How to Optimize Your Website for a Better Candidate Experience

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On one hand, it makes perfect sense that brands are doing everything they can to target customers and attract buyers with their digital outlets.

As a business, you need to make the most of your website when it comes to customer acquisition and retention, so you naturally post customer-focused content, reviews, and create pages that appeal to your target audience.

What about the potential employees? Where can they find useful information about a potential position with your business? 

A Careers page shouldn’t be the one and only candidate-centric page on your entire website. You need to optimize your site in such a way that it serves a double purpose: attracting customers, but also appealing to potential employees. To do that, you should focus on improving the overall candidate experience linked to your website! 

As much as you invest in creating dedicated social media pages for your potential employees and posting on recruiting sites to push your brand’s job ads to the forefront, your site should be employee-centric, too. Here are a few candidate experience ideas you can introduce into your strategy to make every step of the candidate journey, from a job through to an offer letter, easier for you and the applicants from day one! 

Live chat support for applicants

Your site likely offers chat support for customers and users, right? Whether you have chatbots or actual people handling these conversations, more often than not, such interactions will determine whether or not a person will buy from you. 

The same applies to your potential employees. Chatbots can enhance the candidate experience immensely because they’ll feel much more comfortable knowing they can turn to chat for help if they come across an issue during the application process. This is also another opportunity for your business to collect invaluable data from employees and to make smarter recruiting decisions in the future. 

A personalized website 

Whether you work as a recruiter or you’re an entrepreneur building a personal brand and in need of employees – personalization can truly save the day. Your website doesn’t have to be yet another generic .com domain that will hardly inspire action or tell a story about your business. For people who have a personal brand and depend on it to attract valid customers, you can do the same to attract valid employees.

For starters, you can choose a personal domain name that pairs with a .me extension for added value and relevance for your potential employees. You can pair a keyword from your expertise with your own first/last name or nickname to immediately show what your business is about. As soon as a potential candidate spots your domain name, they’ll know what your brand has to offer.

Personalization helps build trust as well as brand recognition, which in turn helps you with the entire recruiting process. Make sure your website is technically sound, loads quickly, and offers a great user experience as well as having an attractive design.

Employee-generated content

Every single business in existence uses customer or user-generated content as well as influencer marketing to make an impactful statement about the business itself. Have you been doing the same for your applicants and wannabe-candidates? Future employees want to see what it’s like to work with your organization. Your own job ads won’t suffice. 

• Encourage employees to write blogs for your website and promote that content on social media, too. 
• Entice employees to write their own reviews and experiences on your website. 
• Publish “behind the scenes” videos at the office to show your candidate pool what it means to work with your brand. 

When your candidates get to see your employees’ perspectives and experiences, they’ll be much more likely to apply, evaluate if you’re a good match, and reach out if they have any questions. Not to mention the SEO value of such content for your website when someone is searching for the specific position that you’re offering!

Integrate social media with your site

Be where your candidates are. Just like your customers, your future employees are spending time on Facebook and Instagram. As much as you’d like to limit yourself to LinkedIn, you should understand that many successful and in-demand workers don’t really spend that much time on this professional network. 

They prefer the casual and relaxed environment on Facebook, so that’s where you need to be, too. In fact, this is one of the best recruitment tactics modern businesses should use, but that doesn’t mean that it exists separately from the rest of your recruiting methods, like your site.

• Add clickable buttons to take your website visitors to your social media pages that are employee-focused. 
• Make sure that you share blogs, articles, employer branding videos, and other content on social media that is relevant for your candidates, not just customers. 
• Show screenshots of your finest social media moments (employee-centric ones) on your website, too. 
• Add original hashtags that will be part of your recruiting campaigns, and link them throughout your website back to your social media pages.
• Invest in Social Media Advertising on Instagram and Facebook.

Just like you actively try to simplify your customers’ lives and minimize their efforts, you should strive to do the same for potential employees. If they have managed to come across your website, it’s up to you to improve the site in its entirety to match their needs, exceed their expectations, and deliver the right content that matches their purpose. 

Wrapping up

It takes time to refine your website, and you’ll always need to revisit your content, add more relevant information, and get creative, but you already do the same for customers. Continuous growth is what your website should be all about.

Make sure that your site reflects your candidate’s values and that you can use your site to portray your brand in the best possible light whenever you’re about to search for that ideal person to join your team!

What Causes a Bad Candidate Experience?

Learn what causes a bad candidate experience. Are you making these mistakes?

Why should you fear bad candidate experience?

