Has the spread of digitalization and remote work changed the habits and expectations of employees? Yes, of course! It also had a significant impact on the perception of recruitment processes. These adaptations are now the new normal.

In this summary, you can find the most important insight of our study, “The New Era of Work”. The online survey shows the perspective of both applicants and HR professionals.

Use this free knowledge and prepare your company for new challenges!

The same is true of the recruiting process itself. And in the case of the most coveted talent, those expectations are even higher. With the help of tools that allow you to speed up the decision-making process in your company by up to 60%, or tools that allow you to quickly and efficiently assess a candidate’s skills in order to decide on an offer as quickly as possible. In response to this need, softgarden invited Codlity to join the marketplace, which is a hub for partners’ offers and allows to enrich softgarden’s Talent Acquisition Suite with additional features useful for recruiters.

Codility is an evidence-based platform that helps hiring teams predict the real-world skills of their candidates at scale. This brings faster hiring, time savings, and gives engineers more time to solve problems that matter. We asked Natalia Panowicz – CEO of Codility about tech recruitment, how recruiters use their solution and how the pandemic has affected their business.

How is recruiting engineers different from recruiting for other positions?

Natalia Panowicz:

Recruiting top engineering talent is difficult because the need far exceeds the available talent. Meanwhile, every company is a tech company and competes for the same tech talent. As companies decentralize, the stage for this competition is now global. Traditional hiring practices where candidates have to jump through a series of hoops to get the job don’t work when trying to find top engineering talent. The most promising engineers are usually off the market within 10 days, so your recruiting tactics need to be flexible, fast, and enticing to beat out the competition. 
If you want great engineers to work for your company, you need to understand what they value. This goes far beyond a competitive salary. In Codility’s State of Remote Work report, we found that engineers find flexibility (in terms of being able to work remotely) and work-life balance more important than salary. Stack Overflow’s Developer Survey found that developers value learning new technologies, as 75% of respondents said they learn a new technology at least every few months or once a year.

How should a recruiter prepare when planning the recruitment process for technical positions?

Natalia Panowicz:

Streamline your tech hiring process from sourcing to pre-screening to technical interviewing to onboarding. There are new technology solutions available to help you create an efficient hiring process. Focus on technology solutions that help mitigate bias and make hiring decisions based on the candidate’s technical skills. Make sure you have access to the talent you need when you need it. Evaluate talent internally to ensure you have the right people you need to continue to grow your business. Identify where gaps exist and try to fill those gaps. Coding challenges can be a great way to attract talent into your pipeline.
Align your business goals with your hiring efforts to strategically plan for the future. Make sure the hiring team is aligned with the leadership team when it comes to the company’s goals and the staffing needed to achieve them.

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Is Codility a tool for hiring managers or recruiters? Do you offer support for recruiters entering IT who have no knowledge of how to review technical applications?

Natalia Panowicz:

Codility serves both recruiters and hiring managers. The Codility platform allows recruiters and hiring managers to test real-world skills for all roles, programming languages, and frameworks at all levels of difficulty, conduct remote technical interviews and create sponsored challenges to find candidates. You don’t need to know any programming to navigate Codility’s user-friendly platform.
We offer training videos for those who are new to the Codility platform. These training videos give a general overview of the platform, walk users through step-by-step how to create a test, how to invite candidates to take a test, and for the tech-savvy, we even offer the opportunity to try out a test.

Our Customer Success team is ranked #1 on G2 for best relationships. Customer support is at the heart of what we do. Depending on the stage of your plan, you will have a designated Customer Success Manager, who will work with you and your team to support you every step of the way.

What is the profile of the average customer using Codility?

Natalia Panowicz:

Codility serves companies of all sizes in all industries looking to improve their technical hiring process. We have 1000+ clients worldwide and work with the best of the best in technology, finance, government, e-commerce, transportation, and entertainment. Our clients include Microsoft, Amazon, AmericanExpress, Citi, PayPal, Okta, and more. Our plans scale from startups to the Fortune 500, and in terms of the number of engineers companies hire per year, we typically work with companies looking to hire five or more engineers within 6-12 months.

What about a candidate who participates in multiple recruitments for companies that all use Codility? Is there a risk that the test will have to be repeated?

Natalia Panowicz:

The likelihood of this being the case is very unlikely, as different companies have different tests and Codility has an extensive task library that allows for different tasks, even when assessing the same skills.

Do you see the impact of the current pandemic on your business? Is demand increasing?

When the pandemic started, we helped our clients move thousands of scheduled onsite interviews online in a very short time. We have a client base that spans 76 countries and tests candidates from 179 countries – so candidates come from all corners of the globe. 

We had to work quickly to help our clients transition to remote hiring and remote work to minimize the impact on the scalability of engineering teams. At the same time, we saw a 3x increase in demand for virtual interviews through our CodeLive platform in the U.S. alone, as companies across all industries have moved from on-site interviews to remote interviews since the pandemic. 
Companies are now completely forgoing on-site interviews and relying entirely on remote hiring to fill their gaps. We’ve seen some of our clients interview over 100 candidates globally in a week; these are numbers we don’t normally see in such a short period of time and reflect the incredible increase in remote hiring that is happening right now. We are so pleased to have the right technology solution to help our clients solve their remote hiring challenges.

COVID and the shift to remote working have accelerated technology adoption across all industries, which means every company now truly needs to act as a tech company. This means that proper staffing of the engineering team becomes strategic. Failure to do so will impact long-term competitive advantage.

Natalia Panowicz

Natalia Panowicz is the CEO at Codility, where she has held key roles since joining as one of Codility’s earliest employees. She expanded Codility from Europe into the US, securing $22M in venture capital along the way, and is leading Codility on a mission to increase the problem-solving capacity of engineering teams worldwide. 

Speeding up recruitment

We know that a major problem for companies looking to hire top talent is time. The best candidates aren’t on the job market for long, and lengthy recruiting processes can be daunting. On the organisational side, tough times also require a quick response to changing business circumstances and the ability to recruit the team you need quickly.

Our answer to the need for additional acceleration was Smart Calendar, a solution that allows the work of arranging interviews to be streamlined. Currently, a recruiter working in the  softgarden ATS can check the availability of colleagues directly in the system, select an appointment or multiple options that are suitable for all participants, and send a proposed appointment to the candidate with a few clicks. This eliminates the time spent on sending emails with the time availability of multiple participants.

There was also an acceleration in the pre-selection process, as the new extended view in the system saves time when browsing through a large number of applications.

We have also improved the system for approving candidates, so that even in organisations where there are several levels, it is possible to confirm the acceptance of the selected people in the shortest possible time.

Michał Janas of the softgarden team met with expert HR Adrian Martinez for this online summary. The following text, is a brief summary of their conversation at our last webinar.

Making work easier

We know how much time recruiters spend using our software every day. That’s why we want to make it easier and more enjoyable for them to work in the system! 

An important innovation in the softgarden recruiting system is Agency Module, a solution that simplifies the cooperation with external recruiters and headhunters. They can now share our software with our clients, enter their candidates directly into the system and track the effectiveness of each application. For recruiters, this means they no longer have to exchange hundreds of emails about incoming applications, but have more transparency in their recruiting processes and full clarity on the effectiveness of each external partner. Of course, this also means faster processes for both the recruiting team and the applicants. 

