In this guide to mass hiring, we cover everything you need to need to know about bulk recruitment. Including the various channels for volume-based recruiting, along with proven strategies for success.
What is Mass Hiring?
When there is a need to hire many employees at the same time, a mass hiring agency promotes and finds candidates as part of a bulk recruitment drive. Volume recruiting can be handled internally, but is often a task best managed by a mass hiring recruitment firm.
What are the Challenges of Volume Recruiting?
Volume-based recruiting brings about a unique set of hurdles to overcome. These obstacles can result in a time-consuming hiring process, a lack of visibility for the roles, and other issues with communication and the suitability of applicants.
1. Time constraints
When hiring multiping people at the same time, matters such as job listings, application screening, and the coordination of interviews have the potential to place a major strain on resources.
Working with an experienced high-volume recruiting team will remove this initial burden of time. When this part of the bulk hiring phase is led by a hiring professional, it means a company can fill multiple roles much quicker compared to doing it themselves.
2. Visibility and reach
For any type of bulk hiring needs, it’s important to ensure you have a clear strategy to advertise and promote your vacancies. This can be a challenge when handling mass hiring in-house. Particularly for Hiring Managers who do not have access to appropriate bulk recruitment skills and resources.
Bulk recruitment firms can reach a vast network of resources quickly. Many staffing firms leverage industry tools to ensure roles are visible and response rates are high.
3. Quality of applicants
If the job listings do not reach the right people, you will have fewer quality applications to choose from. If the skills and experience of these candidates aren’t up to standard, this could delay the hiring process.
With an in-depth pre-screening process and the right volume of applicants, a mass hiring agency helps you maintain high standards in the recruitment process. When only suitable candidates are moved forward, this results in an increased interview-to-hire ratio.
4. Collaboration and communication
Understandably, if an employer does not respond promptly to applications, these individuals could lose interest in the role or secure employment elsewhere. Due to the highly collaborative nature of recruitment, a mass hiring drive can place a huge demand on the hiring team. All parties must work well together, and do so under pressure. Therefore, clear communications between Hiring Managers, Recruiters, and Candidates is key.
Mass hiring agencies are well-equipped and accustomed to handling all candidate communications, gaining interview feedback, and ensuring the lines of communication are kept fluid. Technology, organization, and attention to detail are second-nature skills to volume-based recruiting professionals.
How a Staffing Agency can help with Volume Hiring
- A bulk recruitment specialist will utilize their experience and reach to develop a mass hiring strategy that is tailored to the individual business need.
- Quicker time to hire
- Access to a vast pool of talent
- Saves time
- Increases the interview-to-hire ratio
- Best-of-breed recruiting tools and resources
- Professional job advertisement and promotion
- In-depth pre-screening maintains a high-standard of applicants
If you need to fill multiple vacancies simultaneously, or you need help with mass hiring, working with a bulk recruiting expert is a commercially and operationally viable solution.
Related Post: How to help your business stand out in a competitive job market
High-Volume Recruiting Tips and Strategies
Here, we share mass hiring strategies and tips that can apply to almost any vertical or job type. Whatever stage of the recruiting process you are at, read these tips to make sure you cover all bases.
1. Assemble the best hiring team
Regardless of the size or complexity of the recruiting need; getting the right team of people ready to help is key. This team may include HR personnel, management, recruiters, and staffing firms; all of whom will play a key role in helping with your bulk staffing drive.
TIP: Don’t forget to include existing employees as part of your team. Those with experience in the roles you are recruiting for can help support the interview process.
2. Develop a mass hiring plan
Now that you have the right people to help with your recruitment drive, it’s time to consider how the hiring process will be coordinated. At this stage, you should consider various metrics and activities for the bulk-hiring drive, including:
- A clear outline for the individual roles you want to fill, including potential start dates
- Review the local job market, consider if hybrid or remote working is an option, and ask your recruiter (if you use one) to give you their perspective on current hiring trends
- Ensure each role you’re hiring for has an accurate role profile, and that the skills or experience you seek are clear.
- Review your initial timeframes once you have all the above information, and revise if necessary. If you’re working with a mass hiring staffing firm, get their input on the feasibility of these timings.
