting from the rapid growth of companies in the Polish market.
The term multi-recruitment may refer to two kinds of projects. First, when the goal is to recruit an entire team consisting of at least a dozen people, so the positions would be of different levels. That is often the case with greenfield investments – explains Agnieszka Dejneka, Antal Multi-Recruitment Team Manager. The second type of multi-recruiting is used when there is a demand for a large number of employees with a similar professional profile, often to work the same type of job. That usually happens when the company is looking to expand its sales network or create a new, specialised department – she adds.
How to manage such projects if you want to fill many vacancies while retaining high standards and a high level of Candidate Experience?
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Appoint a Project Manager to supervise the multi-recruitment project.
Multi-recruitment projects require more effort and ongoing collaboration of the HR department, the business and external suppliers. It is easy to fall into the trap of blurred responsibilities. Therefore, appointing a Project Manager would be good practice. The manager of the recruiting team would be a natural candidate for the position, however a smart solution would be to choose an ambitious professional who aspires to become a manager in the near future.
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Use automation, but keep it human.
Recruitment technology can considerably speed up multi-recruitment projects. A bespoke candidate application management system, with preliminary screening and key competence selection, is a godsend for recruiters who work on high-volume projects. However, you should hold back from automating all stages of the recruiting process. Candidates who do not meet their prospective employers face-to-face are less engaged in the process and feel less satisfaction when taking part in it. Being in touch with a real person is a must, especially at the later stages of the process.
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It is better to delegate that to neglect.
Greenfield investments are often a foray into uncharted lands, especially when they are located far from company headquarters, therefore attempts at remotely managing multi-recruitment are usually unsatisfactory. Why? Because prospective employees do not trust such endeavours if they appear to be half-hearted. It would be a good idea to set up a temporary administrative unit at the location or delegate the project to an agency that has experience in executing high-volume projects, the latter of which is a more affordable and logistically sound choice. Both solutions make it possible to maintain the quality of the project while retaining supervision.
The uncertainty whether an outside supplier will be able to handle the project in an effective and professional manner may be mitigated by using new technologies that allow reporting throughout all of the stages of the recruiting project – suggests Agnieszka Dejneka from Antal – For example, when working on a multi-recruiting project for a company from another continent, we are able to share the results of competency tests of individual candidates and the videos of interviews with company management, with prior consent given by the participants of course.
Learn more about Antal Multi-Recruitment
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Try non-standard methods of getting in touch with candidates.
Companies will usually find it more cost-effective not to use recruiting marketing techniques when searching for a single professional or manager. However, when the task involves finding several dozen candidates in a short timeframe, recruiting marketing becomes much more feasible. Running a campaign in regional media outlets on the new investment, using social media ads targeted at a selected audience, including gamification as part of the process? Multi-recruitment calls for the use of creative, attention-grabbing methods that may significantly speed up the process while building a positive employer brand image.
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Do not bite off more than the recruiter can chew.
"It is all the same whether you are looking for one good salesperson or three good salespeople" – that is how an employer may think about tasking the recruiting team with finding dozens of candidates for the same job. You sometimes do get lucky and all of the candidates prove to be knowledgeable experts that you are more than happy to hire. However, that is not usually the case and when multi-recruiting projects are assigned to small teams that are used to handling only a few processes at a time, the whole undertaking will surely end in failure and frustration. Therefore, the first step to high-volume recruiting should be to... hire more recruiters. Even if they prove to be less experienced, they will still be able to seek out candidates and perform a preliminary screening. The team will be relieved to have some support. Plus, the time savings will mean that the project will likely be completed within the planned timeframe. It goes without saying that the in-house recruiting team will appreciate their employer's efforts to improve their comfort.
If we look at how business is growing in Poland right now, we may predict that multi-recruiting will prove necessary regardless of industry or candidate profile – concludes Agnieszka Dejneka, Antal Multi-Recruitment Team Manager. Therefore, you should consider how your company would handle such a challenge and prepare a draft strategy.