A bad candidate’s experience has a direct negative impact not only on your ability to find and hire your ideal job candidate but also on your overall company’s business

Research has shown that:

• 63% of job seekers will likely reject a job offer because of a bad candidate experience (Source: Software Advice).
• 72% of job seekers that had a bad experience told others about it, either online or in-person (Source: CareerArc).
• 64% of job seekers say that a poor candidate experience would make them less likely to purchase goods and services from that employer (Source: CareerArc).

What causes a bad candidate experience?

3 main reasons responsible for bad candidate experience are:

1. Not enough communication

CareerBuilder survey has found that 75% of applicants never hear back from employers.

Upgrade your candidate experience by:

• Communicating at every step of your recruiting process
• Using these email templates for recruiters to save time
• Using Applicant Tracking System to automate repetitive tasks

2. Messy application process

CareerBuilder survey has found that 60% of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because they are too long or too complicated.

Upgrade your candidate experience by:

• Allowing various application options (let your candidates apply only by uploading their resume or via their social media profiles)
• Shortening your application forms – include only the questions that are absolutely necessary
• Optimizing your career site.

3. Interview horror

The LinkedIn survey has found that 83% of talent say a negative interview experience can change their mind about a role or company they once liked.

Upgrade your candidate experience by:

• Using an interview invitation email template to inform candidates about all necessary details
• Selecting the right job interview type
• Asking the right job interview questions

Learn more about improving the candidate experience

There is a great 10 step strategy for improving the candidate experience.
Make sure you check it out! 🙂

24 Email Templates for Recruiters

These 24 email templates will help recruiters save time and provide excellent candidate experience!

Ensure great candidate experience with recruiting emails

What do candidates want?
According to research, they want more communication.

When asked what could make the most positive impact on their candidate experience, 60% of candidates said that “Better Communication throughout and after the application process” would make the most positive impact.

Ensuring timely communication with each and every one of your candidates is necessary if you want to keep a positive image of your Employer Brand and persuade your potential candidates to join your talent pool.

Remember, a candidate that you don’t end up hiring for a certain job opening could make a great candidate for some other of your current or future job openings.

Email templates for recruiters

To make it easy for you to establish excellent candidate relationship management (CRM), we gathered 24 email templates that cover main stages of the recruiting process:
Sourcing, Referrals, Interviewing, Job offers, Rejecting candidates and Talent Networking.

Here are 24 email templates every successful recruiter uses daily:

1. Email templates to active job seekers

• Email response to an open job application – job opportunity,
• Email response to an open job application – no vacancies.

2. Email templates to passive job seekers

• Email to referred candidates,
• Email to sourced candidates,
• Follow-up email to sourced candidates,
• Email to previous candidates about new job opportunity,
• Join our talent network email.

3. Job interviews email templates

• Skype interview invitation email,
• Interview invitation email,
• Second interview invitation email,
• Interview confirmation email,
• Interview reminder email,
• Job interview feedback email.

4. Job offer email templates

• Formal job offer email,
• Informal job offer email.

6. Referrals email templates

• Disqualification email to applicants,
• Rejection email to applicants,
• Post-interview rejection email.

5. Email templates for rejecting candidates

• Referral program announcement email to employees,
• Employee referral reward email announcement,
• Referral request email to employees,
• Referral request email to Alumni,
• Thank you for referring email to employees,
• Email to referred candidates.

Email automation tools for recruiters

Modern recruiters use Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to automate their e-mail communication with candidates.

Using an ATS will help you improve candidate experience because you will be able to send personalized emails to each and every one of your candidates with just a few clicks!

10 Simple Steps to Improve Candidate Experience?

Improving candidate experience is a must if you want to win in a war for talent. The current job market is candidate driven, which means you don’t pick talent anymore. Talent picks you. That’s why it is absolutely necessary to start improving candidate experience right now.

Read on and learn how to attract and recruit top talent in 10 simple steps!

The recruiting game has changed

Candidate experience is more than just another passing HR trend. The way we recruit has changed. Current job market is candidate driven. That means you don’t pick talent anymore. Talent picks you, and they do it based on their candidate experience.That’s why it is absolutely necessary for your company to ace candidate experience.

Candidate experience definition

“Candidate experience” is current, past and potential future candidates’ overall perception of your company’s recruiting process.

It is the product of candidates’ feelings, behaviours and attitudes they experience during the whole recruiting process, from sourcing and screening to interviewing, hiring and finally onboarding.

