A**recruitment funnel** is a tool that helps recruiters and HR departments visualize every step in the process of recruiting new employees to a company from sourcing to hiring. Ideally, this process involves attracting as many potential leads as possible in the wide opening of the funnel and narrowing the pool until one or more suitable candidates remain.
It used to be that when companies were hiring new employees, they would simply post vacancy announcements on the Internet and other media, expecting someone to respond. Now they need to be much more precise in their approach to recruitment. After all, targeting a more specific group of applicants allows entrepreneurs to access the best potential employees. This also includes passive candidates who may not be looking for a job right now. But in the long run, they may think of your company first when they enter the job market again.
But even if, by chance or not, the candidate you want, who meets all the requirements, responds to a job posting, it's not a given that they'll actually get the job. There's a saying in the sales world, "time kills all deals." This also applies to hiring. If you have a slow recruiting process and it takes a candidate a long time to get to know and get comfortable with your organization and its principles, you may be giving other companies the opportunity to poach that person.
Recruiting today is a whole science: you need to study the labor market, collect data and analyze. And one of the key tools of HR analytics is the recruitment funnel.
## Why you need a recruitment funnel
Breaking down your recruitment funnel into multiple stages is a great way to understand where you spend most of your time on recruitment and where you need to invest more resources. A common mistake is to put a lot of effort at the bottom of the funnel (candidate screening, interviewing, and hiring) but not enough at the top of the funnel.
Recruitment Funnel
Understanding your recruitment funnel as a whole will help you think strategically about attracting talent.
#### Types of recruitment funnels
Recruitment funnels are categorized into forward and reverse funnels based on the way they are constructed. Each type solves different problems. The first ones help you analyze and improve your employee search, while the second ones allow you to predict the timing of a job closing.
Straightforward
A direct recruitment funnel is built from top to bottom. The process of such a funnel is shown in the direction from the resume selection stage to the new employee's exit to the job. The HR specialist tracks how the number of people changes at each stage. The straight funnel highlights at which stage the most candidates drop out and helps to understand why this happens.
Reverse
The reverse recruitment funnel is built from bottom to top. The scheme is based on real statistics of closed vacancies. The analytics are based on information about how many people on average pass each stage and how long it took to hire an employee. The tool allows you to predict how long the HR department will be looking for people for similar positions in the future.
## How to put together a recruitment funnel
A recruitment**funnel **is essentially a blueprint for your recruiting process. Recruiters need to visualize or study the candidate journey to map all the touchpoints and develop a funnel. You can also choose between popular funnel model approaches or create your own. But the most important thing is to conduct the following:
- **Analyze the company's needs.** Identify the company's current and future staffing needs. Also identify the key competencies and skills of in-demand employees.
- **Highlighting key milestones.** Make a list of the stages a potential employee must go through from application to hiring. Identify which of these steps are critical to the position.
- **Setting selection criteria.** Define clear criteria by which you will evaluate candidates at each stage of the recruitment funnel.
- **Established communication with the recruitment team.** Provide the recruitment team with clear guidance on the expected actions at each stage. At the same time, provide training to recruiters on how to use the funnel and evaluate candidates.
- **Test funnel.** Start with a smaller number of job openings or a pilot project. Track effectiveness and gather feedback from the recruiting team. Make adjustments to the funnel to adapt it to changing needs.
- **Regular evaluation.** Systematically review data from the recruitment process and evaluate the effectiveness of the funnel.
## Stages of the recruitment funnel
The stages may be different for each company. However, they usually consist of the following elements:
1. **Attracting candidates**
2. **Screening resumes**
3. **Conducting interviews**
4. **Evaluating candidates**
5. **Hiring an employee**
**It is worth considering the stages in more detail.**
#### Attracting candidates
The first step in the recruitment funnel is the process of sourcing and attracting candidates, which begins with a well-written job advertisement. This stage is crucial because the quantity and quality of applications depend on it.
#### Resume Selection
¨NBSP;SimpleOne HRMS Recruitment Request
In this stage, recruiters are tasked with not only reviewing applications, but above all, initiating interactions with potential employees. This stage plays a crucial role in keeping candidates interested and providing them with the information they need to participate in further stages of the recruitment funnel.
**What's important at this stage:**
- Providing quick answers to candidates' questions so they feel appreciated and noticed.
