Today’s job market is highly competitive, making it more challenging than ever for employers to hire qualified candidates. U.S. job openings recently reached a record high and the unemployment rate in Canada hit a new low, meaning employers must think of new ways to attract and hire talent before their competitors.
The hourly hiring market presents its own unique challenges for employers. While more than half of the U.S. workforce is paid hourly, there’s significant room for improvement with the recruitment and hiring process for hourly workers.
What can your business do to attract and hire qualified hourly workers faster? It starts with relying less on outdated systems and processes that slow down your hiring process and tapping into solutions specifically designed for hourly workers.
Below, we’ve outlined key drawbacks of traditional hiring methods including applicant tracking system (ATS) software, job boards and hiring agencies — along with best practices to support an efficient and engaging candidate experience for hourly workers.
Applicant Tracking Systems Complicate and Slow Down the Hiring Process
Applicant tracking systems are designed with a long, in-depth hiring process in mind. While this might work for highly skilled, technical and leadership positions, the in-depth application and lengthy process is inefficient for hourly and blue collar workers.
Overall, an ATS is essentially a database intended to keep track of applicants, not hire. And given the speed and volume at which hourly roles need to be filled, all the customization, configuration and detailed hiring steps required by an ATS are far too cumbersome to meet the needs of hourly recruitment and hiring.
The more complex a job application and the longer a hiring process, the more likely you are to lose top candidates to other opportunities. Up to 80% of candidates say that online applications through an ATS are stressful, difficult, and not a good experience. And, 70% of job seekers will not submit a job application if it takes longer than 15 minutes to complete, and both of these numbers are likely even higher for hourly candidates.
Job Boards Are Costly and Drive Low Quality Candidates
Most job boards have options to post job openings for free, but unfortunately, free job posts are often buried further down in search results than paid or sponsored posts. The dynamic pricing associated with job boards frustrates many employers and drives up hiring costs — the average cost per hire is $4,000.
The turnover rate for an hourly employee is more than 50%, with turnover costing companies an average of $3,500 per employee, so it’s critical to ensure you aren’t overspending on job boards only to have employees leave the company soon after joining because they either aren’t qualified or aren’t a fit.
Job boards also tend to deliver low quality candidates, resulting in job boards only driving 14.9% of hires. Job boards are cluttered with inactive job postings and duplicate jobs, and allow for anyone to apply for any position regardless of location or relative qualifications. Many job seekers simply click apply across numerous job board postings, even if they aren’t qualified, driving up costs for employers and leading to candidates who do not meet requirements.
With many hourly jobs, it’s important to attract candidates who are not only qualified, but available in the local market. Most hourly candidates work within a five-mile radius of their home, but with job boards and other traditional methods, up to 75% of applications received come from another country, which ends up leading to wasted recruitment budget.
Hiring Agencies are Expensive and Don’t Guarantee Results
Similar to job boards, enlisting the help of a hiring agency is expensive. The pricing models vary by agency, but costs you might incur include an initial finder’s fee and a percentage of the hourly rate for each employee hired. In some cases, hiring agencies also charge more for difficult to fill or highly competitive roles. When you hire at scale, as is the case for many companies with hourly workers, the costs add up quickly.
When you work with an agency, you can’t control the quality of candidates, don’t have full insight into their process for vetting a candidate’s qualifications and you’re competing against the agency’s other clients for the best candidates. There’s ultimately no guarantee of results and in a competitive hiring market like we’re in now, you face the risk that agencies will be in such a rush to place candidates that they don’t take enough time to truly dive into whether they’re qualified.
Hire Qualified Hourly Workers Faster with a Streamlined Hiring Process
In today’s ever-evolving job market, applicant tracking systems, job boards and hiring agencies are all outdated ways to attract and hire hourly workers. Instead of relying on these antiquated methods, AppyHere is a solution designed to hire hourly workers, and can help you simplify your hiring process and recruit faster.
Unlike an applicant tracking system, AppyHere streamlines the hiring process, creating an improved process for both candidates and hiring teams. While an applicant tracking system has about a 5-7% conversion rate (rate from click to apply), AppyHere’s conversion rate is around 24%.
Candidates can apply through the intuitive AppyHere app in ,less than two minutes, driving more candidates, faster. Candidates can also get an interview as soon as the day they apply, speeding up hiring and enabling each recruiter to recruit up to 50 candidates per week. In fact, up to 54% of candidates are hired after an AppyHere interview, compared to an hourly industry average of 18%.
A recent survey found that 37% of HR professionals say that their ATS has limited reporting and analytics to improve efficiency. With AppyHere, you have access to a wealth of data to track your recruiting team’s work and improve your hiring process. The app also automates manual and time consuming tasks, allowing your team to spend up to 80% less time evaluating non-qualified candidates.
Reduce Hiring Costs with Targeted Recruitment Marketing
Job boards and hiring agencies have proven to be costly hiring solutions and often deliver unqualified candidates. With AppyHere, candidates are matched with jobs that best fit their qualifications and AppyHere matches employers with candidates that are the best qualified for their open roles. As a result, AppyHere’s hiring partners reduce their hiring costs by up to 70%.
Through AppyHere’s recruitment marketing solution, you can take advantage of multi-channel candidate attraction campaigns to reach candidates across a variety of channels in an integrated and measurable way. This includes email campaigns, career sites, social media, job fairs, QR code, radio and TV ads, among other channels. Unlike job boards, AppyHere’s campaigns won’t break the bank. Campaigns are scalable and can be deployed within the budget typically allocated to other HR channels like job boards, regardless of the amount, allowing you to stay budget neutral.
Another advantage of AppyHere’s recruitment marketing solution is the capability to post jobs to local candidates. With specific geo-targeting, you can find job seekers who are geographically willing to work for you and don't spend money unnecessarily on candidates outside your target market.
Once you attract candidates through AppyHere campaigns, you can support an engaging candidate experience to get long, lasting results. With online ads or QR codes, targeted campaigns redirect candidates to the simple and intuitive AppyHere app so they can apply quickly, significantly improving conversion rates.
Improve Your Hourly Hiring Now
At AppyHere, our ultimate goal is to simplify the interactions between hiring companies and hourly job seekers, helping hire qualified talent faster. To date, we’ve partnered with employers to fill nearly 60,000 roles and we’re here to partner with you and achieve your hourly hiring goals. Learn more — speak with an expert today.