Steps to improve candidate experience

1. Write a clear job description

A recent Talent Board report found that job descriptions are the most important job related content. Write a clear and accurate explanation of the job and responsibilities, salary range, perks and benefits and company values.

Pro Tip: Writing a job description that attracts candidates is the very first step in finding the right candidate. To help you save time, we have created free most common job descriptions templates and samples, ready to use and post to multiple job boards with just one click.

2. Be transparent about your recruiting process

Setting expectations about the recruitment process is very important in delivering a positive candidate experience. According to research, 83% of candidates say it would greatly improve
their overall experience if employers could set expectations about the recruiting process.

Pro Tip: It is crucial for you to make clear what exactly your hiring process will look like. Offer resources and tips to help candidates. A great example is Google’s How We Hire,
a transparent and detailed look into their recruiting process.

3. Improve your career site

According to research, 89% of job seekers, your career site is the most visited recruiting asset you have, so ensuring candidates can easily find the information they need is essential to a great experience.

Pro Tip: There are many things you can do to improve and optimize your career site. We prepared a detailed step by step guide to help you get more job applicants from your career site.

4. Enable easy application process

According to research, 60 percent of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity.

Pro Tip: Evaluate your application process and do everything you can to make it shorter in time and more simple. Consider asking only what you really need from people at this first point of contact.

5. Respect candidates’ time

According to LinkedIn’s survey, it generally takes 2 to 3 months for candidates to move from application to hire. This is quite problematic, because top talent stays on market only for 10 days.

Pro Tip: What constitutes as a timely response by employers? This a recurring theme across the recruitment experience. Most of the candidates  say that 3 to 5 business days is an acceptable time frame.

6. Communicate, communicate, communicate

Research shows that the No.1 frustration during the overall job search is the lack of response from employers. 81% of candidates that the one main thing that would greatly improve their overall candidate experience is employers continuously communicating status updates to them.

Pro Tip: Create email campaigns that will keep your candidates interested and engaged. Set up personalized campaigns based on different stages of recruiting and hiring process.  With our TalentLfyt Engage, you can create your own email templates, or use existing ones to save time.

7. Become an interview guru

The interview is a pivotal point in the candidate’s’ job search journey. According to LinkedIn research, 83% of talent say a negative interview experience can change their mind about a role or company they once liked.

Here’s our guide on which questions to ask job candidates.

Pro Tip: Keep your interview period short, offer candidates a chance to learn about the role and your company culture. A great way to that is to show off your workplace. A simple walk around your office after interview will give candidates a glimpse into your culture.

8. Give and ask for feedback

Feedback helps candidates improve as professionals, and they are very well aware of that.  According to LinkedIn hiring statistics, 94% of talent wants to receive interview feedback.

Pro Tip: Make sure to provide feedback for candidates that you didn’t hire. If the feedback you offer to rejected candidates is constructive, they will be 4 times more likely to consider your company for a future opportunity.

9. Maintain candidate relationship

Despite popular belief, a candidate’s experience doesn’t end when you decide not to hire them.
So called silver medalist are candidates that don’t make the cut for this position, but may be a perfect fit for some other future job openings.

Pro Tip: So how can you keep your silver medalists interested and engaged? Connect with them on LinkedIn and your company’s social media profiles. Add them to your recruiting email campaigns. Organize talent networking events and invite candidates from your talent pool.

10. Create a great recruitment content

Inbound recruiting creates a remarkable candidate experience through employer branding content and helps companies build relationships with top talent.

Pro tip: Create appealing employee testimonials and stories, shoot attractive company videos and provide interview and career advancement tips to get potential candidates interested in working at your company.

People Analytics Is Core to the Future of the HR Function: Q&A with David Green

Today our guest is David Green, a true globally respected and award winning writer, speaker, conference chair and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work.

David is the Global Director, People Analytics Solutions at IBM Watson Talent. He is also the longstanding Chair, of the Tucana People Analytics conference series, the next edition of which – the People Analytics Forum, takes place in London on 29-30 November.

David has spoken at conferences and/or worked with people analytics leaders in over 20 cities in the past year including San Francisco, Sydney, London, Paris, Singapore, New York, Amsterdam, Moscow and Berlin. This affords David with a unique perspective and insight into what’s working, what’s not, and what’s forthcoming in the field of people analytics.

The interview is hosted by Alexey Mitkin, Founder, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, The HR Tech Weekly^® Online Media Co.

1. Hi David, and first of all thank you very much for this interview with The HR Tech Weekly^®. The year of 2017 is approaching its end. What made a difference this year in the field of people management and HR technologies?

