A positive onboarding experience creates a lasting impression on applicants. The tight labor market has continued in the United States with 16 months in a row of unemployment under 4%. Given this recruiting challenge, delivering a positive hiring experience is one piece of the hiring puzzle over which your staffing agency has control. Here are four simple tips to improve the onboarding process for your applicants.
1. Make onboarding paperless.
Killing trees won’t help you round up more candidates to apply for open orders. In the increasingly digital workforce, your process needs to be as close to 100% digital as possible. Not only does this help to improve the applicant experience, it also helps your recruiters become more efficient in their roles since the platform will automatically sync with your applicant tracking system (ATS).
2. Make onboarding mobile-friendly.
It’s not just about paperless applications anymore. Job search trends are increasingly turning towards mobile. Some job seekers refuse to even apply at businesses without a way to apply via mobile devices. Making sure that your application and onboarding process is mobile-friendly can be the difference between meeting your applicant number goals or falling short on filling an important job order.
3. Make onboarding painless.
When it comes to applications and onboarding processes, painless is a strong word. What painless means is to make it as simple, straightforward and easy to follow as possible. This means shortening the steps and removing any unnecessary screening requirements that it takes to apply. Here are some more tips on how to simplify your application process.
4. Make onboarding personal.
Although the recruiting volume for staffing agencies is higher than the average company, delivering a positive experience means making it personal to each employee. It’s important for recruiters to find the right balance between customization and spending too much time on this aspect versus other recruiting duties. It may surprise you how far a personalized email to a new employee can go in terms of enhancing his or her onboarding experience.
In a tight labor market, finding simple ways to boost recruiting efforts can help your staffing agency stand out from the competition. By creating a positive onboarding experience for each temporary employee, you can improve employee engagement and increase retention rates for your staffing agency. For more tips on how to improve the employee experience from recruiting to back office services, contact us today!