- Scheduling and conducting pre-interviews to get to know prospective employees better.
#### Conducting interviews
This stage in the recruitment funnel is the most obvious of all. Here, the candidate goes through several levels of interviews depending on the company structure (e.g., aptitude test > group discussion > technical interview) to assess how suitable the candidate is for the position. The interview stage helps to find out the person's personality, technical and social skills.
#### Candidate Assessment
SimpleOne HRMS Candidate Profile
The **assessment stage** is a crucial point in the recruitment process, where the recruiter scrutinizes whether the candidate meets all the necessary requirements set by the company. This verification is based on various analysis methods such as in-depth interviews, test cases or personality tests.
**At this stage, several aspects should be emphasized when evaluating candidates:**
- Conducting interviews to identify flexible skills, work motivation and alignment with the company's values.
- Providing an opportunity for direct contact with the potential manager or team, allowing for a more detailed assessment of abilities.
- Using specialized psychometric tests, skills tests or industry knowledge assessments for objective evaluation.
#### Employee Recruitment
The final step in the recruitment funnel is hiring an employee. When a prospective employee accepts a job offer, the recruiter must carefully ensure that formalities are followed to ensure a smooth and efficient hiring process.
**What's important at this stage:**
- Formal confirmation of the candidate's acceptance of the terms and conditions of employment.
- Assigning a start date and time for the new employee.
- Familiarizing the employee with the scope of duties, company rules, introduction to the team and work environment.
- Checking documents, signing contracts and other necessary administrative documents.
## Recruitment funnel conversion rate: how to calculate it?
Recruitment conversion rate refers to the proportion of successful candidates hired among all job openings during a certain period. This KPI for HR is an ideal way to determine if the department is doing well. If recruiters are unable to fill the majority of vacancies with qualified candidates, the recruitment strategies chosen fail and the company is essentially incurring losses.
To calculate the hiring conversion rate, divide the number of newly hired employees by the total number of open positions and multiply the result by 100%.
For example, if there were 10 open positions and the number of new hires was 2, the hiring **funnel conversion rate would be 20%.**
Calculate on a monthly or quarterly basis. **Healthy rate: above 75%.**
## Evaluating the effectiveness of your recruitment funnel
Here are some useful recruitment metrics that every HR professional and recruiter should track to improve the recruitment funnel:
- **Source of hire.** Knowing where candidates are coming from is paramount to continually improving your hiring strategy.
- **Hiring timing.** The best candidates won't wait forever, so you need to make sure the hiring process is progressing in an adequate timeframe.
- **Cost of Hiring.** Cost of hiring is a central issue when it comes to calculating and managing your hiring budget.
**The formula for calculating the cost of hiring is as follows:**
Formula for calculating the cost of hiring
Total internal recruiting expenses + external recruiting expenses / total number of hired employees
Internal recruiting costs include recruiters' salaries, fixed costs related to infrastructure, etc. While external recruiting costs include advertising costs, technology investments, participation in job fairs, travel and/or relocation costs, signing bonuses, etc.
There are many ways to assess how candidates feel about your recruitment method. For example, you can conduct a survey or ask for feedback at the end of the application process and at each stage of the recruitment funnel. No matter how you choose to do it, it's important to look at the ratings and feedback provided by candidates and work to improve the aspects that received a negative response.
#### Optimize your recruitment funnel
Knowing how to use KPIs is one thing, but knowing what to do with that information is another. Based on the information provided, you need to find ways to optimize your recruiting funnel.
**Here are some of the easiest and most effective ways to do this.**
- Clearly define the stages of the recruiting funnel specific to your business.
- Carefully consider what each stage includes, why it's important, and what the expected outcome of each stage is.
- Enlist the support of all stakeholders. If you have a well-designed funnel, but parts of it aren't working because of some individual team members, it will fail.
- Identify areas where automation is useful. Automation can be a big bonus. From reading and evaluating resumes to sending out evaluations, automation can streamline the process and provide candidates with a better understanding and experience of your organization.
- Standardize your processes with workflows. Your recruitment process is an integral part of your organization's growth and development strategy. This means that each step in the funnel should have clearly defined procedures.
- Identify areas to minimize. Look for areas that can be reduced/eliminated (e.g., fewer interviews and tasks). Think about collecting resumes, answering questions that have already been asked, background checks, or screening. Simplifying and minimizing the amount of time and effort per candidate will save you money.
