Prior to COVID-19, recruitment was very old-fashioned in the sense that the candidate would have to come into your agency, sit face-to-face with you, fill out forms, do an actual in-depth interview, and then refer the suitable candidates to your client. 

It was very traditional. 

When COVID-19 hit, we couldn’t meet face to face, barely anyone had a printer at home, shops were closed, it was a disaster. 

People were forced to go digital, but they didn’t have enough knowledge of what was in the market. Google was every recruiter’s best friend as they tried to navigate the work-from-home recruitment space. Many recruiters are unhappy with the current solution that they have because: 

• • It does not tick all the boxes. 

• • There was not enough research that went into choosing a solution that best fit the recruitment agencies’ needs. 

• • The fast change to working from home within the industry was an unknown phenomenon. 

“The number one thing that I’ve learned over the past two years is that it’s not about who is the best recruiter, but who has the best overall experience for the candidate.”

                   –  Jade Moolman, Business Development Manager (APAC) Secured Signing

Now, the way that things are working is that everything is virtual: meet with candidates online, candidates do not want to come in to meet face-to-face in the current climate. So, even though you’re in the office, and you call them to organize an in-person meeting, a lot of the time candidates are not interested in that. It has now become “who has the easiest candidate experience” is ultimately who the candidate ends up choosing as their recruiter, and who is going to make the placement. 

“Working in this space prior to COVID-19, some recruitment agencies were ahead of the curve doing things digitally online for a long time,” says Gal Thompson, CEO at Secured Signing. “Whereas many more have rushed (in choosing a digital solution) and are now re-evaluating.” 

With that in mind, here are 5 of our teams’ top tips and recommendations when digitizing your recruitment process. 

Tip 1- Transform your Paper forms into Online forms. 

This sounds simple and obvious, but what we’ve seen works well is to really think about your forms and not take them as they are in paper form and replicate them in a digital way.  

Have Fewer Fields. 

Gal Thompson says “think about what is mandatory in today’s recruitment process, what legacy information that you have been collecting but never use, and cull anything that is not relevant.” 

This process allows you to simplify your candidate’s efforts and makes them less likely to drop out of the recruiting process. Less is so much more. 

Only Ask for Information when you Need it. 

“We have seen in the past that people ask for all the information up front in the case that they may need it later down the line. Where they never use this information. You risk candidates opting out as the forms are too complicated or asking for way too much information, and it is too hard. A good example is not asking for payroll/bank information during the initial phases of interacting with a candidate, because you have not talked to them yet, and you may not want to continue after having a chat. 

Capture Key Documents and Information in your Process. 

If you’re getting documents like driver’s licenses, certificates, etc., it is important to capture these when you need them. 

Tip 2- Integrations 

When selecting your digital solution it is important to look out for is: 

First, you want something that works with what you have already, and works well. 

“What is the point of having a digital signature or online forms platform that does not integrate into your current systems. You’ll soon find that a massive pain-point for you and your agency will be the double-handling of data, and dragging and dropping files into your CRM/ATS.”  

Limited Clicks 

An integration would not be a particularly good one if you need to click a hundred times before sending a document out to your candidates and clients for signing. 

“You want something that is easy to use, does not look complicated, and has limited clicks to get the job done.” 

Two-way Data Fow 

As mentioned above, you want data to flow from your CRM/ATS automatically, so you can remove double-handling of data and automate the data entry process. The information flows in and out of the candidate record based on what you want to achieve. 

“For instance, with Secured Signing, if you sent out a document to your candidate for filling out and signing, whatever information is populated in the form will be pushed into your CRM/ATS. Keep in mind this would be configured in your settings, and the information that you push, and pull would be entirely up to you and your agency.” 

Remove manual entries and free up time for your recruiters to focus on other things. 

Scales Up with your Recruitment Agency 

When looking at a digital solution you want something that can grow with your agency as you begin expanding, hiring more recruiters, and placing more candidates. 

“Look for something that has features like unlimited use, means you can stay with one solution provider all the way through, with no need to change up due to capacity limitations.” 

Tip 3- Automation 

When talking about integrations and transforming your paper forms into digital versions, you want to find a solution that has built-in automation. Automation makes things easy, simplifies the process for recruiters and candidates, and saves everyone time. 

Again, two-way data flow is essential, but there are some other things you should look out for. 

Turn your processes into Workflows 

One thing that surprises a lot of recruiters is the ability to automatically send the right forms to the right candidates at the right stage and time of the recruitment process.  

“At Secured Signing, we enjoy going into that level of detail when onboarding new recruiters. We find out what emails you want to send at what time, and fully personalize the recruitment process to your needs. This upfront planning can save your team hours and hours in the long run. 

Saved in the Right Place 

No more dragging and dropping files to the correct candidate record – get things automatically saved to the right place. 

Save Time 

We recently did a study on how our integration and how integrations like ours around time saved. You are looking at a 45 minute to an hour-long process when putting candidate details into your ATS/CRM.  

Quite a long time, right?  

With the right solution, we have seen this reduced to just 3 minutes per candidate, which is an insane reduction and time. 

Tip 4- Find a Customizable Solution for your Candidates 

Making the experience personal for your candidates and showcasing your brand can give you the edge over other agencies in the market. 

“We have a lot of options out of the box like adding your brand, everywhere. On all the email communications, on SMS texts to your candidates, during the actual signing of the documents, everywhere. We also let you set up domain verification, which when set up, all emails sent by your agency from our platform, are sent from you. This adds another level of trust and brand integrity when interacting with potential candidates.” 

Full control over what the candidate experiences is essential and can be the difference between them being fully engaged or dropping out of the process. 

“One of the objections we have heard when discussing digitization with recruiters is that the digital way is not personal enough, but once we get into demoing the platform and the brand-related features, this viewpoint changes. It takes the cold, robotic sense of digital and adds a warmer, personal touch to the process.” 

Tip 5- Mobile Friendly 

Lastly, and self-explanatory, is that you have a solution that can be used on any device, whether it is a tablet, PC, Mac, mobile device, anything. 

Candidates and clients will most likely do everything using their mobile. 

One way we cater to this is that we provide a product that fully customizes your paper forms into HTML-5 forms, which automatically formats your forms to fit on any device and screen size. 

Another way is that candidates and clients will not need to sign up and register an account with Secured Signing. Candidates and clients simply receive an SMS text or email which gives them access to any forms or documents that need to be filled out and signed. 

“Secured Signing offers a seamless, one-and-done approach, which many recruiters find adds value to their candidate and client experience.” 

What are some of the key reasons for Digitizing 

To wrap up, here are some of the reasons for recruiters reaching out to us for a digital solution: 

• • Bulk signing for temporary agents. 

• • Collecting payroll information. 

• • Building of forms. 

• • Using automation and triggers. 

If you would like to see a demo of how you can use Secured Signing within your agency you can watch the webinar here and skip ahead to 19:40.

With digitizing here to stay, recruitment agencies shifting to paperless, and increased candidate & client expectations, now is the time to start your digitization journey.

If you are looking to digitize your recruitment process, visit www.securedsigning.com