Thanks Alexey, it is a pleasure to speak with you. For me, 2017 has been a pivotal year in the field as the realisation that people analytics is core to the future of the HR function has become far more widespread. In one of his recent articles (see here), Josh Bersin described people analytics “as the lynchpin of success for HR in the next few years”, and I have to say I completely agree – although that probably doesn’t surprise you!

We still have some way to go in terms of widespread adoption and just as importantly in embedding analytics and data-driven decision making within organisational culture, but the acceptance that this is core rather than peripheral is a welcome momentum shift.

Elsewhere, the move from many companies to develop programs and technologies that personalise the candidate/employee experience in areas such as talent acquisition, onboarding, learning and mobility is also positive. It’s about time that we have rich and personalised experiences at work similar to those we already enjoy as consumers. Data and analytics plays a foundational role in this.

2. People analytics is an area of profound interest to business leaders. What do you see as the main trends in the people analytics space?

You are right to highlight the heightened interest levels in people analytics Alexey. I’d summarise the main trends as follows:

• More and more organisations getting started with people analytics – 2017 seems to have been the year that the talking about when to start analytics stopped and the actual hard work in creating capability began for many organisations. So, the number of organisations in the early stages of their people analytics journeys is on the increase and many will face similar challenges in terms of data quality, skills and capabilities, stakeholder management/education and project prioritisation. Our recent IBM Smarter Workforce Institute research on HR Analytics Readiness in Europe demonstrated though that most organisations still have a long way to go.
• Developing an analytical culture: this is key for organisations that want to develop sustainable capability in people analytics. This means exciting, equipping and enabling HR Business Partners, and clearly demonstrating and communicating the impact of people analytics initiatives within the organisation. This is the focus of many companies that have built initial capability and success in people analytics.
• Ethics and privacy concerns: this continues to be the most important and challenging aspect for practitioners. Research from Insight222 reveals that 81% of people analytics projects are jeopardised by ethical and privacy concerns. With the EU GDPR legislation coming into effect in May 2018 and the emergence of new employee data sources, focus on this area will continue to be high.
• The consumerisation of HR – as per my earlier point, many organisations that have developed people analytics capability are looking at ways to understand and improve the employee experience. In addition to the personalised machine-learning based technologies referenced earlier, this includes efforts to understand and analyse employee sentiment. You can’t do either of these things without analytics so those organisations that have already developed people analytics capability are in pole position to take advantage here.
• Organisational network analysis (ONA) – interest in ONA has exploded in 2017 as organisations seek to better understand team effectiveness and productivity. Practitioners interested in this burgeoning area of people analytics should check out the work of Rob Cross, recent articles by Josh Bersin and vendors like TrustSphere, Humanyze and Worklytics. Expect interest in this area to continue to soar in 2018.

3. On the eve of People Analytics Forum 2017 could you slightly open the curtain on what makes an ideal agenda in modern HR analytics, workforce planning and employees insights then?

I always enjoy chairing the Tucana People Analytics World and People Analytics Forum events as the agenda is always cognisant of the fact that the diversity of delegates in terms of where they are with analytics varies widely. As such, the three tracks: Start (for those getting started), Grow (for those building capability and looking for deeper insight) and Advance (for advanced practitioners and those exploring new data sources) means there is something for everyone. This is hugely important as in my experience the people analytics community is highly collaborative and there is a mutual desire amongst practitioners for shared learning. The Tucana events provide this in spades.

4. It was heard that some attendees of conferences recently formed a viewpoint that the slow adoption of analytics has been because of a lack of practical cases delivered by speakers. Your point of view on the problem will be of great influence.

I haven’t really heard this viewpoint from many. I would argue the contrary in fact that most of the conferences I attend feature numerous and diverse case studies from practitioners. I think you need a balance of speakers from the practitioner, consultant, vendor and analyst communities as each provides a slightly different perspective – indeed much of the innovation in the space is coming from the vendor community. As such, at the conferences I chair, speak and attaned there is normally much to inspire delegates whatever their maturity level when it comes to people analytics. Of course, there is a distinction between being inspired and immitation as each organisation faces different business challenges and has unique cultures. If I could offer one piece of advice to practitioners, whatever their maturity level, it is to channel their efforts on the key business challenges that have the biggest impact within their organisations.