We have also enriched our Mobile Application with new features! Now it is no longer just a tool for internal communication within the team and for evaluating applications, but also an effective means of communicating with candidates, forwarding applications within individual workflows or viewing key figures on clear dashboards.

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A number of improvements

Thanks to the cooperation with softgarden partners, we can offer our customers many additional solutions that help them to carry out their recruitment processes even better – tailored to the situation on the labour market, the target group or the expectations of the candidates.

A key facility we made available to all our clients in response to the new recruitment challenges of 2020 was the introduction of a free video interview facility for candidates to arrange and conduct directly from the ATS solution. This not only helped recruiters, who no longer had to think about which interview software to use, but also helped candidates – they could join the interview directly from a link sent by the system, without having to install any new software.

We‘ve also taken care of the candidate experience by improving our modular career page builder and providing new ad templates. With the ability to create custom career pages for different audiences, recruiters can now tailor their communications to specific audiences – for example, by job seniority, specialisation, or location.

There was also the study we did on the German market 2020, where we reviewed, among other things, the opinions of companies and candidates on the digitalization of recruitment and whether they feel fully prepared for it as employers.

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“Where did the idea for this webinar theme come from? It came from my thoughts that we as recruiters are often treated step-motherly in organisations. We are responsible for attracting and onboarding candidates, but rarely receive adequate support ourselves. When we start working in a company, we are usually given a list of possible questions to ask the candidate, and all the rest of the knowledge and know-how we have to acquire on our own. This is not so easy, especially since the recruiter is the first line of contact between the candidates and the company and is responsible not only for the effectiveness of recruitment, but also for building the image of the company as an employer. Moreover, a recruiter is not only a person who arranges appointments and conducts interviews, but also performs a number of tasks ranging from organisation to communication and graphic design,” says Joanna Urbańska about the idea behind our event for recruiters.

Who is the recruiter in the organisation?

A major challenge for most recruiters is the need to balance the expectations of the company with those of the candidate. The question is how to do this in a meaningful way so as not to forget one’s own well-being at work in the pursuit of perfect completion of all tasks. Is it even possible to reconcile these two perspectives? The key to success can be ongoing education within the company about the true scope of the recruiter’s job and the responsibilities that lie within that role. A good starting point is also to write down all of the important factors that a recruiter needs to consider in their job, both from the company and the candidate

Areas of responsibility for the recruiter from a business perspective:

• Candidate profile
• Candidate search sources
• Boolean Search
• CV pre-selection
• Screening
• Appointments
• Calendar scheduling
• Rescheduling appointments
• Conducting meetings
• Objective assessment of the candidate
• Advice on candidate selection
• Employment formalities

• The first working day in the company
• Onboarding
• Reports and statistics
• Time
• Keeping you up to date
• Recruiting System
• Recruiter evaluation surveys
• Attractiveness for customers
• Standardise behaviour and training of managers
• Build engagement
• Impact on turnover

The recruiter’s areas of responsibility from the candidate’s perspective:

• Candidate Journey Map Graphics
• Marketing Activities
• Sales Activities
• Feedback to Candidates
• Process Standards
• Atmosphere building
• Surveys at different stages of recruitment
• Communication plan (emails, text messages, phone calls)
• Employer Branding
• Career Page

• Social media
• Positive Candidate Exprience
• Job fairs and events
• Cooperation with universities
• Application form
• Availability of candidates (time and channels)
• Workshops, group recruitment
• Video solutions
• Online recruitment

“The above points are the examples that first came to mind. This is not a closed list as each recruiter’s work may vary. Developing the above list that is appropriate for a particular company and the scope of a recruiter’s job is a good starting point, including becoming aware of what you are responsible for in a company and starting discussions, whether with the company or the manager responsible for organising the work of the recruiting department, about the scope of the activities performed. Time is the resource we lack the most, and without starting a discussion about the role of the recruiter in the organisation and prioritising the tasks assigned to him, we condemn ourselves to constantly weighing up between them, with the risk of abandoning some of them, perhaps the important ones,” advises Joanna Urbańska to recruiters trying to define their role in the organisation themselves.

In addition to making the list above, it’s also worth considering what tasks we can do in collaboration with others or by using modern tools that allow us to automate work or create modular career pages, for example. All in order to generate more time for the most important part of a recruiter’s job – building relationships with candidates, conducting quality interviews and optimising internal and external processes.

It is also worth backing all this up with independent research. In the study Candidate Experience 2020, published by softgarden in the German market, some very important conclusions came to light – candidates are becoming increasingly impatient, both in relation to the application process (the maximum acceptable time for filling out a form is 10 minutes) and waiting for a response (maximum 14 days after sending an application). They also expect transparent processes as well as high quality and attractive job offers that give a real insight into future tasks. The ability to respond to them will increasingly determine a company’s recruiting success

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The company’s perspective and the applicant’s perspective – how do you reconcile this in practice?

Moving on to concrete examples of the conflicting expectations of companies and candidates of the recruiter, it is worth focusing on the issue of time. In the context of an organisation, the focus will almost always be on getting processes done as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this increased speed can lead to a loss of quality, while being of critical importance to the candidate. How can this be reconciled? Certainly technology can be supportive here, automating what is possible while still maintaining the individual approach to candidates. This can be done, for example, through an ATS that has the ability to send automated, personalised messages with feedback at various stages of the recruitment process. Of course, the tool itself is not the solution to the problem, but developing good message templates adapted to different situations is a good way to speed up the communication with the candidate while maintaining high standards.

The subject of arranging meetings and interviews similarly presents itself. The days when the candidate agreed to every scheduling option are long gone. Today, they expect it to fit into their schedule, and in the age of online recruiting, they also want it to be technologically seamless. From the recruiting team’s perspective, on the other hand, it’s important to have a deadline that suits everyone. So how can you easily create multiple appointment proposals that suit all parties and meet the candidate’s expectations without wasting long hours on arrangements? Again, a technology solution that allows you to coordinate everyone’s calendars on the recruiting team and send the candidate multiple available time options for a meeting directly from the ATS system can help.

An important issue related to the mutual expectations of companies and recruiters is the topic of employer image. Companies want to attract the best candidates, but these candidates only want to apply to companies that they perceive as attractive. This is why all of a recruiter’s work is so important. He or she is the first person a candidate meets in the recruitment process, and also the person whose work is most often discussed on employer review portals. So, among other things, it is the high quality of the recruiter’s work that translates into the company’s ability to meet its needs in hiring top talent.

What about evaluations of the company as an employer? Do you ask candidates for their opinions or do you rely solely on external review platforms? These are of great interest to candidates and often make the final decision on whether to apply. For this reason, implementing your own system for soliciting candidate and employee feedback can be a way to boost your image, as evidence of the company’s transparency and openness to criticism, while also being a source of invaluable knowledge for candidates. It’s just important to do this in a way that conveys credibility, such as using a third-party solution that ensures all reviews are published and meet expression standards.

Conclusion

“From my perspective, the most important quality in a recruiter is a willingness to grow professionally. As a profession, we need to constantly reach for new solutions, listen to candidates and engage in mature discussion with the company. I was very pleased to see that when asked how they felt about their professional development on a scale of 1 to 10, the webinar attendees gave an average of 5.7. This shows that regardless of seniority, we are aware that we will never achieve 100% knowledge because our field is constantly evolving. That’s why I appreciate the recruiters’ work so much,” Joanna Urbańska sums up.

