Tailoring the Talent Journey: The Power of Customized Applicant Flows in Hospitality
- By Harri Insider Team | August 15, 2023
The hiring process in the hospitality industry can be tedious and stressful, but what if you could save time and remove some of the stress by using a customized applicant flow? There are ways to tailor the path from step one all the way through to onboarding your new hire, and customised applicant flows are one tool you can use to make it happen.
 What exactly is a customized applicant flow for talent acquisition? Simply put, it is creating a custom data flow in your hiring process, a workflow that increases efficiency and scalability for your Human Resources team. Because each company can structure it to meet its needs, it will be unique to your business and give you a leg up in finding the best candidates for any open positions.
The Power of Personalization in Talent Acquisition
Every hospitality business will have a few things in common: seasonal or trending hiring schedules, the need for flexibility, increased turnover, and diverse teams that require oversight to treat all employees like individuals. How each business best achieves that will be different. Some businesses are already using AI in their talent acquisition process, while others haven’t jumped on board yet. If that’s you, you may find yourself looking at utilizing talent acquisition software by the time you’re done reading this article!
Hiring approaches used to be fairly one-size-fits-all. Create a generic job description, list it in all the usual places online and off, maintain a list of applicants, set up interviews with the top candidates, select the person who seems the best fit, put them through the onboarding process, and move on to the next open position. But, as time goes on and the hiring landscape changes, particularly post-pandemic when companies have developed different work styles and environments, we are finding there are gaps in that old approach.
If businesses take a deep dive into historical hiring data, most can find large areas of wasted time and effort. And it’s not just adding to workloads but also to business expenses. Finding a way to streamline the hiring process cuts back on time while lowering the amount of money spent per hire. (And if your business isn’t doing the math to know what that is, that could be your starting point! Knowing this figure before and after changing your hiring process enables you to confirm the necessity of the new approach and defend any expenses that this new system costs to create.)
Creating a customized talent acquisition workflow not only results in acquiring the best candidates that may have been otherwise overlooked but also gives you a growing talent pipeline to refer to when hiring. Why attract candidates that aren’t what you need? Switching things up in this process allows you to focus on those with the specific skill set and experience each role needs, providing you that extra time to engage with them properly from beginning to end.
With Harri’s Candidate CRM, you can tag candidates, such as those with valuable experience but not suitable for the current role, and place them into a dedicated group at any point during the candidate journey, marking them for potential future opportunities and helping to build a valuable talent pool for open positions at alternative locations or brands.Â
Even if they aren’t the right fit for the current role, these candidates are more likely to consider future opportunities with your company. Harri’s Candidate CRM technology also allows you to automate communications and engagement, enabling you to implement a recruitment marketing strategy that enhances the candidate experience and allows you to efficiently share job opportunities with individuals in your talent pool.
And think about how happy your Human Resources team will be when their own jobs are easier, and they can spend more time on what they do best!
Exploring the Concept of Customized Applicant Flows
A customized applicant flow will differ for each business, but here is a basic outline of what one could look like in the hospitality industry.
Let’s consider the one-size-fits-all approach listed above, but revise it customized for your hospitality business. Candidate sourcing can stop being a spray-and-pray and, instead, be a more prioritized and automated list of job listing sites that have proven successful for your business. Use AI to help develop the listing first, so it is diverse, inclusive, and specific, yet precise enough to make it easily searchable for candidates, including keywords job seekers may look for.
When candidates respond, you could use AI to narrow down the process or an automated screening process online, including tests or a place to host online interviews. Everything goes into a database that each hiring manager can access instead of wasting time with emails and phone calls between managers and Human Resources. That online system can also include a communication module, allowing candidates to ask questions and set up interviews from open slots in a visible calendar. (One way to further simplify that part of the process is to host interviews one or two set days per week, which disrupts everyone’s schedules and productivity less.)
Communication throughout the entire workflow can really eat into everyone’s time, too, but this can also be customized. Create a database of templates for letters thanking those you don’t hire, offer letters, and other candidate requests. Having these presets means no one must create something on the fly or hope they’re using proper wording; they can be reused as often as necessary. Also, having your legal team or counsel review them first is always a good idea.
This entire process can be further customized per department, team, or location anywhere a business deems necessary. Some hotel locations, for example, have different hours or off-seasons than others, and some restaurants will require candidates to have particular training or experience, and piping those candidates through workflows customized solely for them means they get a better experience and hiring managers are able to focus on each individual role while hiring multiple candidates in varying departments at once. You can also have a unique onboarding system for every department.
Enhancing the Candidate Experience with Customized Applicant Flows
At some point in their working life, every job seeker has applied to a company that looked good on paper, but your perception changes when you begin the application process. They may be disorganized, an interview may start very late or be missed entirely, and communication may never arrive or be abrupt, leaving a candidate feeling neglected, disappointed, and wondering why they wasted the time. Even if someone applies that doesn’t fit the role at all, we still always want to convey respect and gratitude; not only are they humans worthy of kindness in a general sense, but they may fit the role in the future. Leaving them a bad taste about a company never ends well. They may tell their family members or friends about their experience or publicly share their experience, damaging an otherwise good reputation or discouraging others from applying.
Using talent acquisition software will prevent any of that from happening. Your optimization will show candidates they are appreciated, that their time is respected, and that you see them as a person, not just a name on a resume. It will give them a better feeling about it, even if they don’t get that current job, and they will speak positively of your company and anyone they interact with. It also will show them that your company is organized and professional instead of throwing red flags that any negativity shown during the hiring process could be an indication of more significant problems later.
Being organized during the interview process also lowers drop-off rates. No one wants to feel their resume has fallen into a black hole. Engagement via an automated system will help keep them engaged, interested, and hopeful.
The Benefits of Customized Applicant Flows
To further the practice of customizing your talent acquisition process, let’s talk a little more about the benefits of treating each candidate as a respected individual. No one wants their time wasted, so requiring every job seeker to take a test that only applies to certain roles just because it’s ‘part of the process’ can be a reason people drop out. There’s no need to make candidates jump through hoops that don’t help anyone. Removing obstacles gets someone hired faster. There is also no need to have three separate interviews if each interviewer will ask the same questions; having a uniform interview template personalized to each specific role is in everyone’s best interests.
Lastly, don’t overlook the importance of referring to your candidates by name. When blanket emails go out, omitting their names, they may feel they weren’t seen as a person. Proper communication systems easily avoid this. Job seekers are already nervous about acing an interview and may need the encouragement that humanization gives them. It’s such a small thing that speaks volumes.
Leveraging Talent Acquisition Software in Customizing Applicant Flows
All of this may sound overwhelming to implement, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, you don’t need to invent anything. Harri has done it all for you. Sign up, configure the system (with our help), and you’ll be on your way to a customized talent acquisition workflow that will streamline the hiring process for everyone involved.
Talent acquisition software has different options to consider, but there are a few big items to look for in software: talent attraction, two-way communication, phone call and interview scheduling, candidate tracking, talent pool/pipeline management, onboarding, and if you want, post-hire workforce management for all your employees.
Transform Talent Recruitment with Harri
Once you get your hiring process organized and automated, you’re going to wonder how you ever lived without it. You’ll have eliminated the struggle to find and retain good people. The time it takes to set it up initially will pay for itself many times over. Your existing employees will be happier, and future employees will appreciate what you’ve implemented to make their experiences more positive. Making it easier to find, interview, and onboard your new hires will turn a once-dreaded process into something everyone will be glad to be a part of! Reach out to us for a demo. We’re here to answer your questions and help customize your hiring processes!