5. What new data-driven HR solutions are on your watchlist and why?

As I mentioned before much of the innovation in the people analytics space is coming from the vendor community and I always recommend to practitioners to keep abreast of the latest developments here. Data-driven companies to look at include: TrustSphere, Alderbrooke Group, Aspirant, Glint, Visier, Crunchr, Workometry, Peakon, OrgVue, Headstart, Worklytics, Humanyze, Qlearsite, One Model, hiQ Labs, Cultivate and StarLinks; and those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head!

If you’ll forvive the self-promotion, I would like to add that IBM is also doing some groundbreaking work in this space through bringing Watson to HR, particularly in the talent acquisition and the employee experience areas – see more here.

6. What advice would you give to HR professionals looking to boost their careers within the people analytics space?

Well, firstly you should get yourself along to the People Analytics Forum and read my articles on LinkedIn!

Seriously, analytics is a core capability for the future HR practitioner and it won’t be long before the likes of CIPD and SHRM build this into their educational programs. Until then, find some courses (like the Wharton School course on Coursera), attend some conferences, read some books (like The Power of People and the Basic Principles of People Analytics), and seek to learn from analytics professionals both in and outside of HR.

For me, HR is one of the most exciting places in business to work in at the moment and the increased use of analytics and data-driven decision making is one of the reasons why I believe this to be the case.

HR Buzzwords or Actual Recruiting Strategies?

HR and Talent Acquisition (TA) industries have been going through some major changes in the past few years. Following the new trends, people have come up with new terms, HR technology, expressions, as well as new TA strategies.

Some experts believe that these new terms are just buzzwords, while others believe that they have become inevitable strategies of every successful recruiting and hiring strategy.

Here is my list of some of the newly introduced HR expressions.

1. Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment Marketing is an expression used to describe methods used for communicating organization’s Employer Brand and Employee Value Proposition to attract high-quality job candidates to apply for their open positions.

Recruitment Marketing strategies are described as methods with the main goal of improving Candidate Experience and encouraging Candidate Engagement.

Many companies that follow latest trends in the world of HR technology, use features offered by Recruitment Marketing tools to better communicate their Employer Brand and Employee Value Proposition.

2. Inbound Recruiting

Inbound Recruiting is a method of creating targeted and branded content with the purpose of increasing your firm’s popularity and strengthening your Employer Brand.

Inbound Recruiting follows the famous Inbound Marketing strategy; technique for drawing customers to products and services via recruiting content marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization.

The number one goal of every Inbound Recruiting strategy is to engage qualified candidates and convert them into job applicants to expand talent pools.

3. Candidate Relationship Management

Candidate relationship management (CRM) is a method for managing and improving relationships with current and potential future job candidates. Many companies use CRM technology to automate and ease communication process with the job seekers, encourage their engagement and improve candidate experience.

For example, some Recruitment Marketing tools offer solutions for creating engaging email campaigns to provide highly relevant, educative and interesting content in order to build stronger relationships and expand their talent pools with highly-qualified job candidates.

4. Employer Branding

Employer Branding involves all the activities and tactics used to communicate Employer Brand and Employee Value Proposition to passive and active job seekers.

In today’s “War for Talent” Employer Branding strategies are considered very important when it comes to solving one of the biggest recruiting challenges – attracting high-quality applicants.

LinkedIn’s research has shown that more than 75% of job seekers research about firm’s reputation before they apply for an open position. Companies that have weak employer brands not only have problems in attracting candidates, but also in retaining employees.

5. Data-Driven Recruiting and HR Analytics

Data-Driven Recruiting or HR Analytics are two expressions used to demonstrate new recruiting methods in which HR Professionals make hiring decisions based on data gathered through HR technology such as Applicants Tracking Systems and Recruitment Marketing Platforms.

Data-driven recruiting has proven to improve some of the most important hiring metrics such as time to hire, cost to hire and quality of hire.

Question:

If you had data available that proves that referred candidates take shortest to hire, fastest to on-board, require least money and stay longest with your company, would you still waste your money on job boards and job promotions or would you improve your Employee Referral Program?

If you are wondering which HR metrics should you be tracking, here is our checklist of most important HR metrics with tips for improvement.

So are these just buzzwords or actual recruiting trends?

5 Social Media Recruiting Tactics You Haven’t Thought Of Yet

Written by Helen Sabell, CEO & Principal of the College for Adult Learning.

In our current digital era, it is so easy to reach a wide group of people from your fingertips. It is important for companies to have strong social media recruitment strategies so that they can fill their teams with the best candidates for each position. Social media recruiting is one of the most effective tools in attracting talented professionals to your organisation.