Cooperation with an expert:

Joanna Urbańska

Joanna Urbańska is an HR Business Partner, manager, trainer, coach, consultant and psychologist. She also runs a blog for recruiters. She is the author of articles for the HR Business Partner magazine, co-author of the HR Business Guide tool and belongs to the H2H initiative.

She has been working in HR for 6 years, with 5000+ recruitment interviews, as many satisfied candidates and employees, countless constructive conversations and feedback, including within the organisation. She has spent over 100 hours in the training room, followed by nearly 30 hours of coaching, which she continues to do.

What is a career page?

Career pages should be an integral part of any recruiting strategy today.

Here potential applicants can get an impression of your company and also of the advertised positions in your company.

Ideally, your career page should provide potential talents with all the necessary information about you as an employer that they need for an application.

The technical requirements should also be met in order to be able to apply to you directly, even on mobile devices.

A well-designed career page turns interested visitors into applicants.

By the way: When we talk about “career page”, “career homepage”, “career site” or “career website” in the following, we mean the same thing, even if it is a classic term used in web design to describe different things.

Why is a career page important?

Anyone looking for a job today would like to find out about an employer on a career page with inviting design.

According to our “Candidate Experience 2020” survey, more than one in four applicants (25.6 %) start their job search right here.

The rest of the candidates use job exchanges, Google, social media, the daily press, or employer evaluation platforms.

This does not mean, however, that the job search will not lead these candidates to the career page at some point in time as they continue their research about an employer. 

Employers should therefore not underestimate the importance of a well-designed career homepage for their recruiting

Job seekers from all walks of life are used to being able to research precisely tailored information on the Internet.

They expect the same when looking for a job.

As a result, a disappointing or even a missing career page is seen as showing an employer’s disinterest. A real missed opportunity!

SEO: With a good career page you do not need to rely on job portals

However, candidates must also be able to find your career page.

Therefore, a good ranking on Google is extremely important – and this is where search engine optimization comes into play.

What do you need to consider for your SEO?

Use Keywords

It is crucial that your career homepage is found under the terms your candidates are looking for.

These are usually keywords like “career” + a specific job title + the name of your company.

Your career page should be full of these essential keywords.

They should appear in the headlines, body, meta description, and HTML title.

It is also worthwhile to name the used images with keywords or related search terms before you upload them.

If you fail to do so, you are wasting valuable potential on Google and are significantly harder to found, if at all.

However, if you follow the basics of SEO, your career page will receive a real boost.

The importance of the Google search

This way, you can reach talents who would not have become aware of you through other application channels, as shown in our survey “Job search in the age of Google Jobs”.

This way, you can reach talents who would not have become aware of you through other application channels, as shown in our survey “Job search in the age of Google Jobs”.

For example, one of our survey participants said: “I often find unexpected potential employers (on Google) that I would not have found on niche sites. This broadens the scope of possibilities”.

All this depends on the ranking of your career page.

Overall, candidates advocate a very active approach to Google and make the following recommendations to employers:

•     “Your job offers should appear on the first page on Google when searching for the right terms.”

• “Be listed as high as possible on Google and indicate on your own company page right on the start page that you are currently looking for employees.”

Another expert tip: Integrating integration real applicant feedback or employer ratings into your website is another real SEO booster.

Google rates the relevant information as very valuable and helpful content and rewards career pages with ratings with a better ranking.

In addition, ratings are a key decision criterion for candidates: Our study “Candidate Experience 2020” showed that 59% of candidates are more likely to click through to a career website with integrated employer ratings.

What makes a good career page?

The best career pages

•     prepare important information clearly,

• are well structured and easy to navigate,

• are immediately visually recognizable as part of the company website,

• allow a quick application directly on the site, and

• load quickly.

Clearly prepare important information

A good ranking for your career page on Google is only half the story.

Once candidates have found your career page, they want to find all the information that is relevant to them.

Good career pages provide transparent insights into the working environment of the respective company.

Describe what areas you cover within your industry and what makes you unique.

Your career page gives you the space to provide your visitors information on all these aspects.

However, make sure that you present an authentic picture to the outside world. For example, embed photos and videos from your company.

Important note: No matter whether it is film or picture – do not use stock images or video clips – show only authentic pictures of your employees and work locations.

Put the people who make up the company in the limelight.

Videos in particular arouse great interest among employees.

For example, almost 70% of talent is more likely to apply for a job in an ad integrated into the career page if a video is embedded in it.

You can also underline your credibility by embedding company ratings from employees and applicants.

As a result, you present yourself as an attractive employer and optimize your employer branding.

Use recruiting key indicators as an argument

You can also integrate important recruiting indicators (key performance indicators, KPIs) in clear graphics, for instance:

• “10 days until interview”

• “4 weeks until hiring”

• “564 job offers online”

The effect of this information is very strong.

Clear information on the duration of individual process steps creates trust.

Accordingly, 74.4% of applicants click on pages with clearly communicated KPIs.

Without this information, an otherwise identical career website is only selected by 25.6% of applicants. 

Subpages for different professional groups

A small tip aside: If your career page is aimed at many different professional groups or career levels, it is a good idea to create separate sub-pages for the respective target groups.

This makes it clearer for talent.

After all, working conditions, benefits and other factors can be very different for a payroll accountant and an industrial machinist.

Include open positions directly on the career page

A must-have on the career page: a job portal with the daily updated open positions.

At all costs avoid “dead-end files”, i.e. positions that have expired. This makes your job portal look untidy and does not leave a good impression.

Make your job advertisements as meaningful as possible. Offer talents not only detailed job descriptions but also the following information:

• In which department is the desired position located and who manages it?

• What tools and methods are used in the department?

• Who are the contacts for questions before and during the application process?

• At which location are you looking for employees?

Easy application

If you have managed to impress your visitors, you should enable them to apply directly via your job ad – no matter where they are and which device they are using to access the job ad.

Offer candidates who are on a laptop, tablet or PC, for example, an easy-to-fill application form that is tailored exactly to the job in question and asks only for relevant facts.

Alternatively, you can offer mobile candidates a one-click application.

It allows you to import data from your own Xing profile into the applicant tracking system in use.

Candidates can also upload a resume in PDF format, the contents of which can be read with a CV parser at the touch of a button and stored in the talent’s applicant file.

This benefits everyone involved.

Candidates submit an online application with just a few taps and recruiters receive optimally prepared data that they can process directly.

Designing a career page: What is important

Now let’s talk about the design of your career page.

A common faux pas of many companies: You may have a career page, but it looks very different to your actual web presence.

Talents who access the career page via a company’s homepage inevitably feel lost and wonder: “Am I in the right place?”

You should definitely avoid such an inconsistent look and align your career page with the corporate identity of your company.

Otherwise, you run the risk of candidates dropping out because they no longer feel they are on the right site.

What you should keep in mind:

• Use the same main, secondary, and accent colors and the same fonts

• Ensure that the content is uniformly structured with headings and a font size gradation across pages

• Do not forget the company logo

Usability and Candidate Experience

It is also important that your website has optimal usability, i.e. user-friendliness.

For example, improve the candidate experience by offering various filters on your job portal – by position, career level, location, or full/part-time.

In this way, talented people can directly find the job that suits them.

In addition to the images and videos already mentioned, informative graphics, lists, and bullet points as well as prominent headlines are important visual anchor points that facilitate the quick scanning of attractive career pages.

