TIPS
FOR IMPROVING THE OVERALL ON-BOARDING RATIO
According
to a survey, the offer rejection at small and mid-sized (& few large)
organizations is close to 40% and at times more than that. It is all because
the market today is completely candidate driven where the option lies in their
hand to pick or drop any offer anytime (be at what stage of selection they are).
Major factors identified are: Another lucrative offer, compensation and benefits,
preferred location, family constraints.
Patience
is one term we can relate it quite well with the recruiters. Be it for sourcing
the best candidates, getting them interviewed in everyone’s preferable time
(except for the recruiter’s), waiting for the hiring manager’s feedback,
waiting for the candidate’s notice period to get over (in case of joining) etc.
These are different stages at which the recruiter’s tolerance is tested to its
peak.
And
with all these efforts put in by the recruiters, there is no 100% surety of
candidate joining on the agreed date. There is always a sword of Damocles
hanging over the recruiter’s head.
Tips:
Keeping
a good check of your actions can help reduce this mishap to a certain extent.
We certainly can measure the overall success ratio of Offer released vs. Offer
acceptance. This ratio helps determine how many interviews to be processed and
how many offers to be released to confirm a joinee.
Offer Acceptance Rate
(%) = (Number of acceptances/Number of offers)*100
OR
Offer to Acceptance
Ratio = Number of offers/Number of Acceptances
Pointers:
Setting right
expectation and giving clear picture of the job from the beginning
Role
clarity is of utmost importance if your vision is to build a better workplace
for your employees and achieve the desired business results. One need to have
complete understanding of their own role, their manager’s role, the
expectations of the management and the expectation of their behaviour to
produce results.
According
to one of the reports of Gallup, it states:
“Clarity of expectations is
perhaps the most basic of employee needs and is vital to performance”
Recruiters
should clearly communicate all the opportunities and challenges of a job to the
candidate during the first call itself. This is the time when you get the
unbiased information from the candidate on his interest as there is no
recruiter-candidate relationship developed yet. Let the candidate speak and ask
you questions pertaining to job. This will help recruiters judge the candidate’s
overall interest and understand his fitment for the role.
However
it should be noted that clarity should not be finite to distributing Job
Descriptions to every employee but a continuous process of sharing feedback by
the managers.
Making interview
process simpler and effective
Considering
the competitive market, the selection process has to be smart and candidate
friendly. Candidates today expect a quicker response on their application else
they would be least bothered to wait for the same and you will be merely an
option than a priority.
To
make the process a success, ensure each process runs on technology starting
from viewing the current openings, applying online, getting the feedback of
application, getting the interview call, sharing interview feedback and
intimating for future openings, all happening on time with no delay.
Candidate
will carry an impression of the interview experience just as you do for them.
Hence keeping the candidate engaged at each stage will assure you of his
joining. Do not forget to value the time of candidates in the process.
Engaging the candidate
from Day 1 of contact
Though
engagement comes at a later stage of hiring, it is preferred that you take
closer steps right from the beginning by interacting more with the candidates
and understanding their thoughts and perspective about the company and the
opportunity given. Your pro activeness and involvement will give the confidence
to the candidate to move further in the process.
Do
not keep them calling everytime to discuss on the joining topic, respect their
time and space. But also giving a long gap in communication is harmful. He
should not feel disconnected with the company and should not contact you only
for the job info. Make the rapport strong enough that he shares his inhibitions
with you and takes your advice before taking a move. And this will happen when
you will share both pros and cons of the opportunity with him, considering
benefits for him as well.
Communication is the
key
Communication
is the key ingredient in the recruitment process. Just as recruiters get
frustrated when there is no show for the interview, similarly there are things
that irk candidates as well. One of the big frustrations of most of the
candidates is a no reply on their application/interview attended/any additional
query. Candidates already go through turmoil during their job hunt and in
addition to this they are left blank with no feedback from the recruiters.
The
more you communicate the better are the chances of candidate joining on the
agreed date. Do not miss to have a continuous flow of communication even after
the offer is released. The candidate should be treated more like an employee and
should be posted with all the current updates of the company. This will foster
a sense of pride and ownership within the candidate even before they join. Also
his future colleagues can start interacting with him on casual note. With this
the candidate may either think twice to accept or pull themselves back of any
other offers in hand.
A good joining
experience before joining
This
will be a further extension to the above point. Now as we have started on going
interactions with the candidate cum prospective employee, we should also make
way for personal meetings making them a part of your planned celebrations and
other initiatives. This will be the platform for the person to gel up with the
other fellow colleagues.
The
benefits are many when you make them involved. You get to know if the person
will fit into your culture, whether he is interested in contributing to your
ideas, he is not an alien on the day of joining and there is positive word of
mouth publicity going out with him making more to join. These are all small and
big efforts a recruiter can make to actually make a positive difference in the
overall on-boarding ratio.
Hiring through
employee references
Career boards and job portals still rule in
having the highest number of applications but studies have proved that the
conversion to hire rates falls far behind from referrals. Hiring through
employee reference is the most useful way to find the best candidate. The
benefits are always visible and overwhelming. Referrals are hired faster, they
tend to stay longer with the company, perform better and are easy to integrate
into the system. Hence, companies today are setting their internal goals of increasing
the hiring through internal reference. Deloitte is one such example that is now
getting its 49% of its experienced hires through referrals. And this method is
more effective when the referral program is coupled with exciting prizes to the
employee.
You can welcome references directly from the
employee and also as an active method you can keep a tap on the connections of
your employees at various social media platforms. For example LinkedIn has
altered the hiring landscape, making it easy for recruiting departments to
trace connections between job candidates and their own employees by using
LinkedIn’s database and software.
Candidate’s see you (recruiters) as their
saviour. Then why not serve them with the best. After all their success is your
success!!!
- Courtesy: Preeja Sarin
Comments
Post a Comment