Recruiting: automate the hiring process
#### Automating the recruitment funnel
Selecting the right people to fill a position in a company that meets all expectations is a daunting and exhausting task that can end up selecting the least suitable person.
Hr Metrics Reports: SimpleOne HRMS
This task can consume a lot of time that could be spent on more important activities. And automating the process with professional software [(HRMS systems)]() can significantly reduce this time.
**Recruiters add the most value** when they apply their unique expertise. For example, deciding whether to give one candidate a chance despite other more suitable people. That candidate may not meet all the requirements now, but with the right approach, they could be more successful than anyone else. And an experienced recruiter will see that.
**Recruiters add the least amount of value** to the mechanics of the recruitment process. For example, sifting through hundreds of unsuitable applicants, scheduling interviews, and reformatting job postings for a dozen different job boards. This is where recruitment automation makes sense.
**Let's take a look at the various recruitment touchpoints that lend themselves well to automation.**
**Resume Search.** Searching for resumes can be long and demotivating as recruiters go through endless pages of resumes on external job boards. And make countless calls only to discover that resumes are outdated, candidates have long been employed or are being processed by other recruiters.
The more robust your resume database is, the less time you spend hiring and the lower your costs. [HRMS]() can analyze your job requirements against your database to automatically suggest appropriate resumes.
**Pre-screening (pre-screening).** There is screening **(which stands for pre-screening)** and then there is pre-screening **.** Pre-screening means that you include predetermined "killer questions" at the very beginning of an applicants application. These are questions that result in automatic rejection if applicants give the wrong answer.
**For example,** **"are you a citizen of the Russian Federation?". Or "do you have a driver's license?"**
**Automating pre-screening** means recruiters don't waste time reviewing resumes that are definitely not a good fit, and job seekers don't waste their time on an unnecessary matching process.
**Automated shortlisting and rejection.** Recruitment technology can take automation to the next level by selecting or rejecting candidates based on their scores on a pre-screening questionnaire.
**For example, 65% of candidates score between 20 and 40 points on a pre-screening questionnaire. But 20% score less than 20 points and 15% score more than 40 points.**
Instead of recruiters having to manually identify the 20% who need to be eliminated right away or the 15% who need to be interviewed as soon as possible, you can automate the process. That way, the best candidates get an interview quickly and you don't risk losing them.
**Automated translations for international recruitment.** If you recruit internationally, you probably spend hours localizing your process into other languages.
And if you don't have native speakers for recruiters in every geography, either recruiters or candidates are forced to interview in a language they're not comfortable with. This creates room for misjudgments that affect the experience of future employees and the quality of the hire.
If this is about you, look for recruitment technology that automates localization so that applicants interact with you (every screen; every email; every button) in their language, without having to hire translators or manually translate. And if you're conducting video interviews, look for software that automatically translates candidate responses using [AI-assisted]() transcription.
Automation ensures that international recruiting reflects the same candidate experience and delivers the same quality of hire as local recruiting, with no delays.
**Candidate Communication.** If you're recruiting on a large scale, your recruiters are probably sending the same messages thousands of times. For example, interview invitations or requests for references.
Automating these moments can save your recruiting team hours each week. Create messages once (or customize them based on pre-made templates, depending on your recruiting technology), and then they are automatically sent at the right time to the right people. Usually with personalization tags, so they feel like a personal communication.
It's much faster and much more consistent. Nothing is forgotten, no delays and no accidental miscommunications.
You'll never exclude people from the staffing industry. But automating elements of the recruitment process makes sense, bringing consistency, efficiency and speed to manual, inefficient processes. So your recruiters can add more value by doing what they do best.
## Conclusion
The priority of every recruiter is to hire the best talent that fits the position and company culture. These processes are increasingly time-consuming as the number of potential applicants keeps growing, and it becomes increasingly difficult to track a candidate and map out the right path for him/her throughout the hiring process.
Navigating the recruiting landscape can often feel like the beginning of a complex journey where each step presents its own unique challenges and opportunities. It's important for recruiters to understand the intricacies of the process, especially in today's competitive marketplace where attracting top talent is critical.
That's where the recruitment funnel comes into play. From attracting and engaging candidates to selecting and retaining the best fit for your organization, a recruitment funnel can help you build a high-performing team.