Also very important: nothing is more annoying than a page that loads slowly.

Compress images and videos to avoid long loading times on your site.

The result is a career page that is tidy and easy to use.

Evaluate the performance of your career page

However, once your career page is online your work is not over.

Instead, use the various analysis options to permanently improve your site.

Here are some of the most important KPIs to help you do this:

• Conversion: How many applications does the site generate?
• Impressions: How many people have visited the site?
• Conversion rate: ratio of the number of conversions to the number of impressions
• The ratio of new to returning visitors
• Traffic Sources: the origin of your site visitors
• Conversion Sources: From which source did the site visitors come who applied in the end?
• Hires: How many candidates do you ultimately hire through the career page channel?

Used correctly, these recruiting metrics are a powerful tool to measure, evaluate and ultimately improve the performance of your career page.

Conclusion

There are a few things to consider when designing a career page.

The time and resources invested pay off. Keep in mind that you are creating an independent portal for the recruitment of new employees.

In addition, there is software that makes it easy to set up and maintain a career page: The Career Page Pro from softgarden has everything you need.

Without any previous knowledge in web development you can create an impressive employer appearance in your corporate design with which you can also present yourself perfectly to candidates looking on mobile devices.

Job advertisements published via our applicant tracking system appear immediately on your career page, all changes are automatically and continuously synchronized.

Candidates can also apply for your job postings from the career page thanks to the integrated instant application.

Additional features:

•  Easy creation of subpages that can be advertised via Google Ads

• HTML structure built according to best practice SEO

• Integration of recruiting KPIs such as reaction times or time-to-hire.

• Numerous design options for customization

The Career Page Pro is optimized for search engines, so that candidates can find you more quickly. It could not be easier.

Fancy a demo?

We show you free of charge and without obligation how you can optimise your recruiting with the career site Pro from softgarden.

Arrange a non-binding live demo now

Which criteria are important for the selection of applicants?

There are both professional and formal criteria for the selection of applicants:

• Are all application documents present?
  • Cover Letter
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Letters of recommendation
  • Work samples

• The results of psychological tests like an assessment center
• Professional aptitude
• Other skills
• Voluntary activities

Preselect the applications

If you have various documents from applicants in your applicant tracking software, it is now a matter of making a meaningful pre-selection and incorporating the above-mentioned criteria for applicant selection. Ask yourself the following:

• What criteria must the applicant absolutely meet?
• What criteria can the applicant meet?

In order to find the right answers to these questions, it is sufficient to compare the applicant’s profile with the requirement profile.

For example: Does the applicant have a “university degree in computer science” or do they speak “at least two foreign languages” as requested in the job advertisement?

If not, this applicant will not make it onto the shortlist. Rule of thumb: Anyone who does not meet two of the required evaluation criteria for applications will not be invited to an interview.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to match up dozens of CVs by hand.

With modern applicant tracking software, this pre-selection can be accelerated, for instance by asking specific mandatory questions that the applicants answer in the application form.

The software directly compares which candidate meets which criteria.

Make yourself a checklist for the applicant selection

This way you have already screened out the applicants who do not fit the job advertisement at all.

Now you can evaluate the incoming applications based on formal criteria for applicant selection and compare the professional suitability of the candidates once more in detail.

Decisive for the evaluation of applicants in the second step of the applicant selection are criteria such as:

• Is the application complete, easy to understand, and free of errors?

• Is the CV complete and up-to-date?

• Does the professional suitability fit at least 80 or 90%?

Create a decision matrix for further applicant selection

Which applicants should be invited first?

This is how you decide: Sort the received applications into three categories.

This matrix for application documents determines the order in which you invite the applicants:

1.  A-applicants: Applicants whose profile ideally matches the advertisement and who can be invited for an interview immediately

2. B-applicants: Applicants with good suitability as second option
3. C-applicants: Applicants with rather low chances of a final selection

The next step in applicant selection: The job interview

The next step in the applicant selection process is to get to know the suitable applicants personally.

Inviting five to eight applicants is usually enough.

During the interview itself, the rule is: be prepared.

Just as you expect your candidate to be well-prepared for the interview, you should at least know the most important key details from your interview partner’s CV.

Punctuality and a friendly demeanor should also be mutual.

Short test tasks to get to know the skills of a candidate can be helpful.

It is important that the tasks of a possible recruitment test are very close to the later daily business.

For example, get your potential future social media manager to outline three ideas for posts on a specific topic.

They could also describe the criteria they would use to select the right images.

Here, too, applicant tracking systems can make the selection of applicants easier: The software by softgarden, for instance, allows you to define evaluation criteria for recruiting teams to assess the suitability of candidates.

These data are clearly displayed in a scorecard.

This way, you can easily select the suitable candidates.

Ask questions that are as specific as possible when selecting candidates

And of course you should also derive specific questions to ask the applicant from the requirement criteria of the job advertisement and the application documents.

The answers individual talents give you will serve as essential decision-making criteria.

During the interview, you will quickly get a feeling for the applicant’s motivation in the selection process.

The magic word here is “discretionary energy”.

Meaning: How much energy do you want to put into the job?

Or, in other words: How high is the willingness to give everything for the job – even beyond the basic requirements?

Choosing an employer: Applicants also have criteria

Also pay attention to the selection criteria of the applicants.

Be prepared for questions yourself, but at the same time be aware that the questions a candidate asks you will provide you with important clues.

You can use the applicant’s way of asking questions to find out, for example, whether they would really feel comfortable in your company.

This is an extremely important assessment criterion in an application: A poor cultural fit (i.e. how well applicant and company fit together in terms of ideals) reduces the chances of success in filling a position in the long term immensely – both sides would simply not be happy with each other, and employee retention is unlikely to be successful.

It is therefore important to compare mutual expectations as closely as possible.

Stay realistic and authentic

Our tip: Offer your applicant very realistic information about your company in the question and answer session and make it easier for them to decide whether or not to work for you.

Ideally, you have already defined one or more employer value propositions, which will distinguish you as an employer and which you can communicate here.

Make authenticity the focus of your recruiting strategy from the start and also present your company realistically on career sites.

You can read about how to design your career site in our detailed guide.

As you present the arguments, pay close attention to how the applicant reacts to what you say.

What do facial expressions and gestures reveal about them? Remember: The spoken word only makes up a small part of interpersonal communication.

More than 80 percent of communication is non-verbal.

Use this spectrum of non-verbal communication to assess your applicant!

These impressions are also important criteria for your selection of applicants.

The final decision in the selection process

Is the job interview now over?

Then now comes the big moment: A final decision must be made.

Fortunately, you don’t have to make it alone.

After all, others were involved in the application process.

So you can make the final decision as a team.

Without technical assistance, however, this can be challenging: meetings have to be scheduled, email votes clog up your inbox, and there is always the risk that not all participants are involved.

These kinds of problems do not turn up at all with the collaborative decision support included in our applicant tracking software.

It follows the basic requirements for effective and fast decision making:

1. The dual control principle: All of an applicant’s qualifications are fully stored in the applicant tracking system. During the voting process, HR should have a look at the soft skills of the applicants, whereas the specialist departments are better at assessing the applicants’ skills and know-how. Both factors are important in order to fill the vacancy in the best possible way. With the comment feature within our e-recruiting software, everyone involved in the decision can first view the opinions of colleagues and then give their own feedback on an applicant.
2. Everyone is on the same page: In order to make the right decision, everyone must have the same information. Within our recruiting solution, every step in the applicant selection process is precisely documented, which makes the decision easier for everyone involved. They can review the entire application process and make their decision based on this information.
3. All information bundled in one central location: To prevent individual opinions from ending up in different e-mail inboxes, the recruiting software bundles all assessments in one central location that can be accessed by all participants. This makes it easy to stay on top of things.

