Understanding the challenges of high volume hiring to achieve the trifecta of speed, cost, and quality.

Recruiting at scale can be challenging for any business.

The experiences of high volume recruiters differ greatly from those of single-hire recruiters, and in order to optimise and make our high volume recruiting processes more efficient, we really need to understand the unique challenges of the volume recruitment space.

On Tuesday 22^nd August, we explored these challenges in a webinar discussion Can High-Volume Hiring Achieve the Trifecta: Speed, Cost, and Quality?. Here’s what High Volume Talent Leaders from CommBank and Optus identified as their key challenges.

Want to watch the full webinar? Scroll down to the bottom of this article to watch the playback.

Removing friction from the process and connecting with candidates in a timely manner

Jenn Cowland, Strategy Talent Acquisition Manager, CommBank

The environment has evolved so significantly over the last 3 years. Prior to covid, quite frankly it was about wading through volumes of applications. And the friction within the recruitment process was actually somewhat intentional – it helped us to make that funnel even smaller. But now candidates have a tonne of choice – they’re really moving very fast, and rightly so they expect us to move fast as well.

Friction in a process now means that candidates will move to the next opportunity. To get to the best talent all your recruitment has to be really fast, and it has to be incredibly candidate focused. You’ve got to get to them quickly, and you’ve got to make sure what you’re offering is really attractive and meets the needs of those candidates.

The expectations of any candidates in any process –  whether high volume or single recruitment – are exactly the same – they want to talk to a human as soon as possible, and they only want to invest time in roles that are going to be a really good fit for them and fit in with their lifestyles. We talk about the golden trifecta of speed, cost, and quality for recruiting in the high-volume space, but it’s really challenging because we simply cannot apply the same level of human touch as our single hire colleagues.

In our case (at CommBank) we’re hiring upwards of 3,000 candidates a year. If we spent just one hour in a conversation with just our successful candidates that would mean 58 hours of initial candidate conversations per week for all 52 weeks of the year. That’s just not possible, and it’s not cost-effective, nor does it give the candidates what they need or our business what it needs.

Aligning your personalised candidate experience to your consumer brand

Alissa Patoulios, Senior Director Recruitment, Optus

High volume recruitment is unique. It’s a different skill set. It’s often highly process orientated. We’re talking about large numbers of people going through the process, so it’s important your team are engaging at the right points to add value to the candidate, but also balancing with enough steps in the process so both you and the candidate can decide whether you want to select-in or opt-out at any point in time.

At Optus we’ve got a pretty good brand so from an attraction point of view we’ve got good numbers of people who want to come and work for us, but the recruitment process needs to be designed to make sure that it’s the right job for the right people.

High volume recruitment is challenging because you want to give a personalised experience and be respectful about people’s time and effort. Putting in an application can be really daunting. We need to be really respectful of the fact that most candidates are your customers as well, so you want to provide an experience that is reflective of the customer experience that the business is trying to deliver outside of the recruitment arm.

Meeting Candidate Expectations for instantaneous communication

Ian McCreery, Head of  Strategic Solutions – APAC, Paradox

There is an expectation in every aspect of life that we can engage instantaneously. Whether that’s in a career conversation, using an app, messaging a friend or family member, or buying products online. We want to be able to engage from our mobile device at any time and anywhere. And that expectation transcends into hiring as in any part of our lives today.

The only way we can achieve that level of instantaneous candidate communication while providing a personalised experience at scale is through the use of automation. In our modern recruiting tech stack, that means conversational AI whereby Conversational AI delivers simple, around the clock engagement with candidates, and recruiters — freeing recruiters and hiring managers from the time suck of admin work — enabling them to invest those saved hours into higher value added work, and that’s speaking with candidates, building connections or coaching and guiding leaders.

Watch the Playback:
Can High-Volume Hiring Achieve the Trifecta: Speed, Cost, and Quality?

This webinar took place on Tuesday 22nd August and was delivered by ATC Events & Media in partnership with Paradox. 

Speakers include:

• James Witcombe, The Candidate Coach (Moderator)
• Jenn Cowland, Strategy Talent Acquisition Manager, CommBank
• Alissa Patoulios, Senior Director Recruitment, Optus
• Ian McCreery, Head of  Strategic Solutions – APAC, Paradox