Simplifying Recruiting Complexity
Coordination Of People And Information
Hiring involves the coordination of work activities among many participants (HR, hiring teams, 3rd-party vendors), as documents and data flow through the hiring process. Documents and data include job descriptions, resumes, interview feedback, background checks, references, and offers.
Making improvements can seem overwhelming with so many moving parts. This brief article reveals how to reduce complexity and significantly increase the speed and quality of hiring while reducing costs and increasing recruiting productivity.
Simplifying complexity and making high-value improvements begins by creating a visual map of your hiring process. Just like a GPS map, a process map reveals the path to our end-goal, improved performance.
When evaluating software vendors, ask them to demonstrate your hiring process on their system. This will rapidly identify weed out inappropriate vendors and reveal the best solution for your organization.
The figure below illustrates the major STEPS of a typical hiring process. For simplicity, I’ve removed the TASK list and software APPS used within each STEP.
Current State vs. Future State
Map your hiring process, as it currently exists today. This is called the “current” state of your process. Then you look for redundancies and opportunities where you can make incremental improvements in order to progress toward the desired “future” state of your recruiting process.
Illustrating a hiring process using this “enhanced IDEF3 framework” quickly reveals specific ways to simplify complexity and implement simple improvements that make a huge difference. Equipped with your visual process map, you can identify opportunities for improvement, reduce costs, and increase the speed and quality of hiring, before implementing software solutions.
Selecting The Best System
Your map also provides a list of task-level functions (not shown on the sample map above) that are required of any new software solutions. Ask software vendors to demonstrate how their system will automate your process on their platform. If they can’t do it your way, try another vendor. If a particular system is unable to adapt to process changes rapidly over time, try another vendor. If a vendor’s system cannot easily automate your processes your way, it will create more work and reduce efficiencies. After all, shouldn’t software make your life easier?
Before implementing a new system or launching a process improvement project, invest the time to map your “current” process. The map becomes your roadmap from where you are, to where you want to be, and will yield significant operational efficiencies.
What do you think?
Please comment, like, and share this article. To discuss how to improve your hiring workflows and select the best system, e-mail me at [email protected].