Conclusion

Good applicant selection methods need a little advance notice. It is quite possible that some stressed recruiters therefore tend not to specify the criteria for evaluating applicants in too much detail or tend to conduct the job interview less intensively in order to fill a position more quickly. But be careful: As a result, you tend to hire new employees who do not really fit the advertised position.

See for yourself!

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We will explain to you which indicators are important in recruiting and how to collect them. That way you can optimize your recruiting processes.

What are recruiting KPIs?

The best recruiting strategy is useless without good success control.

This is where recruiting KPIs come into play: if used correctly, these key performance indicators or recruiting indicators are an effective tool to first measure and then evaluate the processes involved in personnel recruitment.

In many cases, it takes just a few clicks to identify where there is room for improvement in recruiting.

How widespread is the use of recruiting analytics?

Although almost all companies know how important effective benchmarking in recruiting is, in practice only a few employers make use of sophisticated recruiting analytics.

According to a VONQ study from 2019, 61 % of the interviewed recruiters have difficulty finding suitable candidates for open positions.

For this reason, 47% of the respondents consider recruiting analytics, i.e. data-based insights into the application process, to be increasingly important.

However, only 7% of all recruiters would describe their company as well positioned in this context.

Why should you collect recruiting KPIs?

But what can be specifically evaluated by collecting the right indicators in recruiting?

A practical example: social media, your own career site, and job exchanges – in personnel marketing, many different channels are used to reach potential candidates.

But how do the individual channels perform?

Recruiters are often in the dark when it comes to this question.

Best practice: determining the best recruiting channel

So they cannot judge exactly which channel is necessary or which channel could be switched off.

This might cost unnecessary money, which would be better invested elsewhere.

Modern online tracking technologies shed light on the problems at hand:

• They identify the channels in which your company made initial contact with the applicant.
• They evaluate the most popular channels and those that are rarely used.
• You find the channels that brought many applicants but no hires.
• You identify the channels that have brought new team members to your company.

Save time and money in the application process

Depending on what you want to find out, you can set different priorities when measuring recruiting KPIs.

For example, if the focus is on the application process its self, classic recruiting KPIs such as time-to-hire, time-to-fill, or cost-per-hire are recommended.

These KPIs answer the question of how much time elapses between the notification of staffing requirements and the filling of a position and what costs the company incurs per position on average.

In addition, suitable KPIs can be used to establish processes to get to know the target group better:

• How many male and female candidates have applied?
• How satisfied are the applicants with the recruiting process?
• How well does the application process reflect the future job?

All these facts, figures, and data can be combined in various ways to create a multi-faceted overall impression.

What are the key recruiting indicators?

We have listed some of the most common KPIs below.

Under that, you will find a detailed explanation of their meaning.

We also explain what conclusions you can draw from the KPIs.

What does which recruiting KPI mean?

Time-to-Interview

Time-to-interview refers to the time span from the announcement of an open position to the first meeting.

This key figure is directly related to the speed of your application process.

It can therefore also be used as an indicator for your candidate experience.

A quick invitation to the interview not only creates a positive impression, but also accelerates the further application process and ultimately gives you faster access to the best candidates.

According to the softgarden Application Report 2019, 56.7% of applicants expect concrete feedback, i.e. an invitation or rejection, within no more than two weeks. Only a quarter of the interviewed companies met this requirement.

By the way: A sticking point when setting up job interviews is the pre-selection of candidates.

Here, the personnel department and the specialist departments often have to coordinate with each other.

Modern applicant tracking software can help here by accelerating this process through automation.

Users of softgarden’s applicant tracking software accelerate their time-to-interview by up to 60%.

Time-to-Hire / Time-to-Fill

Time-to-hire and time-to-fill are often used synonymously. This means the time that passes from the job advertisement until the position is finally filled. A long time-to-hire indicates a long application process. This can have many reasons.

Take a look at your application process through the candidate’s eyes.

• Are your job ads meaningful and attractive

• Have the job ads been placed on the right channels?

• How easy is it to apply to you (starting with the form)?

• How many candidates make it onto the shortlist?

• Are you receiving enough applications in total?

You can find answers to these questions by relating time-to-hire with recruiting metrics such as channel effectiveness, quality of hire, and candidate satisfaction.

A look at the number of hits on your job ads is also helpful here.

Rejection rate

The rejection rate refers to the percentage of applications that you sort out immediately after receipt.

This makes sense if the respective applicants do not meet certain minimum requirements that you have specified.

The rejection rate is interesting in that it tells you whether you are actually reaching the right people with your advertisement.

It is a key indicator for the correct evaluation of the effectiveness of a job advertisement.

Imagine you receive 100 applications for your ad, but you have to directly reject 90% of them, i.e. 90 applications, because one or the other exclusion criterion was not met.

Of course, this also reduces the chances of finding the right person for your position – even if 100 applications received look promising at first.

Now you can start troubleshooting: Are you using the right channel? Does your job advertisement contain all important information? Do the job requirements fit?

A good e-recruiting system allows you to evaluate the rejection rate and reasons for rejection in one go.

Channel Effectiveness

With the channel effectiveness indicator, it is possible to assess which recruiting channel will bring the hoped-for success and which will not.

This can be found out very easily with the online tracking of the individual campaigns. Here you can get an exact overview of how often an ad was viewed on specific channels.

You can also find out whether the candidates only viewed the ad or whether they also clicked on the apply button.

If the discrepancy between these values is very high, it could be because the wrong target group was reached.

This allows you to determine very precisely which channel mix works best for certain locations.

Quality-of-Hire

The quality-of-hire measures the quality of new hires.

In other words, this recruiting KPI provides information on whether a newly hired employee has contributed to the success of the company within a certain period of time.

The basis for calculating the quality-of-hire is the measured performance.

The quality-of-hire allows to draw conclusions about the quality of the recruiting.

Clearly, the higher the quality-of-hire, the more precisely the recruiting is tailored to the company’s needs.

Obviously, exactly the talents that needed to be addressed were reached.

In comparison with other recruiting KPIs such as channel effectiveness, recruiters can determine which applicant came to the company via which recruiting channel.

This allows them to identify channels that deliver the highest quality-of-hire.

Candidate Satisfaction

Candidate satisfaction is a measure of how a candidate perceives the hiring process, the candidate experience, of your company.

The better the candidate satisfaction, the greater the likelihood that candidates will stay on the ball during the application process and not drop out of frustration.

In addition, satisfied candidates are more likely to promote a company than dissatisfied ones.

For instance, they share their experiences on social media or employer evaluation platforms.

But how do you determine candidate satisfaction?

By asking directly!

You can ask for feedback after a job interview or you can do an electronic survey among candidates and find out easily where things are going well in the recruiting process and where there are problems.

Also take a look at the satisfaction scores on employer evaluation platforms like kununu – these often provide insightful information.

Early fluctuation

The early fluctuation indicator shows how many employees leave the company shortly after being hired.

This is before they have been fully trained and integrated into their team.