Read on to learn how you can improve your social media recruitment tactics and increase your chances of finding the perfect candidate for your role.

Sourcing Candidates

Sourcing potential candidates via social media is an excellent strategy, especially with people using an average of five or more social media platforms. LinkedIn is the most common social media platform recruiters turn to in order to find talent and it is an excellent place to start. However, if people are using more than five social networks, surely there’s room to branch out?

Instead of heading straight for LinkedIn, try other social media sites like Twitter, Google+ and Facebook to source new talent. Specialised search tools such as Followerwork can search through Twitter bios for job titles and keywords. Chrome browser extensions such as Intelligence Search, can easily search Facebook and Google+ and help you find potential candidates.

You can also use social media to filter out bad candidates since how someone behaves on social media can be a direct indication of their attitude. If you find that your candidate’s values do not match your company’s you can cross them off your list before you go through the lengthy recruitment process.

Monitor Your Competition

Social media is not only an excellent form of finding candidates, but you can also use it to keep an eye of your competitors. There are many tools available to recruiters to monitor the social media activity of their competition. Certain tools allow you to set up search columns which display how often certain hashtags and key terms are mentioned on sites such as Twitter. Such insights can allow you to get a leg up on competitors and improve your on social media tactics.

Targeted Facebook Ads

Targeted Facebook ads can be a great opportunity to connect with the best candidates. Many companies are investing a large portion of the advertising budget towards Facebook ads. Targeted Facebook ads allow you to choose certain demographics so that your ad is seen by the groups you are looking for. For example, if you are searching for an entry-level candidate, you may target a younger crowd (e.g. early 20s). It is an excellent way to narrow down your search and make sure you are reaching the right people.

“Occupational targeting” is also an excellent strategy to make sure your Facebook ads reach users who are experienced and working in your desired industry. You can alter your settings so that you are targeting users from particular companies, job titles or adult education courses.

Engage With Candidates

Social media platforms are a great way for you to communicate with new and current candidates throughout the recruitment process. Your Facebook page is a great tool for communicating your company’s image to potential candidates. Be sure to include useful information about the work culture, locations, employee testimonials and other relevant information.

Encourage your candidates to visit your page and ask any questions they may be pondering. Be sure to present an accurate image of your company as most people can usually tell if you are being ingenuine. You will pull in more talent if you provide an authentic persona of your company. 

Participate In Online Discussions

Social media can give you the opportunity to make sure you are present in the right conversations. Through the social media sphere, you can sort through your pool of candidates and find the right people. Being present in LinkedIn groups and using hashtags is a great strategy for making sure your job ads are seen by your target group. Make sure your job hashtags are unique and carry some relevance to the role.

Adult learning forums are constantly active, with many students seeking job advice and eager to gain experience. Online forums like these are an excellent place for recruiters to source talent and find the right people for their positions. Make sure you are getting your brand out there so that you have a well-known presence online.

Recruiting through social media strategies opens up a world of opportunities for HR professionals. It is a vital channel for sourcing new candidates and reaching the best people for the job. Start getting to most out of your social media recruitment strategy today.

About the Author:

Helen Sabell works for the College for Adult Learning, she is passionate about adult and lifelong learning. She has designed, developed and authored many workplace leadership and training programs.

Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Google+

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How Technology Can Help to Prevent Workplace Stress

We spend over eight hours a day, five days a week at work.

Some of us may even spend more of our waking hours with our colleagues than our families.

It’s therefore important that our working lives leave us happy and fulfilled.

Sadly, studies show that one in four of us will suffer from a mental health condition in our lifetime.

Spending so much of our waking time at work, it’s inevitable that work will affect our mental health.

Too much pressure or long-term stress can cause employees to burn out, leaving them with less energy to function in and out of work.

Too little work – or a lack of stimulation – can also lead to stress. Employees feel under-fulfilled, like they’re wasting their time, and want to be anywhere but at work.

The more stressed employees are, the less work they get done, and the more businesses suffer.

Embracing technological innovations puts employees back in control of how they spend their time at work and greatly reduces the risks of stress and burnout.

Here are four ways technology can make employees feel more fulfilled, and help to prevent workplace stress.

Organize and coordinate schedules

Trying to find a time when a team can meet to discuss something important can often take as long – sometimes even longer – than the meeting itself.

If it’s an important or last-minute meeting, trying to get everyone together can cause employees huge amounts of stress.

There’s always a risk of someone being double-booked because they didn’t check their calendar before agreeing to a suggested time.

