How to Assess Candidate Qualifications On-the-Go

HR leaders spend a significant amount of time on administrative tasks such as responding to emails and answering phone calls – up to 73.2 percent of the work week, according to one study. But as an HR leader, if you’re tied to your desk completing manual, administrative tasks, you have less time to spend on more strategic responsibilities to help your organization grow – such identifying new ways to improve your hiring process, and keeping both candidates and employees engaged. 

At Hireology, we’re dedicated to helping your team save time on the hiring process while ensuring you hire qualified talent. We understand that whether you’re an HR leader or hiring manager, you’re not always at your desk, but need to continuously communicate with your top candidates. 

For example, at an automotive dealership, a sales manager is busy interacting with customers on the sales floor and doesn’t always have the time to check his or her computer for the latest candidate updates. Or a hiring manager at a home care agency might be busy pre-boarding and training new employees and be away from their desk for most of the day. 

To help your team stay connected with candidates on-the-go, we’re releasing a mobile application later this year. Beyond candidate communications such as text messaging and emails, one of the key features of the application is assessing candidate qualifications directly in the app. Below, we’ve outlined a few ways you can assess candidate qualifications and keep the hiring process moving while you’re on-the-go. 

See the latest applicants 

Rather than weeding through your email inbox to see and review the latest applicants, you’ll have the option to see all applicants in need of review, launch the review process and view applicants for each job directly from the home screen of the mobile app. 

From the mobile app, you’ll also be able to read through each applicant’s full application – including resumes and cover letters – directly from your mobile device. You can also review answers to any custom application questions you might have added, beyond general contact information. This will enable you to quickly review new applicants – even when you’re away from your desk – and move forward with the most qualified applicants sooner rather than later. 

If your team doesn’t have a process in place to quickly review applicants, you risk losing top talent to other job opportunities. At Hireology, we’ve coined the phrase “lost applicant” to refer to this trend. 

In 2019 across Hireology customers, about one in five dealership applicants and one in 10 healthcare applicants was lost, simply because they were either never reviewed or reviewed too late. By seeing new applicants as soon as they come in, and reviewing and responding to them quickly, your team can avoid lost applicants and secure qualified candidates for your open roles. 

Review candidate qualifications 

Reading through every single resume you receive can be time consuming. To save time and speed up the hiring process, you can tap into prescreen surveys. These surveyed are automatically sent to applicants as soon as they apply and include a set of true/false questions to gauge their fit for your open roles. Only candidates who score well on the prescreen survey will then be passed to your hiring manager for review – saving your team from wasting time on reviewing unqualified applicants. 

Through the Hireology mobile app launching this year, you can review prescreen survey results directly in the app. The prescreen survey results screen enables users to review both the prescreen survey score for each applicant, as well as their answers to each question. Reviewing prescreen surveys in the app will help you quickly schedule interviews and other next hiring steps with the most qualified candidates. 

In addition to reviewing prescreen survey results, the app will also enable you to review the comment history for each applicant and add new comments. For example, if an applicant performed well on the prescreen survey, you can leave a comment for the hiring manager for that particular role to review the applicant as soon as possible. The comment feature enables you to continuously communicate with your team about prospective candidates,  even if you can’t meet in person. 

Outline next steps 

Once you’ve reviewed each applicant’s resume, cover letter, and other information, and looked through prescreen survey results, the next step is to decide whether or not to move forward with each applicant.
The Hireology mobile app will include the option to advance qualified applicants. With this feature, your team can either choose a templated email to determine interview availability or send a customized email about next steps.

For applicants who are not qualified for your open roles, you will also have the option to decline applicants directly from the mobile app. Similar to advancing qualified applicants, you can either choose a templated applicant rejection email or customize the email you send. You might consider customizing emails to certain candidates, for example, if you think they might be a fit for another role in the future. This will help you build relationships and a pipeline of talent for roles down the road. 

By tapping into a mobile app to review and communicate with candidates on-the-go, your team will ultimately have a faster time to review, fewer lost applicants and a faster time to hire. And by filling open roles with qualified candidates quickly, you’ll boost productivity and profitability across your team. For additional tips on keeping candidates engaged each step of the way, read our resource, “The Candidate Engagement Playbook.”

Author:

Share:

Get our hiring insights delivered right to your inbox

We think it’s uncool to send spam, so we promise we won't.

By subscribing you agree with the Terms and Privacy Policy