A high early fluctuation rate costs companies a lot of money.

If employees leave, the recruiting process starts all over again – with all the associated costs.

Well-structured onboarding processes help to reduce early turnover, motivate employees, retain employees, and save a lot of effort.

Cost-per-Hire

This recruiting KPI is the average cost of filling a job.

It also shows how well the in-house recruiting department performs.

The lower the costs, the more efficient the recruitment process.

The cost-per-hire is calculated as the sum of internal and external recruiting costs divided by the number of new hires.

An overview of the recruiting costs is also important to estimate and negotiate the required recruiting budget.

If you keep exact accounts, you have a good basis for argumentation to get that last small change you need approved.

Cost-of-Vacancy

The cost of an unfilled vacancy can be calculated with the cost-of-vacancy.

The calculation is based on the assumption that an employee generates a measurable share of the company’s turnover.

The company would not have this share if the corresponding position remained unfilled.

The cost of vacancy can be calculated by dividing the annual salary of the employee in question by the number of working days in a year.

The salary per working day is then multiplied by a factor of 1, 2 or 3, depending on the economic importance of the position, and then by the number of days it takes to fill the position.

Let’s assume that the position for a marketing manager, who receives an annual salary of around 120,000 Euros, needs to be filled.

This strategic position has a very high impact on the company’s revenues.

Therefore, a factor of 3 is used in the calculation.

This results in the following:

120,000 Euros : 251 WD = 478 Euro/day x 3 = 1,434 Euros/day

Meaning: The missing employee equals a loss of sales of 1,434 Euros per day.

The cost of vacancy shows how essential it is for a company to fill a specific position.

Offer-Rate

The offer rate puts the candidates for a specific position in relation to the number of published job offers.

Offer-Acceptance-Rate

The offer acceptance rate is used to determine the percentage of applicants who have actually accepted a job during the application process or who have left after the job was accepted.

This recruiting KPI thus shows how successfully a company fills its vacancies.

If the offer acceptance rate is low, this may be due to the lack of attractiveness of the recruiting process. Or the position itself may not appear attractive enough to applicants.

In this case, a subsequent satisfaction survey is recommended, for example, to find out what the problem was and to solve the existing problems.

Hiring-Manager-Satisfaction

Hiring manager satisfaction indicates the satisfaction rate of recruiters with the existing recruiting process – a figure that is quite important.

After all, an efficient recruiting process ultimately determines the success of quick and suitable filling of vacancies.

This makes it all the more important that all work flows fit and everything goes hand in hand.

And who better than the recruiter himself to provide information about this?

They can say very specifically where there is room for improvement.

So it’s worthwhile to look into this.

Ultimately, every company has to find out for itself what a good, meaningful mix of recruiting KPIs looks like. You can collect all the data you want and still may be unable to make a real statement on the core issues. The decisive factor is a balanced KPI system that is not one-sidedly geared towards high speed or cost minimisation, but rather combines several aspects and is ideally also linked to the strategic corporate goals.

Did you know that an applicant tracking software actively assists you in recording recruiting KPIs? Let our experts explain to you how softgarden applicant tracking supports you in building a reliable database for your recruiting.

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• An applicant tracking system supports the recruitment process by automating, standardizing, and centrally documenting the applications you receive
• Reporting allows the most efficient applicant channels to be identified and save costs
• Applicant tracking systems can be valuable for companies of all sizes and in all industries 

The use of an applicant tracking system offers a decisive competitive edge.

By digitalizing your recruiting processes, you can save time and money in your personnel recruitment, hire new employees faster, and do not have to expand your recruiting team.

We will explain how an applicant tracking system can help you achieve this.

Here we explain which functions your system should absolutely have and whether the investment in an applicant tracking software is worthwhile.

Applicant Management System or Applicant Tracking System?

When people talk about applicant management systems, applicant tracking systems (ATS), applicant administration software, applicant tracking software, or e-recruiting systems, they mean the same thing. These terms refer to software solutions that help recruiters and human resources departments in their recruitment efforts.

A custom-fit applicant tracking system digitally maps the recruiting process, supporting recruiters throughout the entire application process:

The software handles routine tasks fully automatically and relieves the burden of administrative tasks.

It enables automatic confirmations of receipt, notifies colleagues of received applications, offers a clear comparison of applicant data with job requirements, and detailed evaluation options for important recruiting KPIs.

Advantages of applicant tracking systems

All functions are aimed at enabling more efficient recruiting processes, enabling faster hiring of new employees without having to expand the recruiting team.

This is a clear competitive advantage. softgarden customers can reduce their time-to-hire by up to 60 percent thanks to more efficient recruiting processes.

At the same time, this leaves human resources more time for work that adds value: for example for personnel development measures, improving the employer branding strategy, or simply for targeted job interviews with interesting candidates.

Save costs

As a result, costs can be saved in several areas – directly and indirectly:

• No expansion of the recruiting team necessary
• Building a talent pool allows you to fill positions without spending money on job ads and time on active sourcing
• Reporting allows for more efficient use of budgets, for example by identifying the channels that lead to hirings
• Productivity increase through faster recruitment

Save time

The automation of administrative tasks reduces the load for the recruiting team in their daily work.

Functions such as automatic reminders for managers and decision-makers reduce the likelihood that applications are left unprocessed for too long.

An applicant tracking system also serves as a central data storage.

Applicant documents, exchanged e-mails, and impressions from job interviews are collected here. This makes it easier to make decisions, everyone is always up to date.

Optimize recruiting processes

Recruiters not only have more time to search for employees but can also deal with strategic issues.

Detailed reporting allows the identification of the best applicant channels and helps to optimize internal processes.

For example, by examining how long applicants have been in the various application phases, bottlenecks can be identified and eliminated.

You can also use your recruiting budget more efficiently by specifically evaluating the best channels through which you receive applications.

How to do this?

Where would you rather spend your budget?

On Portal X, which receives 100 applications for your position, but from which you immediately reject 90 because they do not meet certain criteria – or on Portal Y, from which you only received 10 applications, but from which the right candidate for your position was selected?

A good e-recruiting software supports and facilitates such considerations.

Become more digital

A comprehensive digital recruiting solution can help you reach and engage talent.

In addition, a digital recruiting team makes you less dependent on external conditions in the recruitment market and allows for more flexible working models.

A digital solution also makes the application process easier for companies with decentralized structures.

Requirements of an applicant tracking system – decision support

Are you looking to save time, costs, and resources with a recruiting software, optimize your processes and become more digital? It’s the right move.

Before we get into important functions, we would like to tell you about some basic requirements for applicant tracking systems:

• Customizability
• User-friendliness
• Free support, fast service, possibility of free testing
• Cloud solution, software-as-a-service
• Legal security

Let us take a closer look at these requirements:

Customizability

To simplify and improve your processes with software, it must be able to map the recruiting process from start to finish.

It should also be possible to define individual processes, for example from different departments.

It should also be possible to integrate individual job ad layouts for different job boards, message templates, and recruiting teams.

User-friendliness

All tools provided for applicant tracking should be user-friendly.

One of the most essential criteria is therefore a user-friendly interface.

Only software that is easy to use and clear is quickly accepted and reliably used by all participants.

This applies your employees, but more importantly to your potential applicants.

If the uploading a resume does not work even on the third try, your candidate will give up in frustration.