This then causes more stress because the meeting needs to be rescheduled.

Calendar connectivity means that this process can be automated, preventing double-bookings and avoiding any stress the process could cause.

Instead of long email chains or back-and-forth phone calls, the person organizing the meeting can tell the software whom they need in the meeting. It can then suggest a list of times when everyone is free to meet. If calendars are set up for bookable resources such as meeting rooms or parking spaces, it can incorporate this into its calculations too.

Connecting an employees’ calendar to HR software also means that they don’t need to switch between applications to keep track of their schedules.

Speed up and streamline complicated processes

On the surface, organizing interviews seems like an easy process, but with so many candidates and interview panellists to coordinate, it quickly becomes laborious.

Hiring managers can spend as many as 20 hours a month organizing interviews.

Automating this process gives hiring managers more time to spend on other tasks, saves interview panellists from having to constantly flit between their calendar and emails, and allows candidates to book their interviews discreetly.

Another process that can be automated is the organization of staff appraisals. In large organizations, this process can be particularly time-consuming.

However, when employees are calendar connected, software can work out the best times for an employee to meet their manager and automatically add the appointments to their calendar. No matter what size their team is, the process is instant.

Offering training programs for employees to expand their skills further breaks up the tedium of the daily routine.

Training programs don’t just have to take place at work, either.

There are thousands of online courses out there, and many of them are free.

Many industries also have their own courses or week-long events that employees can attend to network and get a change of scenery.

Giving employees new ways to learn and grow helps to spark new ideas that they can bring back to the workplace.

Learning new skills is also an effective way to prevent stagnation and keep employees interested in their work.

Monitor employee wellbeing

Looking after employees is a key part of HR.

New technology means HR teams can track how employees feel and gain an insight into how different teams work.

They can also encourage employees to get up and get moving by offering incentives such as fitness trackers.

Communication tools such as Slack give employees the opportunity to keep in touch whether they work in the same building or different parts of the country.

Tools like this can be key for managers and HR staff to keep informed of how employees are getting along, particularly if they work remotely full- or part-time.

Let employees take control of their schedules

The more things a person has floating around in their mind, the more difficult it is for them to organize their thoughts.

When employees have a lot to do and nowhere to organize their time, it’s inevitable that something will be forgotten.

Taking advantage of technology allows them to use it for everything from creating to-do lists in Trello to tracking customer queries in Zendesk.

Giving employees somewhere they can make a note of everything they have to do means that they spend less time trying to remember everything and more time getting things done.

The technology you provide for your employees matters

Richard Branson once said that if you “look after your staff. They’ll look after your customers. It’s that simple.”

When employees feel overwhelmed or overworked, they’re less productive and less able to help a business to grow.

Employees are what make a business a success.

Choosing the right people is crucial, but that’s only part of it.

If you don’t look after them, they won’t be as good to your business as they could be.

By nurturing employees, making them feel appreciated, and giving them opportunities to learn and grow, it not only benefits them, but the business, too.

The more knowledge employees acquire in their industry, the more they can use this to create a better customer experience and increase company revenue.

This then means the company can grow and increase its profits faster.

Everyone wins.

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Source: How Technology Can Help to Prevent Workplace Stress | Cronofy Calendar API

About Cronofy

Cronofy connects HR software to users’ calendars via a unified calendar API.

To discover how calendar sync can save you and your users time and money, and help to hire the best candidates, watch our Real-Time Scheduling video.

An AI Intern For Your Recruiting Team

Source: Wanda Arca via Dribbble

As a recruiter, have you ever had an intern?

It’s awesome. They take on many of the tedious administrative tasks that typically take up so much of your time. They assist with everything from processing applications to coordinating interviews and compiling applicant profiles for hiring managers.

Ah, the luxury.

Then they leave for the Summer. Suddenly all those tasks are put back on your plate. You now have to cut back on one-on-one time with candidates. You’re back to scheduling interviews and filtering through application after application. Gone are the days of complete, uninhibited focus on building relationships with candidates. Gone are the days of getting ahead of your hiring managers’ needs.

But with AI interns, you get the best of both worlds.

Artificially Intelligent (AI) interns share many of the qualities of their human counterparts, except they’re in it for the long haul. AI is impressionable, sponge-like and eager to learn. With AI interns, you get all the benefits of having human interns and none of the downsides. AI doesn’t take lunch breaks or Summer Fridays.

