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Liz Dunlap
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Thanks to tech-inspired changes in the world of recruiting, hiring often moves lightning fast.
Earlier in my career working at Carnation Nestlé, Campbell Soup and Walt Disney, my coworkers and I relied largely on paper and phone to communicate with job candidates.
Since moving to my new position at Indiana University Health last year, I’ve had the opportunity to leverage technology to make our recruitment process more efficient and improve the candidate experience.
As one of the state’s largest employers, with some 33,000 team members on the payroll and thousands of jobs to fill every year, IU Health can’t risk losing out in the war for talent. Which is why IU Health, like other large employers, has retooled its “talent acquisition” strategy with a focus on leveraging technology. The length and content of the job application, the way interviews are scheduled and feedback is gathered – these steps are being transformed and often automated with technology, in order to remove time-consuming tasks that can bog down the process for both candidates and recruiters.
Many of the changes reflect the impact of millennials in the workforce and their reliance on mobile devices – and IU Health wants to continue to be a destination employer for millennials – for instance, 63 percent of the nurses hired last year across the 15-hospital system were millennials (defined as those aged 18-34).
In the past year, the recruitment process at IU Health has changed in far-reaching ways:
• The online job application was significantly shortened, making it easier for candidates to quickly apply from a mobile device or tablet. It now takes just 5 to 10 minutes to complete, compared to the 45-60 minutes it took to navigate through the old process. Online assessments that used to be required as part of the initial application are now incorporated later in the recruitment cycle.
• There’s more direct sourcing of candidates by internal recruiters and less reliance on search firms to attract candidates. Using analytics, recruiters can track where successful candidates are connecting with IU Health jobs. This intelligence allows IU Health to be more strategic in determining where to advertise online, on job search engines and social media.
• The recruitment process has become more mobile-friendly, from the application to scheduling interviews, since over 60 percent of millennials report applying to jobs from a mobile device. Texting and other instant communications are in. On the way out are phone tag and tedious email exchanges that bog down the process and cause delays for candidates and hiring managers alike.
So far, the rebranding of IU Health’s recruiting efforts seems to be working. Applications are up by over 10 percent since moving to the shorter application available via mobile device. The time it takes to get candidates in for interviews is down. And fewer applicants walk away out of frustration over a drawn-out application or interviewing process.
Not only is the technology-driven approach more convenient for applicants, it increases productivity and results in savings for the organization. Getting candidates in the door more quickly means that positions are filled faster. This reduces stress on other team members in the department while a job remains open and reduces the cost of recruitment.
Technology automation in the recruiting business is here to stay, meaning the “tech stack” IU Health deploys to aid its recruiting efforts will continue to evolve. One new innovation being trialed right now: inviting pre-screened candidates to schedule their own job interviews online (using mobile devices, of course).
At the executive level, applicants’ special needs still are driven by convenience and technology. IU Health now conducts more interviews for high-level jobs by Skype or Facetime. Why require busy candidates to take time off from work in order to fly or drive to an in-person interview?
For companies employing skilled personnel in high demand – like doctors and nurses — technology will increasingly be a key to finding them and bringing them on board quickly. The process of hiring a sought-after heart surgeon or experienced ED nurse might now begin with a single text, get serious with a Skype interview and be clinched with a texted thumbs-up emoji.