Volume recruiting is often a major pain point. High-volume positions tend to be at risk for frequent employee turnover. By rushing to fill vacancies, recruiters may be creating more work for themselves as those employees leave. By following these tips, your company can break the cycle of a reactive recruiting process and solve the challenge of high-volume recruiting for good.

For recruiters and hiring managers, it’s often a major pain point. They’re like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day—stuck reliving the same day until some decision or action triggers a plot shift. And their plot? High-volume recruiting.

Nearly 75% of companies admit they recruit the wrong people each year, and almost a third of those aren’t aware of how costly that mistake can be. Given that the average cost-per-hire is upwards of $4,000—and adding in costs associated with lost productivity, performance, and team morale—in high-volume recruiting that amount adds up fast.

How to Succeed at High-Volume Recruiting

Volume recruiting poses issues beyond financial loss, too. High-volume positions tend to be at risk for frequent employee turnover. And when aggressive deadlines and recruitment goals drive HR department and hiring manager decisions, the likelihood of bad hires goes up. By rushing to fill vacancies, recruiters may be creating more work for themselves as those employees leave.

Escaping the time loop of filling consistent job vacancies requires HR departments to change their recruiting strategies. So how do they improve the candidate experience to reverse a broken formula that propagates employee turnover?

Instead of recruiting harder to keep up with the demand created by turnover, it’s time to start recruiting smarter. By following these four tips, your company can break the cycle of a reactive recruiting process and solve the challenge of high-volume recruiting for good.

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1. Define a Unique Employee Value Proposition

Top candidates seek jobs that are fulfilling beyond the paycheck and benefits. Sourcing candidates—and having them accept a job offer—only based on competitive compensation packages is no longer the only recruiting strategy. Especially for high-quality candidates.

Individual career goals have shifted the recruiting narrative from what a candidate can offer a company to what a company can offer a candidate. So offering growth opportunities, upward mobility, recognition and rewards, stability, and continued training adds more to your employee value proposition (EVP). Your EVP is your company’s answer to the question, Why should I apply for this job—what’s in it for me?

Crafting a strong EVP will:

• Convey to candidates and existing employees that you’re committed to employee goals
• Highlight a position’s strengths and set it apart from similar roles with your competitors
• Elevate your employer brand, making the company a desirable and sought-after place to work

Your value proposition can make or break employee engagement, performance, and motivation—and even affect retention rates. A credible employer brand, coupled with a robust EVP, will set your company apart from the competition and make every position you seek to fill more attractive.

Also read: 'Increase Hiring Efficiency With These 4 Best Practices'

2. Create an Ideal Candidate Profile

Top companies report a 29% boost in productivity from talent that is inspired, satisfied, and engaged. So it makes sense to shift your focus toward your company’s tenured employees—those who’ve contributed to goals and productivity—and model your ideal candidate profile after them.

Although your high performers can’t be cloned, you can uncover trends that indicate a quality candidate. Perhaps an unspoken employee value proposition already exists for these employees, for example. Facilitating conversations about what matters to them and how the company fulfills their needs can inform your high-volume recruiting strategy.

By developing a solid candidate persona you can:

• Boost the efficiency of your high-volume recruiting efforts without sacrificing quality
• Determine standard recruitment processes among recruiters
• Establish a foundation for recruitment metrics that you can use to analyze and predict employee performance, retention, and turnover
• Emphasize cultural fit in addition to candidate qualifications

Taking a more holistic approach to the high-volume hiring process requires effort upfront, but it saves time by procuring candidates who transition into lasting employees.

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3. Bring Your Recruiting to Life

Candidates want to see themselves at your organization. So show them the real deal. Employee testimonials and interactive videos can be instrumental in guiding candidate expectations and illustrating your company’s culture or a particular job’s responsibilities.

Candidates respect and expect transparency, so getting to the bottom line right away can lead to more accurate evaluations of candidate compatibility and faster decision-making by your hiring managers.

It’s better to have your job offer declined than to have your new hire leave within their first three months.

4. Stop Posting and Praying. Shift to Talent Pools and Continuous Sourcing

Employee turnover is an unavoidable reality for all companies. Even satisfied and successful employees face external factors that cause them to leave their positions. A proactive approach to recruiting for high-volume positions allows hiring managers to reclaim the talent acquisition narrative. Opening job requisitions on an as-needed basis won’t guarantee that you can find strong candidates in a moment of need, and it creates a time crunch on recruiters throughout the hiring process.

Shifting to an automated prescreening tool—one that enables candidates to apply for a frequently listed job category rather than for a specific vacant position—provides a constant influx of experienced candidates, regardless of requisition status.

A modern applicant tracking system (ATS) makes recruiting more efficient, organizes candidate data into talent pools based on custom qualifications for a specific position, and prepares a just-in-time talent pipeline for inevitable openings.

Recruitment for high-volume positions can benefit from continuous sourcing, which allows HR teams to recruit ahead of demand and proactively engage with interview-ready applicants.

Related reading: 'Choosing Your Next Enterprise ATS: 4 Must-Have Features'

Stronger Candidates. Better Employees. Happier Recruiters

Balancing the multiple—and often competing—priorities involved in acquiring and retaining talent is no simple feat. But the impact of getting it right multiplies when recruiting for high-volume positions.

By defining and aligning your EVP and ideal candidate profile, creating accurate expectations and excitement about your company as an employer, and managing the process with a modern ATS, you can deliver a candidate experience that wins.

The result? More engaged, dedicated, and qualified candidates. And happier recruiters!

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