9 ways to improve your high volume recruitment strategy

Key takeaways

• High volume recruitment is the process of recruiting a large number of candidates at once, usually within a short timeframe
• The key stages of high volume recruiting are talent pool building, candidate attraction, screening, and ensuring a positive candidate experience
• Ensure best practice in high volume recruitment by carefully wording job adverts, streamline the application process with an applicant tracking system, utilise video interviewing, and use candidate scoring to find the best-match talent

Common high volume recruitment challenges include time pressure, implementing an efficient hiring workflow, juggling volume, and preventing bias. Talos ATS helps firms to navigate each of these, while reducing admin and saving time

What is high volume recruitment?

High volume recruitment refers to the situation where hiring managers are trying to recruit multiple candidates at a time for a large number of roles – often within a short timeframe. Naturally, a high volume recruiting campaign will result in a large number of applications being submitted, leaving HR departments and hirers with a high workload.

One of the most common high volume recruiting challenges is sorting through large numbers of applicants to find quality talent – but there are high volume recruiting tools and strategies you can use to streamline the process.

Common high volume recruiting challenges

Aside from the large amount of admin and heavy HR workload that comes with trying to fill multiple roles at a time, other common high volume recruiting challenges include:

• Time pressure
• Attracting enough candidates
• Finding quality candidates
• Creating a positive candidate experience
• Implementing an efficient hiring workflow
• Juggling a high volume of interviews
• Keeping the hiring process as unbiased as possible

9 tips for managing high volume recruitment

Managing high volume recruitment can be a huge challenge in itself, which is why we’ve compiled these top tips for processing large amounts of applications.

1. Word job ads to attract the most relevant candidates

Having a strong advertising strategy is key to the success of any high volume recruitment campaign. Ensuring that your job ads are worded to best attract the most relevant candidates will save valuable time and money later on in the process. If your postings are too vague or the wording used could be interpreted in different ways, this may lead to a lot of unsuitable applications, creating extra work for your HR team. Learn more about how to write the best job ads.

Be clear about the job title, sector, responsibilities, and salary in every ad. Make sure to describe your ideal candidate from the get-go – include desired skills, qualifications, personalities, and required working hours to ensure only the best-suited individuals respond to your ads.

2. Keep the application process short

One of the main reasons candidates drop out of the application process is due to lengthy timelines. In high volume recruitment, it’s important to move efficiently and quickly through many applications. By streamlining your process to be both thorough and fast, you can reduce the risk of losing top candidates. 

3. Work with hiring managers to set out manageable expectations

Providing hiring managers with clear timelines for when candidates should expect feedback or next steps is crucial. Poor communication can cause delays, potentially leading to the loss of top talent to more proactive companies. Setting clear expectations will help hiring managers prepare their candidates and keep them engaged throughout the high volume recruitment process. 

4. Identify priority skills through killer questions

By including ‘killer’ or filtering questions on initial application forms, you can make sure that your efforts are focused on candidates with the skills most important to you, which is more important than ever amid a high volume recruitment campaign. Question topics may include level of experience, education, or availability to work. Filtering candidates from the beginning in this manner saves time later in the process, ensuring that no time is wasted interviewing unsuitable applicants.

5. Utilise applicant tracking software

High volume recruitment campaigns are often associated with hefty recruitment admin. This is due to the high volume of applications that often need to be processed by your team in order to interview and hire the right candidates.

By using applicant tracking software, such as that included with Talos ATS, you can vastly reduce the amount of time your team spends on recruitment admin during a period of high volume recruiting. Talos allows you to effectively store, manage, and filter applicant data, screen/interview candidates remotely, and keep in regular contact with relevant talent – all from one user-friendly dashboard.

6. Save time with video interviewing & screening

By making use of virtual interviewing and screening, you can save time to focus on hiring the best talent to your business. With Talos ATS, you can arrange to interview your applicants via video at a time that suits both them and your team. Using high volume recruitment software provides a faster turnaround for recruitment, allowing you to interview more candidates in a shorter time frame, helping you to overcome one of the most common high volume recruiting challenges.

7. Use scoring to filter your strongest candidates

Last but not least on our list of top tips for managing high volume recruitment is to implement a candidate scoring system. Scoring your strongest candidates allows you to focus your efforts on bringing the best talent to your team. With Talos ATS, you can score, filter, and manage candidates at the touch of a button. This allows you to prioritise better, and remain in contact with the most relevant applicants.

With Talos ATS, our intuitive recruiter scorecards can even do the hard work for you, using data from individual applications to automatically filter through your strongest candidates.

8. Limit candidates’ decision time

While it is important to give candidates time to evaluate your job offer, it is equally crucial to set a reasonable decision deadline. You want talent to make a confident choice, but giving too much time to make their final decision could leave you at risk of losing your backup candidates if the top choice declines. Setting clear timelines ensures you maintain momentum in the high volume recruitment process.

9. Evaluate and improve your hiring process

There are many high volume recruitment challenges, making it essential to regularly review and refine your hiring strategies. Companies should assess their high volume recruitment tools and processes annually to ensure a seamless and engaging candidate journey. Additionally, seeking feedback from candidates can provide valuable insights into how they perceive your high volume hiring process and what improvements can be made from their perspective.

Introducing…

Talos ATS: Manage high volume recruitment with confidence

Hirers can approach managing high volume recruitment with confidence with Talos ATS. Our applicant tracking system is the all-in-one solution for in-house recruitment, making it easy to manage even the most complex hiring processes from start to finish.

With Talos ATS, there’s no need for multiple high volume recruitment software subscriptions, as we’ve combined all the best hiring tools into one user-friendly dashboard, making high volume recruiting significantly easier to navigate. Talos combines intuitive applicant tracking software with the latest hiring automations, advertising tools, and remote recruitment capabilities.

What’s included with Talos ATS?

Talos ATS includes:

• Next-generation Applicant Tracking System
• Multi-platform job-poster
• Automated progression of your strongest applicants
• Recruitment advertising suite
• Video screening and interview platform
• SMS/email update automation for candidates
• Remote onboarding tools

Discover the most intuitive recruitment software tools and streamline your next period of high volume recruitment with Talos ATS: