"Nightmare"
"Hell"
"I wish dinosaurs were alive and ate me, so I don't have to go through this"
"I can't talk about it."
These are not the reviews for a lousy movie we watched over the weekend. These are expressions of recruiters when you ask them about what it is like to schedule interviews between a candidate and a hiring manager when trying to fill a crucial position.
Because as a recruiter, your job is not just filling the position but filling it fast. You will be evaluated based on certain metrics — " "cost of hire", and most importantly "time to fill", "candidate experience". These two metrics make the most impact in building dream teams at your company. Faster time to fill ensures that the project stays on track and the company makes revenue. A good candidate experience ensures quality candidates join the company (directly impacting time to fill as well)
Interview scheduling is a giant obstacle in the way of hiring. If you go to the Reddit channel rightly named r/recruitinghell, you will find this as one of the most talked-about topics.
Where does this negativity associated with interview scheduling come from? It's important to understand these problems so we can move on to find a solution for each one as there is no magic wand that can solve everything, especially given how humans behave generally.
Here are some of the most tormenting parts of scheduling interviews:
Interviewers are overburdened
Let's look at the problem through numbers.
A few years back, for every 1000 employees, the company would plan to hire 200 people to grow the organization and another 100-150 to account for attrition. Scheduling interviews was tough even then.
The scale of the problem has grown in the past few years due to “The Great Resignation” trend that leaves key positions empty.
Now companies have to hire 400 people to account for attrition and 200 for growth. That is hiring 600 new people per 1000 employees. To make one hire, a recruiter has to arrange about 10 interviews. Simple math now — if you want to hire 600 (400+200) people, you will have to do 6000+ interviews. And that's just for one round. If you are hiring for a highly-skilled role then you can multiply the numbers.
Not everyone in the company is going to be qualified to interview so the responsibility falls on the shoulders of a few qualified managers. On top of it, managers are also doing/delegating the work of people who've left their jobs. There is immense pressure on hiring managers and interview panelists to work long hours. That's why, sometimes there is no one available to interview the candidates.
Availability ping-pongs & problems
On top of non-availability of the interviewers, there's never a common time that fits the interviewer and the candidate.
Most candidates can't take off work and prepare for the interview. With the day filled up with calls and impromptu huddles that might happen anytime, there is no scope for interview slots during the weekdays. They prefer weekends.
But the scenario is the opposite for hiring managers (the interviewer). They would not want to invest time in any work activity over the weekend. And that's reasonable unless companies provide an incentive which is usually not there.
If we look at it fundamentally, "interviewer" is not a defined job. It's a temporary role, and someone has to do the tasks of this role.
That's why it's tough to convince them that they are required to keep their calendar up to date to avoid scenarios where they come back saying, 'oh sorry, I am actually busy this day' after the scheduling has happened. An impromptu meeting or emergency at the last minute is understandable. But pre-defined schedule woes are totally preventable and one of the most common pain points for recruiters.
Systems are a mess & Humans are prone to errors
Ask yourself honestly — is there a single place in your company where you store all the information & artifacts related to the interview process? How intuitive is it for someone to find that information?
Scheduling systems and processes are not streamlined. Resumes are often shared in emails or on internal messaging platforms like MS Teams for quick access. Scheduling happens by looking at multiple calendars (primary, personal, etc.). The assessment test of the candidate needs to be accessed via some other platform. It's all a loosely stitched up system that makes coordination frustrating.
Most often, hiring managers don't give priority to meetings that are scheduled without prior discussion. So they need to be messaged personally or called on the phone to get them to register in their minds for an upcoming interview. The same story is on the candidate's side. They might miss the notification or misunderstand the time zones if they are in a different one.
Reminder mechanisms are almost non-existent unless the recruiter does it diligently. That's rare even if they wish to because of the huge workload. And, on top of this, last minute reschedules and cancellations happen a lot. This is because interviewing is not often accorded the same priority as work.
Recruiters' Work-Life Balance is Thrown Under the Bus
Most companies like to host recruitment drives over the weekend — it allows people coming from far away, other cities and states to attend the drive. It also allows for virtual interviews to happen en masse so volumes can be achieved in one single shot.
It's surely helpful for the company in filling up their roles. But what does it do for the recruiters?
It spoils their weekend. Their work-life balance is tumbled like clothes in a dryer because preparing for the recruitment drives (sorting resume, informing candidates, selecting hiring managers) takes extra hours in the week leading up to a drive.
In a candidate-driven market, candidate experience needs to be prioritized so that candidates don't go with the competitors or stop engaging at any point. So recruiters are expected to not just attend interviews alongside panelists and candidates but are even expected to respond to their queries over the weekend through LinkedIn messages, emails and even over WhatsApp sometimes.
What's next
The solution to these problems is multi-fold. Companies ramp up recruiters multi fold so they can manage the workload. Good recruiters are hard to find and a stressful job means that there is time wasted in hiring for attriting recruiters, training them and getting them up to speed. All while dealing with heavy under work-load. Technology is truly a force multiplier in such situations Recruiters need to use technology as much as possible.Technology helps solve not just managing the interviews but also delivering a premium experience for all candidates/panelists in one shot. It helps recruiters cut down conversations with employees and vendors who sourced the profiles and just coordinate better amongst their teams
One such tool is RippleHire Talent Acquisition Cloud — an ATS that is used by enterprise companies such as Axis BankTATA AIA Life, Mphasis, and more. It's more than a filing cabinet or system to roll out offers. It enables one click interviewing which enables not just collaborative interviewing but solves for some 15 odd problems related to interviewing that TA teams face. The ATS works on first principles rather than copy-pasting existing solutions. If you wish to know more, schedule a demo here & let us show you how you can get rid of nightmares of interviews & recruiting.