Simplifying your interviewing and onboarding processes

Small business recruitment

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If your business is recovering or even thriving as businesses evolve in the new working environment, you’ll be thinking about increasing your team. Growing your business is exciting, but creating job ads, interviewing and vetting candidates, doing reference checks, organising the paperwork and new equipment and then finally onboarding new staff is time consuming, adding to an often already overloaded workload.

Larger companies have for a while been lightening this load utilising the latest technology to scale and automate as many HR processes as possible. This includes having candidates participate in video interviews, enter myriad details into online portals and record themselves responding to questions, or complete sample work tests online.

Until now small businesses haven’t been able to do most of this. However now they can cost-effectively implement technology platforms to automate their communications with candidates, streamline the interview process, collate candidate feedback from colleagues, and improve the onboarding experience.

These low-code/no-code platforms are designed to be used without IT expertise so you can implement and use it them without needing to hire a developer, while also ensuring the values of your business shine through. They use drag-and-drop functionality to facilitate personalised and contextually relevant two-way communications at scale and in your candidate’s preferred communications channel such as SMS, video chat, WhatsApp or email. And it doesn’t require your candidates to download an app.

Technology platforms use workflows – if this happens, then send that message – to automate a range of communications when there could be multiple scenarios or outcomes, including interview logistics. For example, you can send your candidates a message asking which day they are available for an interview with a couple of options. They can respond to the message saying ‘Tuesday’, and automatically receive contextually relevant follow-up communications based on their response – such as available interview times on Tuesday. All responses can be sent to you so you have a record of when you’re meeting each candidate. These templates are entirely customisable, easily updated or modified, and can be triggered automatically or manually.

For business owners delegating some candidate interviews to managers and colleagues, you can use a technology platform to create a basic interview feedback process in less than 15 minutes. Key to this process is a consistent interview format to make it easier to compare candidates. Using a communications platform, such as Whispir, you can build a workflow template that sends the interview guide with radio button questions to your managers/colleagues to complete during the interview.

You can then automatically program the responses to be sent to you and/or a manager to review. Using the same workflow, you can automate a time-delayed thank you messages or follow-up interview requests to be sent to the candidate. A workflow will enable you to streamline and automate your interview process, saving yourself valuable time while also improving the candidate experience.

Workflows can also be used to easily gather employee feedback and onboard new staff. Using a similar template to the one described above, you can communicate with your new employee in their preferred communications channel to ascertain their preferences regarding computer, desk style (standing/traditional), workplace flexibility, uniform etc. That way by the time they are ready to start, their workspace and computer is already set up and they are ready to go.

Recruiting the right candidate can be tricky so it’s important that your hiring process is effective and efficient. By making a good first impression with potential candidates, you’ll increase your likelihood of attracting top talent. And most importantly, technology platforms will reduce the amount of time it takes to hire and onboard a new team member.

Ben Erskine, Head of Content, communications workflow platform Whispir