This is what inspired our beta testing program, aptly titled the Wendy Internship Program. Wendy is our conversational AI chatbot for recruiters. Wendy is young and eager, like an intern. She melds seamlessly into your existing workflow, easing burdens and lightening your workload along the way.

As a first round interviewer, Wendy helps recruiters engage and qualify candidates by chatting with them after they apply. This chat occurs via SMS/Facebook Messenger or our web app, and is similar to an initial phone screen. Here’s an example of Wendy initiating a conversation with Katie, a Software Developer who applied to a role at ACME:

This an example of how Wendy starts a chat with an applicant.

Like previously mentioned, Wendy is young and impressionable, so this is your opportunity to shape her to your needs as a recruiter. Wendy…

• Allows for more data-driven decision making — Wendy is able to gather information not found in applicants’ resumes. With these enriched applicant profiles, you can make more informed decisions about who to interview.
• Increases your bandwidth — Rather than going through countless email exchanges and phone screens, you can allocate that time to other areas, like sourcing and building candidate relationships. Wendy also handles many administrative tasks, like scheduling and updating applicants.
• Improves applicant engagement — Because Wendy can engage every single applicant, applicants no longer experience the “ATS black hole.” Unlike humans, Wendy never sleeps — meaning she can screen applicants at any time of the day and even on holidays.

We are currently filling out our Wendy Internship Program and looking for the next class of companies who are excited to help us train Wendy. If you’re interested in adding Wendy to your team, sign up here.

About the Author:

Bailey Newlan is the Content & Growth Marketer at Wade & Wendy, a New York City-based startup on a mission to make hiring more human. Wade & Wendy is a conversational engagement platform for recruitment automation. To connect, reach out to Bailey via LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium.

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Interact by Xobin, an AI based assessment platform, announces integration with Greenhouse

Leading AI based assessment platform from Bangalore announces integration with the top ATS provider in Silicon Valley.

Bengalūru, September 1, 2017 — Interact, the leading AI based smart assessment platform from Xobin, and Greenhouse, the world’s leading recruitment platform, today announced an integration. This integration adds intelligent proctored assessments in every software skill for human resource professionals using Greenhouse’s platform.

Hiring doesn’t have to be crazy. All growing tech companies run into the same fundamental problem while hiring — UNCERTAINTY.

• Uncertainty about the quality of hire
• Uncertainty about the team fit
• Uncertainty about time and money spent.

Interact makes creating and conducting online Assessments easy for recruiters. Its secure environment verifies the integrity of the submission with the keyword pattern analysis and eye motion tracking. Add that to the fact that recruiters can send out invites to all their prospects in a single click, and Interact becomes doubly efficient. With a Candidate Journey and Code Playback, recruiters will have the same degree of trust as if the test was taken in front of their eyes. This removes the necessity of a secondary verification of skills. Thus, saving loads of time per hire, freeing the schedule up and improving productivity. This also ensures that only the most qualified candidates end up being hired.

“Interact is a platform for secure and fast hiring. It uses AI to block improper test attempts. This gives candidates the comfort needed and the recruiters the authenticity they need”, says Guruprakash, the CEO of Xobin.

He further adds “It is exciting to be partnering with Greenhouse and seeing our mutual customers benefit from this combination of tech. Our customers were able to allocate more recruiting resources towards sourcing, improving the overall quality of candidates being evaluated and getting through the Interact Assessments. Thus saving their valuable time.”

Dane Hurtubise, the VP of Platform and Partnerships at Greenhouse had similar things to say about the integration as well, “Candidate integrity and authenticity are two major factors for making impact hires. Interact’s smart assessment platform enables our mutual customers to automate the process of verifying candidate ability and integrity in a single step, saving both recruiter and candidate time and energy. We are thrilled that Interact by Xobin is joining our community of partners!”

About Interact

Interact is a comprehensive recruitment suite for companies to find the right tech talent in a secure, authentic and super fast manner. The AI powered Platform uses Pupil Tracking and Keying Pattern Analysis to ensure Candidate integrity while taking an assessment. With a vast library of application and coding based questions, Interact helps recruiters create assessments that are tailored for the candidates and helps them find the best fit for any given role.

About Greenhouse

Greenhouse Software designs tools that help companies source, interview, hire and onboard the right talent. Headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco, Greenhouse was founded by Daniel Chait and Jon Stross. Recognized as the 2017 Best Place to Work in the U.S. by Glassdoor, the Greenhouse team currently works with over 2,000 of the world’s most innovative people-driven companies, including Sony, Airbnb, Slack, TIME Inc. and more.