Recruiting operations systems enable the recruiting function to operate consistently and efficiently by mapping out the roles everyone plays in recruiting, technology that will support the recruiting process, goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Recruiting operations optimizes various aspects of recruiting such as sourcing, scheduling, interviewing and the offer process.
Core Components of Recruiting Operations
- Processes: When we talk about processes in recruiting operations, we mean the sequence of events that are important to ensuring team members have a clear understanding of the recruiting workflow.
- Responsibilities: When we talk about processes in recruiting operations, we mean the sequence of events that are important to ensuring team members have a clear understanding of the recruiting workflow.
- Technologies: A combination of various recruiting technologies based on a company’s needs is important to maintain recruiting operations efficiency.
Why Is Recruiting Operations Important?
Recruiting operations is important to recruitment because it creates alignment among the recruiting team, hiring teams, candidates and others who are involved in the recruiting process. This alignment ensures that everyone knows what to expect and for what each team will be accountable. In turn, providing clarity in everyone’s roles throughout the recruiting process promotes efficiency and compliance within the organization, and a fair process for all candidates who are going through it.
How Does Recruiting Operations Work?
To show how recruiting operations works, let’s go over its three core components: processes, responsibilities and technologies.
Processes
When we talk about processes in recruiting operations, we mean the sequence of events that are important to ensuring team members have a clear understanding of the recruiting workflow. These processes allow those involved to know exactly what to do based on what stage of the recruitment process they are in. For example, with a well-defined interview process, a recruiter is able to identify at what point in an interview they should be sending a take-home assignment to a candidate if it's required. On the candidate’s end, they should receive clear expectations regarding requirements to complete the assignment and when the assignment is due.
Responsibilities
The recruiting team and hiring teams have varying roles and responsibilities within the recruitment process. Finding alignment on responsibilities sets expectations and provides clarity to avoid any confusion on who owns what in the process. For example, a sourcer may be assigned the responsibility of sourcing candidates, but a recruiter would take over the process at some point and be responsible for scheduling the candidate’s interviews with the hiring team. This clarity in the workflow creates efficiency for the team because it takes away any second guessing for which part of the process each person is responsible.
Technologies
A combination of various recruiting technologies based on a company’s needs is important to maintain recruiting operations efficiency. This technology may include sourcing tools, applicant tracking systems, reporting and talent branding platforms. Along with implementing these platforms, the recruiting operations team is also responsible for identifying opportunities to integrate these technologies with other relevant HR platforms. These integrations not only increase productivity, but they also result in more reliable data. Many technologies allow for automation within recruiting operations and ways to collect data that recruiters use to analyze recruitment metrics. These data sets can lead to uncovering areas of improvement, which enable the team to create a better interview experience for all.
What Are the Benefits of Recruiting Operations?
Compliance
Recruiting operations keep track of changes to federal, state and local regulations relevant to the organization. Depending on the nature of regulatory updates, recruiting operations is responsible for teaching those whose job functions will be affected, as well as making changes to the recruiting process to remain in compliance. For example, the salary history ban in many states makes it illegal to ask about a candidate’s current and past compensation. Therefore, it’s important for recruiting operations to communicate such information to everyone involved in the interview process.
Fairness
Recruiting operations establishes a way for all candidates to experience a fair process. Every candidate should go through the same interview process and hiring teams should assess each candidate based on a role’s requirements. Without recruiting operations enforcing the same interview process for all candidates vying for the same role, teams may unconsciously skew hiring decisions through inconsistencies in how they interview or assess candidates.
Efficiency
Recruiting operations enables recruiting and hiring teams to perform their roles more efficiently through establishing clarity in ownership and workflow. This function also utilizes data from key performance indicators. This data typically comes from an applicant tracking system wherein recruiting operations can track things such as the time it takes to hire a candidate from application to offer acceptance. This data can also come from candidate feedback through an interview experience survey. Accessing and analyzing these data sets enables recruiting operations to identify what part of the process can be improved and prioritized based on highest impact.
