According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 9.9 million job openings and 6.2 million hires across all industries in February 2023. While these numbers are encouraging, there were also 5.8 million separations—resignations, layoffs, and discharges—in that same month. Even though several jobs are regularly filled, open roles become available just as fast. This is just one large-scale example of the constant pressure recruitment teams are under to employ the right candidates in a timely manner. 

To successfully scale hiring practices and enable talent acquisition professionals to maximize their efforts, innovative HR leaders are automating their recruitment process. 

If you’re exploring how a recruitment automation platform can help you hire better-fit candidates, you’ve come to the right place. We’re diving into that topic, as well as how to efficiently implement an automation platform into your hiring practices. But first, let’s take a look at the common struggles that hiring teams deal with on a daily basis. 

The challenges of hiring

High-volume hiring is one of the most challenging types of recruitment. While several companies often recruit one to five candidates a month—according to Recruiting Daily—those numbers must be multiplied to meet the demand of frontline industries. 

Some of the most common frontline recruitment roadblocks include:

Time to hire

Businesses with a large portion of frontline employees, like restaurants and retail, often have high turnover rates, resulting in a constant demand for new employees. The issue is, hiring the right candidate can take weeks. From the initial communication between a recruiter and a candidate to when they accept a job offer, a lot can happen—namely applicant drop-off. This loss of candidates makes it harder for recruiters to bring on board the required number of employees to ensure their business can continue running smoothly. If the application is too lengthy or a person isn’t contacted in a timely manner, the applicant isn’t likely to see the process through to the end. 

Number of roles

HR managers and talent acquisition specialists are stretched thin in most organizations, but in businesses where high-volume hiring is necessary, their task can seem almost impossible. Recruiters generally have to fill 100 roles weekly, increasing the likelihood of recruiter burnout and poor candidate experiences. While open positions are filled, there is an endless cycle of positions open due to turnover. 

Bad candidate experience

It’s safe to assume that most companies want to provide a positive hiring experience for potential employees, but this is often easier said than done. Each state of the hiring funnel leaves an opportunity for the experience to be less than optimal. Indeed found that word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools for employers because people trust their friends and family when they relay information about a particular organization. Sadly, a company’s brand can be severely damaged by bad reviews from previous employees or candidates, resulting in fewer applicants being interested in a company. 

Why use recruiting automation software?

High-volume frontline recruiters do have a unique set of challenges, but don’t lose heart! A high-quality recruitment automation platform can help talent acquisition teams avoid these pitfalls and usher new employees through their doors quickly. According to SHRM, only about one in four organizations use some form of automation or AI to support HR-related activities, meaning nearly 75% of companies are choosing to hire employees manually rather than take advantage of an automation tool. 

If your organization joins the ranks of the leading 25% of companies that automate their hiring process, you can experience the following benefits (just to name a few): 

Reduce time to hire

Cut the length of hiring processes by automating your screening procedures. According to Indeed, recruiters look at a resume for an average of six to seven seconds. This doesn’t seem like much time until you crunch the numbers. Let’s say that one job opening receives 50 applicants; for that single job opening, a recruiter will spend 5.8 hours. Multiply that across 100 roles to fill and then by multiple job openings…you can see quickly why high-volume talent acquisition specialists may feel like they are drowning. But, by using a recruitment automation tool, talent acquisition specialists can screen hundreds of candidates at once, moving forward with individuals who have the proper requirements and letting go of those who don’t. 

With platforms like Emi, teams can use a virtual assistant to answer commonly asked questions. This keeps talent acquisition professionals from taking time away from important hiring procedures. It also gives candidates 24/7 access to much-needed information, no matter the applicant’s schedule. 

Emi—a recruitment automation platform—helps recruiters reduce the time to interview by 82% and enables talent acquisition professionals to shorten the hiring process significantly. In fact, Danone used Emi to revolutionize its hiring process, and the company experienced an 80% reduction in time to first interview.  

Hire more people and reduce employee burnout

Decreasing the period it takes to move candidates from an application to a job offer also allows more applicants to go through the hiring process. A recruiting automation tool filters thousands of candidates simultaneously to help people quickly hear back about the job. By automating some steps of the hiring process, recruiters can identify hundreds of qualified candidates and automatically schedule interviews without being forced to sit down at a desk and complete HR-related duties. 

