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Candidate-Centric and Cost-Effective: Walmart's Strategic Move to Talkpush for Technical Aptitude Tests

October 31, 2023
5 min read
Having closely worked with Walmart on this transformative project, I'm thrilled to share our collaborative journey. We embarked on a mission to enhance Walmart's recruitment process, focusin...
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      Nikky Enemchukwu
      Nikky Enemchukwu
      Recruitment Automation Expert at Talkpush

      Phone Screening vs Automated Screening: Which One is Right for You?

      Ready to level up your recruitment?
      Let’s jump on a call and explore how Talkpush can help your team.

      An automated screening process can help employers handle 100x the application volume and hire faster without increasing the recruitment team's headcount!

       

      prescreening-1We understand the desire to speed up your recruitment journey and onboard quality hires as quickly as yesterday, but for many employers, this desire will continue to remain an ideal scenario rather than a reality unless they embrace innovative recruitment strategies.

      Are there steps in your current recruitment journey that should be automated or even skipped entirely? Do you need help identifying these steps? You are in the right place. Let's explore screening strategies in the recruitment funnel.

       

       

      60% of employers say that the screening process is usually the most time-consuming stage in recruitment.

       

      This is especially true when employers have to use archaic or manual techniques to shortlist qualified candidates early on in the process. 

      The good news is that you can shorten this screening period to a matter of just days, even when engaging in high-volume recruitment! Technological advancements have improved and, in some cases, eliminated recruitment practices that overwhelm recruiting teams, lengthen screening periods, and lower productivity. 

       

      Implementing an effective recruitment strategy will involve speeding up time-consuming processes like phone screening and manual interview scheduling that cause delays and result in high candidate drop-offs and a longer time to hire.

       

       

      Phone Screening vs Automated Screening

       

      Phone screening is an initial call made to candidates before an interview is scheduled. It's a way for recruiters to screen candidates for culture fit, determine if they possess the right personality and professionalism and if they meet certain expectations required for the job. Usually, these phone screening interviews last about 30 minutes. Now, imagine that a recruiter has to screen at least 100 candidates in order to schedule them for an interview - this is 300 person-hours expended on just pre-screening candidates. These valuable hours can be expended on more crucial tasks. 

       

       

      For global BPO company Transcom, with over 29,000 employees and facing increased hiring demands in the Philippines, ramping up hiring would almost be impossible if valuable hours are expended on phone screening candidates. See what they did differently.

       

       

      Automated screening, on the other hand, involves using a tool that can administer a predetermined set of questions to applicants via their preferred communication channel like WhatsApp or other messaging channels and then carry on personalized, asynchronous, and even synchronous conversations with the candidates. This tool has to be rich and flexible enough to allow audio and video responses and also be able to communicate in multiple languages in order to provide an exceptional experience to candidates. 

      So what are the major differences between phone screening and automated screening? We've compiled some of them below:

       

      Phone Screening Automated Screening
      Screening begins 24 - 48 hours after the candidate's first interaction with the company, which results in low response time to candidates Screening happens in real-time within the first few minutes of the candidate's first interaction with your brand, which improves the response time to candidates.
      Typically lasts 20 - 30 minutes The process can be completed within 5 - 10 minutes
      The screening process is not usually objective as it requires a recruiter who may have some personal bias that will favor a certain segment of the talent pool The process is objective as it does not require a recruiter. It is perfectly calibrated and consistent for every candidate
      It can result in high phone bills Telephone bills are not usually incurred
      Costs thousands of dollars in manpower Cost varies from a few cents to a few dollars per candidate
      Candidates may not be reachable for a phone screening which can yield low application completion rates Candidates can complete screening at their own time via preferred communication mediums which yield higher completion rates

       

       

      Cost Evaluation: Phone Screening vs Automated Screening

       

      In today’s mobile-first world, meeting your talent where they live is a critical success factor in your recruitment strategy. This is why many employers are embracing social recruiting as a means of meeting volume hiring demands since social media usage among young adults is very high, and the cost of attracting leads via social channels is competitively low.

       

      However, the number of leads attracted via social channels, although very high, need to be qualified before they are shortlisted. A manual process of qualifying these leads would involve downloading these leads from social sourcing channels like Facebook, assigning the leads to recruiters for processing, calling the candidates to pre-screen them, and when the candidates are not reachable, recruiters have to call them again to ensure they are screened. So for companies that use social media for hiring, although the external cost per hire (marketing costs) is comparatively very low, the process of qualifying these leads will result in a really high internal cost per hire. Total cost per hireWith automated screening, social sourcing and candidate processing is more efficient. Leads from various social sourcing channels are centralized in the recruiting platform. Recruiters do not have to engage with unqualified leads as the recruitment tool takes care of the screening process, disqualifies candidates who do not meet set criteria, and ensures recruiters only engage with qualified candidates who meet the job requirement. The automated screening process is cost-efficient and results in lower external and internal costs per hire.

      after automation

      Automating Candidate Screening

      The job market is evolving, and organizations that do not adapt to changes in candidate behavior will continue to lose a considerable percentage of qualified candidates to the competition.