- Make sure you breakdown each element of the mass hiring process, and allow enough time for each hiring stage. Notice periods will impact the time to hire metric, so make sure this is considered.
- Budget accordingly. Mass hiring recruiting firms offer specific rates for bulk recruiting. Ensure you have a clear understanding of their fees, and that all hiring salary expectations are clearly defined.
3. Increase exposure to candidates
While the mass hiring plan and the team of people you have assembled will certainly help you spread word of your recruitment drive, it is important to consider the most cost and time-effective ways to achieve maximum reach.
- Offer referrals to your existing team and/or wider network
- Use social media, email marketing, your website, and job advertisements effectively
- Post in local groups for regional positions
- Host a hiring event – both in-person and virtual events work with different audiences
Related Post: Get tips for hosting a virtual hiring event
4. Utilize technology
Various people, positions, and partners all play an important role in the mass hiring process. As such, effective communication and collaboration are vital. Technology will help you keep your communications, applicant details, and interview documentation in an easy-to-access, centralized location.
Wherever possible, try to implement automation to streamline processes and further reduce the need for manual or repetitive tasks. A good mass hiring staffing expert will integrate online job applications with intelligent applicant tracking software. This will enable you to filter candidates more quickly and effectively.
5. Effective pre-Screening
Bulk recruitment often requires screening hundreds of applicants. As such, developing a quick, yet effective screening process is key. This is another instance where mass recruiters excel. Their involvement in the process can help reduce time-to-hire and interview-to-hire metrics. The use of AI in mass recruiting means that applications can be scanned and ranked in record-time.
As part of our own in-depth candidate screening process, our recruiters evaluate and speak with suitably skilled candidates to qualify their suitability. This is done prior to the hiring manager seeing their application,
6. Streamline feedback and communications
To make sure your employer brand is upheld, and that candidates are given the best impression of your business, it is vital you handle all communications and feedback with care. At every stage of the hiring process, candidates will be keen to know any next steps or gain feedback following an interview of assessment.
Always ensure they receive a follow-up message with any relevant information about the next steps. This can be automated to a point, but if you use a mass hiring recruiting company, they will usually handle and coordinate candidate feedback on your behalf.
7. Start dates and onboarding
Whether you plan to onboard and train your new hires together or in groups, it is important to consider who and how they will be welcomed into the business. Early attrition can occur as a result of a poor onboarding experience. As such, you need to plan ahead of time to ensure there is a structured induction in place. This is also another area where your existing staff are a valuable source of support.
8. Use referrals
Referrals from existing staff are a great way to quickly access new candidates. For all of your staff and new hires, make sure they are fully aware of the referral scheme, and make it easy for them to access current job openings. Again, this can be easily automated and easily set-up as part of the onboarding process.
Volume Recruiting FAQs
What is the meaning of bulk-hiring?
Bulk hiring or mass recruiting as it’s often called, involves recruiting for multiple roles within a business at the same time.
How do you do mass recruitment?
Mass recruiting requires a solid hiring strategy, and a team of people who work together to promote, screen, and interview applicants. When you need to recruit multiple people at the same time, coordination, communication, and clarity are needed throughout the mass hiring process.
Which is the best sourcing channel for volume hiring?
As mass hiring staffing experts, we would always advocate the use of an experienced bulk recruiting specialist. This will give a Hiring Manager immediate access to a team of recruiters, along with their resources, networks, and tools. The time it takes to hire will be reduced, and the interview-to-hire ratio will increase.
Aside from this, much of the burden of time spent during the initial promotion and pre-screening for open positions will then be met by the staffing. This saves time, and means you can focus on scaling-up the workforce quickly with high-quality candidates.
Let Us Help You With Your Volume Recruiting
When handled correctly, a good mass hiring strategy will help you find the best people in the fastest time. It will also help you provide a great candidate and employee experience to those who join your business.
If you need to undertake a recruitment drive, working with an established staffing agency with mass hiring experience is highly advantageous. Aside from the expert support and reach offered by an agency, a good hiring experience will boost your employer brand, enable growth, and ultimately support your future success.