Service and Support

If you are planning to introduce a software, it is important that you can test it thoroughly before you buy.

This is the only way to make sure that the user interface and the integrated functions really simplify your daily work and the application process.

That is why competent, quickly accessible, free support is also extremely important.

Ideally, you can submit support requests by phone, e-mail, or ticket system and receive a quick initial response.

For frequently asked questions and frequently used functions there should ideally be help articles and tutorials.

Cloud-Software

Modern applicant tracking should build on cloud software.

This software is provided on a server and you access it via the Internet.

The advantage: All employees use the same version of the program and work with the same level of information – and it is always up-to-date.

Best of all, your IT department does not need to install or maintain anything at all, because the software manufacturer takes care of it. This saves money, IT resources, and time.

GDPR and Equal Treatment Act (AGG) in applicant tracking

It is therefore important that your software ensures data protection from the very beginning, i.e. is GDPR-compliant from the first time it is used.

This can be done, for example, by using programmable automatic deletion of applications within the necessary time period, but also by requesting consent for the storage of data during the online application process.

In addition, conformity to the German Equal Treatment Act (AGG) is required when communicating with your applicants.

So when choosing a system, look out for the extent to which providers support you in this respect.

What specific functions does an applicant tracking system offer to meet these requirements and optimize your recruiting?

Overview of ATS functions in applicant tracking

1. Accelerate recruiting processes

A basic function of applicant tracking software is to record your individual recruiting process. Ideally, the personnel request can also be approved via the system.

Customization is an important factor here. The software you choose should not impose a process on you, but support your process.

At the same time, communication and matching tools should be available to facilitate the pre-selection of applicants.

Your software should provide these functions:

• Recording received applications by job ad placement, also by application by mail or post,
• Coordination of appointments with colleagues and candidates,
• Tools for the quick pre-selection of applicants: rankings, specification of and comparison with minimum criteria, and scorecard
• Mobile recruiting through mobile-optimized web interface / app
• Assignment of rights and roles for individual recruiters.

Publish job ads on job portal and own careers page

• Publish job advertisements on several job portals simultaneously via multiposting
• Book ad quotas directly via the software
• Integrated career portal
• Adapt advertisements and career portal to corporate identity
• Create job ad in several languages
• Google for Jobs optimization
• Social recruiting through simple functionality for sharing job ads

A core function of applicant tracking systems is the publication of job ads on several job portals – this function is called multiposting.

Ideally, free and paid ads can be booked and published directly via the tool.

Many systems also provide a careers page that can be integrated into your own website.

This way, opening, closing, and modifying your job postings is handled directly.

It should of course be possible to adapt the career portal and job advertisements to your corporate design.

Did you know that you can also bring your careers page online without a developer and graphic designer? This is very easy with the Career Page Pro from softgarden with practical modular system. This way you can create a responsive career site within shortest time, which is always up to date.

Ideally the program provides the published job advertisements with the necessary code so that they are directly indexed by Google and published on Google for Jobs.

3. Improving the candidate experience

How do you improve your candidate experience?

• One-click application
• LinkedIn and Xing integration
• Responsive, mobile-optimized job ads and forms
• Customized questions in the application form tailored to the job
• Quick replies to submitted applications
• Option to check the status of the application online

A software solution must also make life easier for your candidates along the entire candidate journey.

This begins when filling out the online application.

It is considered standard to enable one-click application, for instance via LinkedIn or Xing integration.

The CV data that your candidates keep up-to-date here can be stored in the application via a direct interface and do not have to be entered manually. Alternatively, it should be possible to upload and read out a resume in PDF format.

All forms and job advertisements should also support responsive design so that using a smartphone or tablet for the application is natural and easy.

After submitting the application, interested parties should immediately receive a confirmation of receipt. Ideally, the system also offers applicants the opportunity to check the status of their application themselves.

The result: an all-round better candidate experience, more satisfied applicants, fewer abandoned applications and, in the end, better candidates for your open position.

4. Optimize recruiting, save costs

How can you optimize your recruiting process?

• Detailed statement of costs
• Bring number of applications per job in relation to number of interviews, offers, and hires
• Evaluate time passed from tendering to hiring across the workflow
• Evaluate which recruiting channels really lead to hiring
• Analyze the number of immediate cancellations and reasons for cancellation

You know how much money you invest in job ads every month.

But can you also keep track of the channel through which the candidates you ended up hiring came to you?

Detailed reporting makes exactly this possible.

In the same way, you should be able to track reasons for rejection, immediate cancellations, and the general performance of your job ads.

Ideally, your e-recruiting system will provide you with clear visualizations, many filter and hiring options, and the necessary level of detail.

When does an applicant tracking system start to pay off?

In principle, a recruiting solution can be used by any company that hires personnel and would like to improve its recruitment and processes.

But especially companies with a large number of applicants can benefit from a software solution.

Start-ups, medium-sized companies, and also large corporations need a reliable e-recruiting system to manage their daily incoming applications.

Otherwise, it is difficult to keep an overview of all accepted and rejected applications and to give applicants feedback within a reasonable time.

Every company that depends on new employees should ask itself the question whether its current application process meets modern requirements.

Can you find the right employees in an efficient time frame?

When corporate recruiters are overburdened, but no resources are available to expand the team, software can be a valuable long-term investment.

If replies take too long in your company, if you want to cut costs and improve the candidate experience, or if your recruiting team does not have enough time for in-depth interviews, the answer is clear:

An applicant tracking system is worth the cost.

See for yourself

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We wanted to know exactly: How important are career sites for potential applicants and what do they expect from them? For this purpose, we asked 1,624 current “real” applicants for their assessment between the beginning of December 2019 and the beginning of January 2020. The results speak a clear language and provide important support for the implementation or optimisation of a career page.

Voting on a candidate from home – how is that supposed to work?

Without any ifs or buts, the career website is the most important channel for finding out about a potential employer: For 69.1 percent of respondents, it is in first place, almost on par with job boards (68 percent). While Google search is in third place with 54 percent, social business networks (35.8 percent), review platforms such as kununu (24.5 percent) and Facebook, Instagram & Co. (13.7 per cent) are far behind in the favour of applicants. All respondents rated the importance of a career website as very important.

No career website? No applicants!

When asked whether participants also apply to employers who do not have a career website, almost a third (28 per cent) answered no. If these figures are already a clear alarm signal, the reasons why candidates decide not to apply are even more so:

For example, 28 percent perceive a missing career website as unserious or unprofessional, 7 percent imply a lack of appreciation and 42 percent see a lack of transparency on the part of the employer as a reason not to apply. Some of the applicants’ statements sum up the disaster well:

“I get the impression that the company is not sufficiently interested in appearing attractive to potential employees and thus it seems more likely that the company will not make much effort to provide an attractive workplace even after hiring.”

“Recruiting and human resources do not seem to have a high priority. I associate this with insufficient appreciation of employees.”

“There’s a kind of lack of credibility there.”

Job search is the primary goal

We also asked the question about the reasons why applicants visit a career site. And this may surprise many, but the most important reason is the search for jobs or job offers. For 88 percent of the respondents, this is the top criterion. 73 percent are looking for information about the employer. And 50 percent are looking for information about a contact person. When asked about the most important contents of a career website, the picture becomes even sharper: here, the job search is in first place with 91.5 percent. In second place, with 63 percent, is information about the contact person, closely followed by information about the application process (62 percent). In fourth and fifth place is information about the type of entry and occupational group sought (58 per cent) and realistic insights into the company by means of pictures and videos (45 per cent).

“Jobs and careers” in the main navigation

Applicants also have a clear idea of the name and placement of the career button. The corresponding menu item, which 60 percent prefer to be called “Jobs & Careers”, should be found in the main navigation (62 percent). Only 6 percent consider the term “Jobs” to make sense. 22 percent would accept a placement in the secondary navigation, only 6 percent in the footer. 8.5 per cent are happy to find the career page anywhere at all – regardless of where it is located.

Further development, values and sustainability are important topics

When it comes to the content on a career page, applicants primarily expect information about further development and training as well as values and corporate culture (70 per cent each). A practical presentation of potential tasks and projects that await them in the company is expected by 52 percent. The topic of Fridays for Future and sustainable action in dealing with resources also plays a role for applicants: 44 percent expect information about social responsibility and sustainable action. This is more important to applicants than a presentation of the company from the employee’s perspective.

When it comes to the presentation of information on the career site, 52 percent prefer a presentation using text and images. Not even 1 per cent of the applicants can warm to an exclusive presentation by means of videos. A combination of text, image and video, on the other hand, is preferred by 29 per cent.

Personal contact top, chatbot flop

The following figures also show how important a personal contact person is to applicants: 73 percent want to get in touch with a specific contact person with their full name, email address and, if applicable, LinkedIn profile. A contact form is preferred by 16 percent of applicants. Communication with a chatbot that is also available in the evening and at weekends is only desirable for 1.7 per cent of applicants. After all, more than twice as many prefer a live chat with a real employee.

Career website as a flagship for the company

The career website should be the employer’s flagship, is how one of the participants sums it up when asked about the perfect career website. A look at a large part of international career sites shows exactly the opposite: they reflect a lack of interest and appreciation towards potential employees. This should be an incentive for you to do better.

softgarden: Thank you Henner for the great cooperation. We, too, have understood the great importance of a career website for attracting the best talent.

About Henner Knabenreich

Henner Knabenreich fights for a better applicant world as an employer brand appearance optimiser. His passion is good personnel marketing. He is a book author, HR marketing coach and speaker and runs the blog personalmarketing2null.de.

A survey by the Institute for Competitive Recruiting (ICR) revealed: More than one in two recruiters (50.7 per cent) report that the number of applications has either remained the same, increased or even strongly increased, even in the current challenging situation. This shows: Recruiting is not standing still in many companies. Recruiters can build up good contacts to candidates in these times and fill vacancies quickly after the crisis.

Voting on a candidate from home – how is that supposed to work?

Recruiting is teamwork – there’s no change in that. And now everything has to be organised from home. That raises questions: How, for example, is the coordination on a candidate supposed to take place if the recruiting team is not at the same location but kilometres away from each other?

For this to succeed, the colleagues involved must, above all, organise themselves well. Functioning communication is the be-all and end-all. Because without the right level of exchange, there is a great danger of working at cross purposes instead of with each other.

What helps:

• Regular meetings should be maintained.
• To ensure that the human factor does not fall by the wayside, it is advisable to hold these as video conferences.
• Meanwhile, chats are suitable for short-term exchanges in groups or from team member to team member.
• Things that take a little longer can be exchanged by e-mail.

Exchange: Always in flux

Important: Communication in the recruiting team should never stand still. Otherwise processes get bogged down. Recruiters can take on the role of project manager – just as they would in the office.

To do this, you should always initiate digital communication in the team and actively exchange information with your colleagues, regularly share updates with them, ask questions and also remind them here and there about tasks. If you set a good example and communicate openly and transparently, you will encourage your colleagues to do the same.

Recruiting from home: avoid document chaos

However, it is not only important that all coordination processes are structured, but also that they are optimally documented and filed. For example, recruiting teams that repeatedly send documents and Excel lists back and forth in different versions via Outlook are likely to lose track of them at some point. Tip: Instead, store your documents in a cloud. The decisive advantage: everyone then works in one and the same document. Such uniformly designed processes take on a completely different significance and weighting than in the classic office routine, especially when you work from home.

It is even easier if all recruiting workflows can be processed in a uniform system. From the job advertisement to the communication, the coordination among colleagues to the final acceptance. Modern applicant management software can do just that.

In this, recruiting managers appoint a recruiting team for each vacancy to be filled. Using a role concept, each person in charge can access the information about an applicant and the application process that he or she is allowed to access from a data protection perspective. At the same time, each team member receives individual rights and can intervene in the process in the areas intended for them. For example, not everyone is allowed to send messages or even accept or reject a candidate.

Software-as-a-service solutions offer a great “home advantage”. The corresponding applicant management software runs on the provider’s servers and is made available to customers via the cloud. The servers on which softgarden runs are located in Germany and have been awarded for their special security. Recruiting teams can access the software from anywhere and at any time. No problems arise from the use of different versions, as the latest version of the programme is always made available and used.

How to design your workflows

Once an application has been received, recruiters can use an integrated algorithm in the applicant management system to compare how well an applicant fits a position. All those responsible can call up the respective results and the application documents of the individual candidates in the tool and evaluate them again individually: the talent fits or does not fit.

Once the decision has been made who should be invited to a job interview in the next step, the recruiter sends an invitation for a job interview via the applicant management system to the candidates the recruiting team wants to get to know better.

The job interview is also easy to organise from home. After all, what are video conferencing systems for? However, if you have an applicant management system that is up to date, you are also in luck here. They can use the integrated video function.

In a video interview, recruiting teams do not sit directly opposite an applicant, but they do get a fairly realistic impression of what makes the talent tick. Thanks to the recording function offered by an applicant management system, team members who are prevented from attending the interview can even watch it afterwards and add their assessment.

Time-shifted video interviews: What they are good for

Video interviews can also be conducted time-delayed in an applicant management system. This means: The recruiting team records the questions and sends these video snippets to the applicant. The team can also ask the questions in writing. The applicant then records his answers and sends his video answers to the recruiting team.

This can be particularly useful if candidates are in a different time zone. This way, you can still get to know each other in person and no one has to participate in a conference call at an inhuman time.

Evaluation of the video interview

The assessment of the video interview is also done quickly and easily in an applicant management system from home. There is an interview scorecard for this purpose. Individual criteria can be defined for each vacancy.

All the recruiting team has to do now: Award 1 to 5 stars for each criterion, with five stars for “perfect fit” and one star for “unsuitable”. Now the system automatically calculates which of the candidates is the best fit for the company or not.

Without an applicant management system, voting tools such as Doodle can be used if necessary – here, however, it should be noted that no personal data should be mentioned due to data protection. Better safe than sorry. After all, who knows on which servers the respective data is stored?

No need to worry about data protection

Users of an applicant management system, on the other hand, do not have to worry about data protection. All data is stored in a secure and certified data centre that meets the highest data protection and IT security standards. Legal deletion deadlines are also reliably adhered to. The system automatically deletes all data that is no longer required. It could hardly be simpler.

Conclusion: Recruiting from home is not rocket science. Thanks to digital tools, there need not be any delays in the process. The easiest way to manage remote recruiting is with an applicant management system. This ensures uniform storage of all information and well-structured process management from A to Z.

Are you wondering how softgarden can support you in recruiting directly from your home? We are happy to help you. Contact us at any time or arrange a Live Demo.