Shari Laurin

AI did not mention Recruiters as one of the multiple channels and they are the best resource out there! Recruiters focus on interviewing and assessing candidates. They often have huge passive candidate pools which are difficult at best to reach through other channels. Additionally, for a growing business, most hiring managers have so many responsibilities and often no internal talent acquisition, so the time and expense of recruiting is prohibitive in more ways than one. Let an external recruiting team do the grunt work and that way, you are only looking at top tier qualified candidates.

From the standpoint of searching through resumes and ATS systems, you need to consider user input. The candidates may use different words than you do. Search Google for keywords associated with the job/skills you are looking for. Check with AI like ChatGPT for ideas of words to use. Example: Maintenance Technician could be Maintenance Mechanic or Machine Tech or Facilities Engineer.

Feedback from the hiring managers is absolutely crucial for a variety of reasons - it provides a much better candidate experience for not only that candidate, but for every candidate after. In order for recruiters to share the right info with applicants, select the right applicants to present and next the right next steps, we must have feedback (and timely feedback!) from the HMs!

I have to disagree about reference checks. Sometimes, they can be of real value. I typically utilize reference checks to more deeply explore an area of concern with a candidate. Example, the position in a combo of technical and customer service skills. In my interview, the technical skills come out in spades, however, the candidate cannot provide good examples of customer service. If i speak with a past customer or this candidate, I can hear first hand how they handles this area. References that simply verify dates of employment and job titles don't provide with me a lot of valuable info, but there are definitely things that can be explored that will help me or the HM better lead and coach this individual in the future.

Make sure you have good relationships with third party recruiting organizations. Because recruiting is the only thing we do, we have more candidates in our pools and our ability to start our recruiting machine quickly outpaces what most companies can do internally. Get and keep good partnerships, even if you don't have current openings!

The Chatbot got it wrong here - streamlining your screening process is not about adding in skills tests and assessments at the screening stage. If you listen to job seekers, they want to do less to get noticed by recruiters, not more - they have too much opportunity out there! Streamlining should be about candidate ease of application - tech when there should be tech (entering resumes and filling out apps) and people when there should be people (actual human eyes on their info - quick phone or email communication by a real person). Automation should assist, not replace!