5 Digital Pre-employment Techniques to Apply To Improve Your Hiring Process

Digital pre-employment techniques involve the process of leveraging technology in your hiring process to get the best candidates. The pandemic ensured that now more than ever, business owners become flexible and creative with most of their activities, including hiring. This may require utilizing career websites, mobile recruiting, online assessments, social recruiting, and digital interviews, which many organizations never used before.

This switch may feel strange, but it sure has so many advantages. The hiring process must be done right because employees represent the business everywhere. Hiring the wrong person for a role, ability, or character-wise can damage your organisation. However, with a great onboarding process in place, combined with technology, such as an online employee management system, you can hire and recruit the best candidates. 

This article discusses the hiring process, why you must get it right, and some digital pre-employment techniques to apply to improve your hiring process. 

What is a hiring process?

Hiring process refers to an organization's effort to find, select, and onboard new employees. This process has to be strategic and thought out well, as whoever is chosen for a certain position will represent the company in some capacity. 

An effective and efficient hiring process covers everything from defining the available role to selecting the best individual for the job. Depending on size and purpose, every company has its laid-down hiring process. The list below just gives a general idea of what a hiring process should look like. 

Steps involved in a hiring process 

The list below gives a general idea of what a hiring process looks like.

1. Identify the hiring needs

The logical first step of any hiring process is identifying why you need to hire a new employee. This need could arise from filling a recently vacated position, easing the team’s workload, or because the company’s needs are too enormous for the present employees to handle. 

2. Create the job description 

After identifying the hiring needs, you’ll need to write a detailed job description. This description will include the position’s requirements, responsibilities, special qualifications, desired characteristics, and experience the ideal candidate should possess. 

This job description will also include wages, salary, and other benefits. It should state if the advertised position is remote, physical, or mixed. The job description will allow the right candidates to locate your organization and apply for the job. 

3. Advertise the position 

The next step will be to advertise the available position to attract the talent pool you seek. Sometimes, it’s advisable to first relay the available positions internally. This is because your employees may be aware of individuals that are perfectly fit for the position. Hiring based on internal recommendations has many benefits. 

Hiring managers can also look for external candidates via platforms like the company’s website, word of mouth, radio, and television. Job posting sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor can also be utilized. Once the position is out there, you can expect an influx of potential candidates from all over. 

Another viable way of getting top talents is for the hiring manager to reach out directly to qualified candidates via job posting sites, social media, and job fairs. Passive recruitment will help you get potential candidates who are not actively searching for new jobs but may be perfect for the available position.

4. Review applications 

Once the applications start coming in, it’s time to review each applicant with some set parameters to determine which candidates are the best fit for the role. The cover letters and other documents attached to the application are thoroughly reviewed. 

The HR department usually is the first to review the applications. They eliminate any candidate who generally fails to meet the minimum requirements for the position or the organization. The hiring manager can also take on this responsibility. After the review, the qualified candidate(s) should be notified. 

5. Interviews 

The information passed to the qualified candidates should include the dates and modes of the interview. Interviews for job positions used to be mostly physical. However, the pandemic has altered the dynamic of things, causing many organizations to adopt the remote work policy even for interviews. 

Depending on the organization's size or the vacant position, companies may still choose to have a physical round of interviews with the applicants after a virtual interview. Physical interviews can provide insights into each applicant's behavior and character and help the hiring manager check if the candidate will fit into the company culture. 

6. Applicant assessment and Background check

After the interviews, companies should also put the applicants through a series of standardized assessments. These tests measure things like personality traits, problem-solving ability, reasoning, reading comprehension, emotional intelligence, etc.

The initial job description should also include the fact that applicants would be subjected to background checks. Background checks examine applicants' criminal histories, confirm work eligibility and history, and perform credit checks.

Furthermore, businesses also check OIG exclusion list or the List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (LEIE) to ensure that prospective hires are not excluded from federal healthcare programs or government contracts. Some businesses also look up social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to see whether prospective hires are likely to represent the business professionally.

7. Hiring and Onboarding 

This is the last stage of the hiring process. The most suitable candidate for the role is chosen based on various criteria. A backup candidate should also be selected if things fall through with the chosen one. Onboarding the just hired employee involves orienting them to your company culture, policies, benefits, and more. 