Recruitment automation software makes interview scheduling convenient so talent acquisition teams can arrange first conversations faster. By automating messaging and sending interview reminders to applicants, organizations, like Burger King, have increased interview attendance rates by 90%. 

Identifying specific tasks that can be automated gives recruiters the freedom to focus on value-adding jobs. Streamlining hiring responsibilities means that recruiters are being pulled in fewer directions, which aids in reducing burnout. Give your recruiting team the tools they need to be successful by automating your organization’s recruitment process. 

Provide a great candidate experience

It could be said that a happy candidate equals a happy employee, and a smooth hiring process will largely impact how satisfied the candidate is. An applicant’s encounter with a company is significant because it affects the employer’s reputation, even when it comes to candidates who don’t get the job. According to Deloitte, 83% of talent says a negative interview experience can change their mind about a role or company they once liked. What those candidates think about your company’s recruitment procedures can impact whether they apply for another job at your organization or tell their friends and family about any future employment opportunities within the business. In fact, 80% of candidates who experience an unsatisfactory recruitment process revealed they openly tell people about their experience, and a third will do so proactively. 

According to HR News, 75% of candidates say they never hear back from a company after sending an application. Businesses can differentiate themselves by acknowledging each candidate without having to bear the weight of manually reaching out to each person by automating responses based on if a candidate moves forward in each stage.  

Automating your hiring: how easy is it?

While automating your hiring is beneficial to the organization as a whole, not all automation tools are created equal. It’s important to choose the right recruitment automation software to help deliver the hiring results your recruiting team is working toward. 

Emi, the frontline recruitment automation platform, is utilized by top recruiters like Walmart, KFC, and Burger King that need to fill a high volume of roles, streamline the hiring process, and create a positive candidate experience. Emi integrates with existing HR tech stacks. Our implementation support team can help professionals along the way and answer any questions that may arise. 

Recruiting automation FAQs

To make the journey through the ins and outs of recruitment automation easier, here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about recruiting software:

How much does recruitment automation software cost? 

Every provider has a different billing structure. Some platforms determine prices based on the number of candidates received during the application process or the amount and type of roles, while others utilize the number of new employees hired. Additionally, some tools only offer month-to-month subscriptions for seasonal demands and one-off hiring needs, while others use a longer engagement to partner more intimately with clients to achieve their holistic talent acquisition goals.

For example, Emi works with you to decide the best product offering for your organization’s needs and hires depending on multiple variables, including recruiting volume, role type, and location. 

What are the most common hiring tasks to automate?

Although there are many tools to automate various specific stages of the hiring process, the best way to cut back on the time spent completing recruitment tasks and hire qualified candidates faster is to look at duties that require the most manual effort. These include:

• Screening applications
• Interviewing candidates
• Collecting documents
• Onboarding new hires
• Analyzing data

For high-volume hiring, these tasks are multiplied by thousands of applications, making it difficult to effectively fill all open recs with just one team of recruiters. Here’s how Emi helps with each of these stages:

• Screening: Save hours of your recruiting team’s time by eliminating the manual review steps and allowing Emi to collect applications through SMS text or Facebook Messenger. After gathering this data and inserting it into your applicant tracking system,  Emi will automatically indicate which candidates meet all the necessary criteria.
• Interviewing: Eliminate the back-and-forth of scheduling interview times with Emi’s fully automated interview scheduling functionality. Hiring managers set their availability, and Emi’s virtual assistant collaborates with candidates to schedule a meeting at one of the open times. This takes place on the same text or Messenger thread where the application information was gathered.
• Sending the offer: Once a recruiter decides that a candidate is a right fit for the open position, Emi will send out the job offer directly to their phone, Facebook Messenger, or email—whichever channel the candidate applied through. 
• Collecting documents: Allow new employees to complete their paperwork digitally before their first day to ensure they can jump immediately into the job. This helps build a strong relationship between the employer and the candidate and reduces no-shows. 

Do you still have questions about automating recruitment to enhance your organization’s hiring process? Our team is available to chat! If you’re ready to utilize a recruitment automation platform that will streamline and simplify the hiring process, request a demo with our team today.