Many of our clients often ask us how we secure the best talent from the industry. The immediate answer is our passion! However, to deep dive into it further- is the mode of our operation. We follow a methodology to bring out the best candidate experience for the job seekers and supply the best candidates to our clients. One term that is gaining popularity these days is the Hiring Funnel. And yes, we too use this in our recruitment strategies, just like our marketing friends use a similar one in their domains. 

From a practical standpoint, a funnel is a simple means to narrow down a broad audience, where every step is appropriately measured and optimized. While for marketers, a funnel is used to turn a prospect into a customer, on our side of the world, a hiring funnel is used to create an engaged audience to be valuable brand ambassadors. 

Is Hiring Funnel and Candidate Journey the same? 

Both the hiring funnel and candidate journey are used to engage the candidates, but there are many ways they do differ in producing better results. The candidate journey is a set of experiences that touches various candidate touchpoints while exploring a new opportunity. Contrastingly, a typical hiring funnel consists of five levels that help businesses narrow down a vast talent pool to attract, assess, and hire the best candidates for a specific role. 

Why do you need a hiring funnel in your recruitment strategy?

First of all, a well-strategized hiring funnel, or recruitment funnel as it is otherwise known, can boost recruitment teams’ productivity to great heights. They can communicate and collaborate better with critical stakeholders. We’ve heard about Pipeline Management in Sales, but in the recruitment industry, managing candidate pipeline becomes more significant with a proper hiring funnel in place. 

Let’s take a deep dive into the various stages of the hiring funnel and see how we elevate the candidate experience and secure the best talent for our clients. How hiring funnel works and the strategies you need to use to get the best out of your hiring initiatives and talent experience. 

Stage One: Awareness Building

In this stage, the candidate learns about the job, the roles, and responsibilities. Posting a job with roles and responsibilities is not what makes a marvellous job posting. We try to bring out more information like the value-added benefits that the client provides to make sure it creates the best impression about our client in the candidate’s mind. Information like the company’s culture, the roadmap to success, the benefits and perks, the hiring process description, and the like emphasizes more on the candidate’s mind to apply for the position. The ultimate goal of this stage is to initiate a positive interest in the candidate and get them to apply for the post. 

Stage Two: Consideration 

Now that our website and job portals are all up and ready, our CATS (Candidate Assessment and Tracking System) assesses the job applicant resumes and does the first filtering to give us the candidates who are seriously looking for the advertised roles. Our trained recruiters then screen the resumes and segregate the candidates into two categories: Selected to talk; Not fit for now but for later usage. We have a 3D model of screening candidates, which involves screening them from three perspectives: technical skills, soft skills, and corporate culture to ensure they are the best fit for our clients. Once the selected candidates pass this consideration phase, they are moved into the next funnel stage. 

Stage Three: Interview

Most recruitment agencies at this stage will submit the candidate to the client’s hiring manager and let the parties deal with each other. Where we stand apart is the talent experience we inject at this stage of hiring. The qualified candidate at this stage is given a complete understanding of the brand with whom they will work. We have already qualified the candidate to understand that they will be a good fit for the organization. But in our funnel, this is the time when we inject all the best things about our client that makes the candidate more confident to give in his/her best shot in the formal interview with the client. Our job is not over here. When our candidate finishes the interview, we reach out to the hiring manager to find out their observations and try to understand the rationale behind moving the candidate to the next step of the funnel. 

Stage 4: Decision Making and Follow-Ups 

The decision-makers had decided who was on the list for the new role to be filled in. This decision is usually made based on a scorecard. Every candidate goes through pre-defined criteria for selection and is rated against by the hiring manager and the panel that interviewed the candidates. Our job here at this stage is just not a mediator to pass an email saying “Congratulations” or “Sorry.” We take our candidates very seriously, just like our clients in business. We check the scorecards, discuss them in detail with both parties, analyze the conversations, and open up another branch of our talent care, where special teams groom these candidates for the following available opportunities. 

Stage 5: The Offer 

After all the assessments, background checks, and interview scores, the offer is sent out to the candidate, and we are notified of this process first. At this point, we don’t shoot an email to the candidate or connect with a congratulatory call. We stand out from our peers in this process as we try to elevate the client’s culture, benefits, and perks at this point, once again to create an elevated experience of achievement for the candidate and brand accomplishment for our client. This recap also helps our candidates accept the offer quickly and start strong in the new organization based on their skills and capabilities. 

Our success with our candidates is highly based on our talent care and advocacy programs. We treat our candidates as our brand ambassadors and have follow-up meetings to understand how they are acclimatizing to their new roles and workplaces. We voice their concerns to our clients and help them grow just like a gardener grows their saplings into flowers in different pots!  

Talent acquisition is complex, but things become more transparent for teams and clients with a hiring funnel. If you are a job seeker, remember that we are an agency that stands with you in your candidate journey! Contrarily, suppose you are one of our potential clients. In that case, we have a good market reputation as one of Canada’s Best managed companies for the past eight years, overlooking our talent pool and supplying the cream talent to our clients with the lowest attrition rate! Get in touch with us to know more about our strategies and technologies to make hiring a smooth process.