Benefits of having a good hiring process

The first benefit of having a well-thought-out hiring process is that it allows you to hire the perfect fit for the available position. Of course, there is no guarantee that your choice will be right. However, a good hiring process can help minimize your risks and maximize your potential to hire the right candidate. Hiring an excellent candidate is good for your business as they contribute to the organization's overall progress. 

An effective and efficient hiring process also ensures a faster recruitment process. This helps to reduce costs, improve candidate experience, and boost your employer's brand. The faster the new hires are onboarded, the sooner they’ll be up to speed and delivering results to meet your business goals.

Another benefit of an excellent hiring process is that it improves employee retention. With a well-planned recruitment process, both parties (the company and the new hire) know exactly what they are getting into and are confident of being right for each other.

Digital pre-employment techniques 

Global technological advancements and trends also influence the hiring process. The list below describes some digital pre-hire strategies that will improve your organization’s hiring process.

1. Online assessment 

An online assessment involves candidates taking an online test as part of the hiring process for a job vacancy.

The popularity of pre-hire online tests is growing among companies that want more predictive accuracy in their hiring processes. When a company posts a job vacancy, applications come in from far and wide. In reality, more than half of these applications are not what the organization wants. 

Online tests can help to reduce the number of applicants based on those who pass them. By using pre-hire online assessments as part of your hiring process, you can automatically screen candidates based on their skills, not their resumes. Online candidate assessments range from personality assessments to aptitude tests, hard skills/soft skills tests, and cognitive reasoning tests. 

A specific example of these tests is the Power Bi test. The online Power BI test evaluates candidates’ technical knowledge, software skills, and ability to create informative and visually attractive designs. This test helps you identify candidates who are proficient users of Microsoft Power BI.

Pre-hire assessment helps you identify better candidates, reduce hiring time, and eliminate hiring bias.

2. Career pages

A career page is a section of your business website dedicated to showcasing your employer brand and presenting job openings. It also allows candidates to submit applications or refer others. It explains to potential candidates who you are, your values, why your employees like working there, and what’s in it for new applicants. 

Your organization’s career page provides a unique opportunity to present the best possible version of your company - so the best candidates can choose to apply. If your company presently lacks a career page or has a substandard one, you can learn how to create career pages that stand out. 

The most effective careers pages will be simple to locate, provide all the pertinent details a job seeker needs to decide whether to apply and smoothly transition into a reliable application portal. Employers can also use search terms relevant to their business, the open position, and their industry to boost inbound organic traffic.

3. Applicant tracking system 

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a type of resume scanning software organizations and hiring managers use during the recruitment process to collect, sort, scan, and prioritize the job applications they receive for their open positions. 

The ATS system categorizes a resume's content before scanning it for precise and relevant keywords to decide whether or not the job application should be forwarded to the recruiter. Its duty is to essentially eliminate unsuitable prospects allowing the recruiter to focus on assessing the applicants who are more likely to be a match for the open position.

4. Social media recruiting 

Over half of the world’s population uses social media. Most professionals now spend their time online. You can expose your business to the perfect candidates for your open role by positioning your organization in online channels where people spend considerable time. 

Reaching out on social media platforms like LinkedIn can feel more natural and help your team develop personal relationships with potential employees in lower-pressure environments. 

5. Mobile recruiting 

Mobile recruiting essentially allows applicants to complete any part of the recruitment process that isn’t a face-to-face interview on a mobile device, be it a smartphone or tablet. Almost every applicant uses their mobile device during a job search. Therefore, it also becomes important for employers to ensure their sites are mobile-friendly to capture all interested candidates as quickly as possible. 

Get the best of candidates 

You may not always get it right. However, carefully planning your hiring process will help ensure, to a large extent, that you almost always hire the best talent. Adopting digital pre-employment techniques to boost your hiring efforts is imperative to your business's success. Additionally, it puts you ahead of the competition and boosts revenue in the long run. 

Author Bio:

Lydia Iseh is a writer with years of experience in writing SEO content that provides value to the reader. As someone who believes in the power of SEO to transform businesses, she enjoys being part of the process that helps websites rank high on search engines.