How digital tools can enhance the recruitment process

Of all the challenges facing the management teams of Australian companies, one of the most acute is attracting and retaining staff. Christian Lucarelli, Vice President Sales APAC at Nintex, explains how digital tools can help enhance the recruitment efforts – for both candidates and businesses.

A shortage of domestic candidates and lack of skilled migration means many positions are going unfilled. At the same time, successful candidates are asking for (and receiving) significantly higher salaries.

While the current talent shortage is acute, it was occurring well before the disruptive effective of the pandemic washed through the market. According to research by McKinsey & Company, at the start of 2020, 87 per cent of businesses were either “experiencing gaps now or expecting [to experience] them within a few years”.

Now, at the start of 2022, the situation remains the same. The talent shortage also comes at a time when many people are considering changing jobs. According to software giant Microsoft, more than 40 per cent of the world’s workforce is considering leaving their current employer this year.

Increasing use of digital tools

As a result of these shifts, many companies are making increasing use of digital channels and tools to attract and retain staff. Through these they can show what life is like within the organisation and share their core values and priorities.

In many cases, firms are investing significant amounts in such communication efforts. They realise that candidates see the most desirable places to work as those firms using digital media to put themselves in the ‘shop window’ for talent.

Firms are also using technology to sift through cover letters and resumes received from prospective new hires. This can save significant time and ensure that short lists of the top candidates can be readily created. When competition for talent is high, conducting interviews and making offers needs to be done quickly.

Using tools to complete a ‘first pass’ of received applications also ensures that candidates receive a reply. This overcomes the challenge experienced within many large firms where applications are received but never acknowledged.

Experience shows that many unsuccessful applications have common issues, such as the candidate not being located in Australia or having relevant skills and experience. Digital tools can create templated responses that can easily be sent to large numbers of unsuccessful applicants.

Increasingly, many companies are also now running recruitment processes through career portals that allow candidates to log in and see where they are in the process. Providing this level of information to a candidate is likely to give them a more positive impression of the company and of its digital capabilities as a whole.

For these reasons, it’s clear that digital tools and channels sit at the heart of the modern recruitment process. They help to attract staff in the first place and also streamline how applications are processed and responses generated.

People and process go hand in hand

While big benefits are to be gained from leveraging digital technology to modernise the recruitment process, there remain places in which human intervention is still required. This is the case when it comes to determining whether a potential staff member will be a good cultural ‘fit’ for the business – people are best suited for this assessment.

This is particularly relevant with the rise of remote and hybrid working practices. It needs to be clarified whether a candidate is comfortable working in these conditions and will remain positive and productive over the longer term.

If a candidate is employed but doesn’t end up slotting effectively into their team, the result can be dissatisfaction and the likelihood they will move quickly on to another organisation. This means the recruitment process will need to be undertaken again.

It’s clear, therefore, that there is still a need for face-to-face or video interviews before candidates are offered new positions. While digital tools can do much, they can’t replicate the information that can be gathered and shared by people.