Instinctive hiring may be a complex process. It might be difficult to know what to do or the next step to take, no matter where you are in the recruitment funnel. The leading recruiters rely on empirical evidence to make more informed hiring decisions.

If this is your first time hearing about data-driven hiring strategies, you’ve come to the right place. First, we’ll review the components of a typical recruitment process before diving into why leveraging data, analytics, and recruiting metrics is the most effective strategy for finding and attracting qualified candidates.

Let’s not waste any more time and get started.

What is a Recruiting Funnel?

In its most basic definition, a recruiting funnel is a set of steps recruiters take to oversee an opening from beginning to end.

What does the word “funnel” even mean? In many aspects, recruiting is a numbers game, including eliminating unqualified applicants until a sufficient number of qualified ones remain. Like a funnel, it starts with a wide intake and reduces to a narrow discharge.

A standard recruitment funnel structure allows for more efficient mass evaluation of prospects in high-volume industries like recruiting.

The Recruiting Funnel

The steps of a recruitment funnel are distinct in their purpose and the results they produce. While every business has its own procedures for bringing in new employees, these are the common steps involved in the process.

Stage 1 – Being Aware

Raising your company’s profile among both passive and active job seekers is the first step in attracting quality leads. This is where recruitment strategies such as social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, and paid search advertisements come into play.

This knowledge usually develops gradually over time as employers sow seeds of information about the organization, its mission, and its benefits among potential employees.

You can easily separate yourself from the competition and catch the attention of qualified candidates by cultivating a distinctive employer brand.

Stage 2 – Interest

Motivating potential employees to apply for open positions is the primary focus of this phase of the recruitment funnel. To do this, you’ll enhance your Recruitment Marketing efforts to attract interested parties to your careers website.

Presenting your pitch is the next step. One common tactic is to write job postings that sound like thrilling adventures. At this point, you want to fully illustrate why you’re the greatest employer on the market because the best prospects have their pick of many attractive offers.

Stage 3 – Application

The next step is to get interested parties to click through from your career site to your application page.

You should streamline and simplify the application process as much as possible to receive a large volume of qualified applications. The more people you have applying for a job, the better your odds of getting hired.

In the future, we’ll discuss how to improve your application procedure for potential employees.

Stage 4 – Screening

The next step is conducting a preliminary screening to narrow the pool of applicants.

The key objective now that you’ve reached the funnel’s center is to minimize the numbers by eliminating candidates that aren’t right. After you’ve removed the weaker applicants, assessing the stronger ones will assist you in choosing who to promote.

Stage 5: Evaluating and Interviewing

Now that you’ve narrowed your pool of potential hires down to a manageable size, you can give each candidate a closer examination of their knowledge, abilities, and experience to determine who cuts.

In many companies, the interview process starts here, with candidates’ soft skills evaluated, their personality types explored, and their competence abilities assessed. Many companies utilize post-interview homework to replicate the realities of the workplace further.

Stage 6 – Hiring

You’ve reached the last stage of the recruiting process and are prepared to make a formal offer to the most qualified candidate. The next step is to negotiate the terms of employment with the candidate, taking into account everything learned about them throughout the application and interview processes.

As soon as a candidate accepts a role, the onboarding process may begin, laying the groundwork for that person to be successful in their new position.

Summary

The world of recruitment is a hectic one. It’s easy to make a hasty choice under pressure from recruiting managers and simultaneously be responsible for hundreds of applicants.

That’s why the most effective recruiters construct recruiting funnels that automatically use data to make judgments. It not only helps recruiters have a better work-life balance but also improves results, the candidate experience, and the recruiting process overall.

We think you won’t be sorry if you take the plunge into data-driven recruitment if you haven’t already.