This is a taxing time for recruiters around the world - there is increasing pressure to juggle things remotely - finding superstars, facilitating virtual interviews, onboarding new hires, retaining employee loyalty without the warmth of a physical environment, and the list goes on.

But it’s 2020! What are recruiters doing spending precious time on things that a smart assistant can easily take care of in much less time!. If this sounds like you, say hello to autopilot.

Autopilot or recruiting automation enables recruiters to automate everyday chores like candidate screening, emailing, follow ups, and more. Recruiting automation can free up to 80% of a recruiter's time and release time and resources that can be better spent on strategic areas.

Here are 5 ways in which a recruiting autopilot empowers recruiters for efficiency and hiring success in any environment, COVID or not.

1. Pre-screening efficiently

Screening still remains the phase of recruiting that consumes the most amount of time and energy. You have to wade through a pile of resumes, expectations of hiring managers, hopes of candidates, and the taxing demands of the business, to identify interview-worthy candidates, everyday. A smart ATS tool like Freshteam enables you to completely automate this time-consuming activity. You can set up an automation that looks for the vitals and then rejects, advances, or sends out a pre-assessment test to candidates based on its evaluation. 

2. Coordinating remote interviews 

Leave alone remote interviews, even onsite interviews require a zillion follow ups, last-minute reschedules and a lot of running around. Now doing all of that virtually can drive you a little crazy. But imagine this: What if you had an assistant to take care of notifying candidates and panel members about interviews, following up with them, nudging them for feedback, and all the other little things in-between? Recruiting automation can coordinate interviews for you seamlessly even if you are dealing with hundreds of people working out of different office setups (homes). It keeps up with all the stakeholders (candidates, panel members, interviewers, etc) through notifications and follow-ups and makes sure everyone is on the same page.

3. Build a thriving candidate database

At the end of every hiring cycle, you are always left with candidates who didn’t land the job but were exceptionally great. Instead of simply letting them go or burying them in a spreadsheet, recruiting automation can enable you to build a talent pool out of them. These are candidates you have already screened or interviewed. Which means, the database becomes a reliable source of time-worthy candidates you can turn to when new roles open up.

4. Driving a remarkable candidate experience  

Trying times reveal who we are as organizations and recruiters. It is challenging to ensure a pleasant candidate experience while having a hundred extra things to do because we now work remote. Simple things like communication and empathy can go a long way and hold your fort in place. You can automate all the basic notifications and emails, and channel your time to other communication that needs your attention and thoughtfulness, while resting assured that your candidates don’t feel lost and frustrated in the process. The system will automatically send out notifications when a candidate is advanced, or an interview is scheduled or rescheduled, or even if they didn’t get the job. Freshteam even reminds you when responses are due. 

5. Analysing and identifying scope for efficiency 

First-time automation users may need help identifying which parts of their process need intervention or automation. An ATS like Freshteam offers you a powerful dashboard of reports and insights - shows you the time-consuming parts of your hiring process, the bottlenecks, the sources that are working in your favor and those that are not, the stages that candidates drop off from, the reasons why candidates reject your offers and a lot more. This just points right to where you need to intervene for efficiency.

Wrapping up, recruitment automation does not take away ‘human’-ness from the process like it is popularly believed, instead it frees recruiters up from mundane basic tasks so they can bring more heart and mind into their work. In high-volume recruiting environments, recruiting automation becomes key to business success.

Freshteam by Freshworks, is an intuitive HR software with very powerful recruitment automation options which transforms the way recruiters work around the world, enabling them to be highly productive and strategic in what they do. It comes with an intelligent set of applicant tracking features that helps you cover the entire recruiting process with one system, right from sourcing great talent to seamlessly onboarding new hires. You can check it out for free here.

This article by Freshteam is adapted from the original article that first appeared on the Freshteam blog.