      Research suggests that although millennials may live on their phones, they do not like to pick up phone calls for many reasons, including the fact that it is too time-consuming. More so, a phone call from an unknown number will likely go unanswered, which means candidates are not being reached. 

      Automating screening can eliminate the arduous task of phone screening entirely and speed up the candidate selection process.

       

       

      When Should You Automate Screening?

      automating candidate prescreening 2

       

      1. If you are engaging in multiple interviews

      Volume hiring comes with many challenges, including managing the number of applications received per vacancy. Automated screening can help you set parameters that will disqualify candidates who do not meet your requirements, discontinuing them from moving on in the application journey and reducing the amount of grunt work your recruiters do.

       

      2. If you do not want to increase your current number of recruiters

      Employers who do not want to increase hiring costs can use automation to ensure that recruiters do not feel overwhelmed with the sheer number of applications received per vacancy. Automating certain stages of the recruitment process, like the screening process, can ensure recruiters only engage with qualified candidates. This frees them up to focus on other more important hiring tasks that can speed up conversion.

       

      3. If you are facing time-sensitive schedules

      When faced with tight deadlines and need to be fast and detailed without sacrificing the quality of your candidate engagement strategy, automating candidate engagement can help deliver asynchronous, synchronous, and personalized conversations to candidates throughout their recruitment journey.

      Even when you need to test for language ability in the pre-screening stage, a simple language test tool can be seamlessly integrated into your top-of-the-funnel hiring stage, quickly disqualifying those who do not have the desired language proficiency.

       

      4. If you want to improve candidate experience

      Candidates do not want to wait around for recruiters to eventually call them just for interviews. These processes can be stressful, especially if the recruitment process will require multiple video interviews in later stages. Automated candidate pre-screening reduces anxiety and gives candidates a fair chance to answer questions without feeling pressured. They can even delete their pre-screening responses multiple times until they get it right before submitting applications.

       

      5. If you want data-backed processes for accurate reporting

      Do you need to accurately report the number of applicants who went through pre-screening and submitted applications? Your pre-screening tool should accurately represent those figures so you can make better hiring decisions. Do you have an increased number of incomplete applications? Perhaps your screening questions are too much and need to be reduced. An efficient tool can show you this valuable data at a glance.

       

      Implementing Automated Screening

      CEOs image redesign-01

      Over the years, we've seen various recruiting technologies come and go. As machine learning continues to evolve rapidly, new generations of automated screening tools are making it easier to process applications quickly and cut down lengthy screening processes. These tools are powered by AI and can carry on automated screening interviews. Screening candidates, keeping them engaged throughout the application journey, and ensuring a great candidate experience can also be augmented via social media and instant messaging. Your automation tool must be flexible enough to integrate with your various sourcing channels, whether job boards or social media.

       

      Companies like iQor in the Philippines integrate with Talkpush, the leading automated recruitment platform, to pool all their sourcing channels in one place, screen candidates faster, gain transparency on the performance of sourcing channels, and increase candidate satisfaction rates.

       

      So, what can you do to ensure you are automating the right way in volume recruitment so that valuable data won't get lost in the sea of already existing tech?

      We will go over factors to consider when automating your application process.

       

       

      Technical Factors To Consider When Automating Screening

      • Will you be redirecting interested applicants who click on your job ads to landing pages, instant messaging channels, or other social media channels? Or will they be completing the application right there on the job site? For example, Talkpush can collect leads directly from your sourcing channels.

      • How many questions will applicants have to answer? Will the responses be in text, audio, or video format? The automation tool should be able to collect all forms of files.

      • Where will submitted responses be stored, and how will they look at the back end? A traditional ATS is not usually equipped to handle integration with your social media sourcing channels and pre-screening functions. So will the recruiting team log into a separate automation platform that can be integrated with your ATS? Can this separate platform integrate with your ATS? For example, Talkpush integrates with major ATSs and can store all forms of files for processing.

      • Will the submitted responses be segmented into different folders in the backend to simplify processing for recruiters?

      Integrating Talkpush Into Your Tech Stack

       

      Talkpush is a recruitment automation platform that allows employers to automate their recruitment processes, engage at scale on social media and improve the candidate experience. This robust platform automates your hiring process so you can maximize your high-volume hiring results.

       

      Talkpush captures leads from your various sourcing channels, including job sites and Facebook ads, in one place, creates a profile for each lead, and immediately prescreens them. These leads are then segmented into different folders to show those who have completed the application process, incomplete applications, qualified and unqualified candidates for easy management.

       

      With Talkpush, you can engage with candidates at scale on social media, guiding them through the application journey, keeping them informed, and interacting with them via their preferred messaging channels, including Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook, and more. With Talkpush, employers can even personalize candidate engagement even in asynchronous conversations, thus improving the candidate experience.

       

       

      Want to see how Talkpush can automate your candidate screening process and improve your hiring results?

       

      Schedule a Demo