The Rise of Recruiting Operations and Why It’s Essential Now

As the battle for talent has intensified, so has the sophistication of the modern recruiting team. Systems, roles, and processes have all evolved in service of finding the best candidates and impressing them with differentiated candidate experience. This increased complexity has created the need for Recruiting Operations, now an essential piece of the recruiting puzzle.

 

What is Recruiting Operations?

In short, Recruiting Operations enables the rest of the recruiting team to be successful. They accomplish this goal by owning the processes, tools, and data collection for the entire team. As the “project managers” of a recruiting team, they’re focused on driving efficiency while keeping candidate experience top-of-mind. Recruiting ops keeps everyone on track by having a hand in setting goals and processes, creating strategies, and implementing interviewer training.

In other words, recruiting operations is like Air Traffic Control. They make sure that each person knows what their role is. Keep infrastructure and systems running smoothly, and take a step back to look at the bigger picture in order to measure overall performance. Without Air Traffic Control, our skies would be in chaos. Without recruiting operations, the rest of the team will be much less effective and cohesive. The work of recruiting operations keeps teams time- and cost-efficient. And turns good recruiting teams into great ones.

 

Getting the Tech Stack Just Right

Recruiting technology has completely transformed over the last 10 years. The ATS is no longer a filing cabinet for resumes. It’s the hub for an ecosystem of tools and services that will supercharge the recruiting team. It’s no small feat to manage this portfolio of products and vendors. Some of the most commonly used platforms that recruiters will use include:

  • Applicant tracking systems (ATS)
  • Job posting aggregators
  • Recruitment CRMs
  • Scheduling software
  • Background checks
  • Employer branding
  • Sourcing
  • Candidate Travel
  • Assessments
  • HRIS integration

Each of these platforms plays an integral role in time and money efficiency on a recruiting team. The good news is, there’s a large catalog of software that you can choose from when selecting a platform. The bad news is, not all of them are created equally. Especially since the needs of every recruiting team are different.

Recruiting operations, also known as talent operations, is in charge of figuring out which tools are the best fit for the team. Starting with working with each team member to define their requirements, then evaluating the various vendors, going through a budgeting process. At the end of all of that purchasing the software.

Then, of course, they must manage the implementation and rolling out the software. Collaborate with IT and HR. Migrate data from any previous tools they might have used. Then, train their team on how to use the software.

It’s an ongoing process as they continue to stay in touch with the vendor for the best support service for the recruiters and share any feedback they’re getting from their team. It’s not an easy responsibility. But given that these are the tools that multiple people on your team are using every day, it’s an important one.

 

Making Data-driven Decisions

Defining objectives, team direction, and criteria for success is a teamwide responsibility. Recruiting operations is largely responsible for compiling feedback and data to drive such decisions. This data is spearheaded end-to-end by recruiting operations. Who first figure out what they should collect, how to collect, and how to implement the findings.

This intentional goal setting is what structures the entire recruiting funnel. For example, recruiting ops may help with pulling figures from your ATS and scheduling system, and then run them against your HRIS data. In order to assist with decisions about capacity planning, hiring targets, and time-to-fill.

The act of simply gathering candidate feedback and compiling it to guide improvements is an invaluable practice.

This data collection and analysis needs to be tracked for the benefit of all stakeholders. From the recruiters to the interviewers, to the candidates themselves. Specifically, trends in the candidate experience can help everyone get a better picture of what is working and what’s not.

It is crucial to have someone own the analysis and improvement of the candidate interview experience to run a successful recruiting process.

 

Make or Break: Candidate Interview Experience

The interview experience is a key factor in how a candidate feels about your company, the role, and whether they accept an offer. That’s why recruiters need to do whatever they can to provide an environment for candidates that truly showcases their skills. While their interviewers also put the company’s best foot forward. And with platforms like Glassdoor, the candidates you don’t even end up hiring can leave positive reviews about their experience for other job-seekers to see.

The front-line of your candidate experience includes coordinators, recruiters, and interviewers. Recruiting operations are responsible for training everyone involved. Which ultimately creates a seamless onsite experience. This includes clear, easy to follow instructions for both candidate and interviewer. A welcoming environment, diverse interview panels that represent the company, personalized touches, and adding breaks throughout the day.

Recruiting operations creates a baseline for interviewer training. Everything from anti-bias training, responding to candidates’ questions, and ensuring that feedback is tracked consistently. All of this, of course, must be completed in a timely manner. The end-to-end candidate experience is under recruiting operations’ watchful eye, resulting in fewer instances of dropping the ball.

Prelude is a platform that makes impressing both your candidates and interviewers easier. By automating scheduling, what used to be hours of playing calendar Tetris for coordinators now turns into minutes. It also eliminates the need to translate time zones on your own for your remote interviews. And keeps everyone in the loop when last-minute cancellations and changes occur.

 

Why you need Recruiting Operations ASAP

Although the specific role of recruitment operations is relatively recent in the talent acquisition world, its component parts are the makeup of a thriving recruiting team. From making sure that the latest trends are being accounted for, like remote working, to perfecting the tech stack that a recruiting team relies on to be efficient. That is, recruiting operations is what keeps your team working seamlessly.

Undoubtedly, recruiting operations overseeing the entire recruiting process can provide a guiding light for goals, objectives, and changes that need to be implemented in order to delight all stakeholders. From the candidates to the interviewers to the recruiters.


Authors
Will Laufer

Will Laufer is the founder and CEO of Prelude, which helps great recruiting teams streamline their interview process. He previously led enterprise sales at Clever, and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.  About Prelude: Prelude helps recruiting teams go from a scheduling request to the best schedule in seconds. From screens to hiring events to onsites, Prelude streamlines coordination to save countless hours of manual work for teams across the globe. To learn more, visit Prelude.co.