Hiring the right talent for a company is almost like solving a puzzle with many pieces. These multiple pieces may come in the form of questions that must be answered throughout the recruitment process. Does the candidate have the right skills and qualifications to do the job? Will he or she fit within the company culture once onboarded?
Completing the puzzle is almost like finalizing a hiring decision for your company’s vacancy. However, it takes time, dedication, and strategic positioning to solve the puzzle with measures like applicant pooling, collaborative hiring, and integrating with different candidate sourcing channels. Here are the 5 best applicant pooling features that every member of a recruitment team should be trained to know!
1. Centralized Applicant Pool for Recruitment
Evaluating the top features of applicant pooling can unveil the best way to build an applicant pool. One key feature is to have a centralized platform that builds and maintains this pool with streamlined methods so the recruitment team can access everything all in one place. Having one database where all candidate information is stored for future reference can make hiring much easier when a vacancy opens.
Enhancing an applicant pool for recruitment starts with refined communications to ensure the recruitment team and human resources department are on the same page with final hiring decisions. Recruitment and HR can make comments on interview notes and share feedback about each candidate within the applicant pool platform for everything to be displayed in a centralized database.
2. Automated Candidate Tagging and Collaboration
Automated candidate tagging is an essential AI-driven feature that helps split the candidates into different pools based on skills, education, and past job experience. Recruiters integrate the keywords related to the specific criteria into the automated candidate tagging feature’s settings to get started.
Implementing the candidate tagging approach eliminates the need for manually sifting through resumes and applications to find the best candidates. Reducing this administrative burden is essential for more streamlined hiring procedures.
Recruiters and hiring managers can collaborate with each other in real time to discuss candidate qualifications and leave notes to refer to at a later time in the candidate profile. For example, if a candidate does not meet the qualifications for a current vacancy, a recruiter may make a note so they remember that they qualify for another position within the company that may open at another time.
3. Advanced Search and Filtering Capabilities
One of the most vital recruitment software features is the advanced search and filtering capabilities. It’s most effective when dealing with large applicant pools yielded from high-volume hiring initiatives in industries like retail, manufacturing, and healthcare.
Filtering candidate profiles by which job location they applied for, job titles, and different keywords related to their experience or job requirements are pivotal for finding the most qualified applicants as quickly as possible. Searching by keywords in candidates’ resumes, cover letters, and applications centralizes the focus for onboarding the most qualified applicants.
For example, you can search terms like “SEO”, “AI”, “machine learning”, and other skills related to discovering the ideal candidate for your vacancy. Hence, only the applicant with these keywords within their application paperwork will come up in your search to start narrowing down the most ideal candidate.
Advanced filtering features reduce how much time recruiters spend reviewing resumes. The filter automatically shows the most qualified candidates while separating them from the least qualified ones that do not come up in the advanced search settings.
4. Collaborative Hiring and Candidate Feedback
Talent pool management tools should also focus on collaborative hiring and candidate feedback measures. The act of hiring does not fall on just one central person of the recruitment team. Multiple stakeholders such as hiring managers, department heads, and in some cases, individuals in senior leadership roles, will have a hand in making a final hiring decision.
These individuals involved in decision-making can collaborate effectively by rating candidate profiles based on prior experience and cultural fit. Before scheduling interviews, any of these stakeholders can leave suggestions on candidate profiles for interview questions to be asked.
While it’s best to ask all interviewees the same questions and rate them with a streamlined rubric, you may have custom questions you want to ask specific individuals about their past work experience or skills. These custom questions can be integrated into the recruitment software on the candidate’s profile at a stakeholder’s discretion. Providing a shared space for all stakeholders to contribute their insights can help candidates be evaluated more effectively before making the final hiring decision.
5. Integration With Job Boards and Career Sites
Tapping into various candidate sourcing methods is one of the most important applicant pooling features to diversify your applicant pool and enhance talent pooling procedures. Attracting top talent involves integrating with job boards and other career sites to get the word out about your available vacancy. This can also be done if you prefer to publish evergreen job postings to build a candidate pool in advance to draw from when vacancies arise.
LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Indeed support recruiters from various industries and companies to post their available jobs to attract candidates. When individuals submit their applications with resumes, their names, personal information, and application paperwork will be directly integrated into your applicant pool for future reference. Hence, this reduces the need for manual data entry and decreases the chances of data transfer discrepancies. These advanced features ensure that all applicants have a fair chance of being considered for the position.
Recruitment software allows you to track how successful your job posting is performing for each job board or career site. From there, you can refine your candidate sourcing approach to the best-performing platforms so you do not waste valuable resources on a candidate source that isn’t yielding quality applicants.
Conclusion
The best recruitment software features should streamline hiring and onboarding while helping your company discover the most qualified candidates. Efficiently managing your applicant pool, collaborating with all stakeholders in the hiring process, and integrating with job boards and career sites are the main initiatives for a successful hiring strategy. Ensure your recruitment team is on the up and up about the best applicant pooling features to utilize them to their fullest potential when hiring new talent.
