For recruiters in 2023, it is truly a case of “it’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times.” In the space of a few years, we’ve witnessed developments that usually materialize over decades – we had sweeping layoffs on one hand, and severe labor shortage on the other. There’s been rising unemployment discontent, but robust job growth. And perhaps the most ironic of all – many traditional talent acquisition professionals have lost their jobs when high-volume recruitment is skyrocketing.
In fact, even as workers in employment services such as recruiters and HR professionals witnessed 24,000 layoffs in April this year, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added a jaw-dropping 339,000 jobs in May.
As companies look to scale and hiring ramps up to keep pace, this number is set to increase. High-volume recruitment is now a critical – and challenging – part of talent acquisition. Sourcers face numerous unique pressures managing high-volume recruiting, requiring them to turn to innovative strategies and solutions.
What Are the Top Challenges in High-Volume Recruitment?
When it comes to high-volume recruitment, as the term in itself implies, we are talking about companies finding large numbers of high-quality talent from among hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of applicants. To make things more complicated, high-volume recruitment is extremely time-sensitive – and if that isn’t enough, many companies have been forced to further reduce time to fill from weeks to days. Ironically (or maybe not), for most companies, the results turned out to be time-consuming and ineffective.
As recruiters rethink their talent acquisition strategies for the next year, maybe it’s time to take a harder look at the typical challenges that plague high-volume recruitment.
1. Attracting the right talent
One of the biggest challenges that recruiters face today is shortage of good talent. A recent report by HR Research found that 54% of companies indicated that they could not find enough candidates for high-volume recruitment requirements, while 46% expressed that they received too many low-quality applicants.
Simply put, high-quality workers are hard to find. In many cases, recruiters don’t get enough applicants. In others (even worse), they get too many applicants, none of whom are qualified or even relevant. The problem here is not that there aren’t qualified people out there. It’s that you need to know how to find – and engage – them. All at the right time and price.
2. Candidate drop-offs
Frequent candidate drop-offs have been a long-standing challenge in high-volume recruitment. In particular, a majority of candidates drop off during the apply phase thanks to long and/or complicated application processes. As a result, companies lose good talent right at the start of the process.
One in three companies state that the application process exceeds 30 minutes for high-volume roles, while one in two companies do not have mobile-optimized application processes.
3. Talent retention
One irony of high-volume recruitment is delays in closing out hires. The abundance of low entry jobs and lack of distinct employer branding make it challenging for companies to stand out in the crowd. Many candidates looking for entry-level positions are in the market for just about 10 days. With low barriers to switching between positions, applicants have the upper hand when it comes to changing companies and finding employment quickly.
4. Inadequate data
In many companies that hire at scale, data is either lacking or is gathered in a fragmented manner across silos by way of teams, tools, and techniques. This makes it challenging for sourcers to get a holistic view of their high-volume recruitment efforts – particularly when they hire for multiple locations, and each location follows its own strategy, processes, and tools.
5. Rinse-and-repeat processes
When dealing with multiple roles at once, recruiters find it hard to track the skill requirements and candidate expectations for each job – at times leading to hiring mistakes. This leads to a vicious circle of attrition and re-hiring, which places a higher pressure on recruiters, as well as their resources.
The key lies in optimization.
Recruitment isn’t easy. High-volume recruitment, even less so. Recruiting at scale poses challenges that simply cannot be solved with traditional hiring strategies. The focus in this case should be on relentless optimization – of place, price, process, and time.
Joveo’s programmatic solution, MOJO Pro, will revolutionize your recruitment process. With the power of our AI-driven approach and campaign automation, you can spend with precision on sources that deliver. Get your job ads in front of the right people – at the right place and time, for the right price!
What does that mean?
Well, our clients see 33%+ more great-fit candidates, spend 25%+ less on every application, and track their performance across all sources – job sites, search engines, or social channels – with MOJO. Discover the power of our game-changing, end-to-end talent-sourcing platform.
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