Hourly workers are the backbone that keeps your company running smoothly. In fact, in many industries, your hourly workers may be the only point of contact that your customers have with your business. When you look at it from that perspective, the importance of having top-quality staff in those hourly positions becomes clear.

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Unfortunately, that is a tall order, and employers frequently report trouble keeping talent in these important roles. The high turnover rate of hourly positions doesn’t just increase your training costs, it also means you are dealing with a revolving door of partially trained employees, which creates business challenges.

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A top-notch hourly recruitment process is the best solution for reducing a high turnover rate. When you are filling roles with candidates who are an excellent fit for the role and have an interest in your company, you are more likely to have hourly workers who are committed to sticking around for a while.  

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In this article, we are going to take a deep dive into hourly recruitment strategies, identify the areas where you can improve your current practices, and share the proven strategies that will help you start attracting, hiring, and, most importantly, keeping hourly talent. 

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Simplify the Application Process for Hourly Workers

Audit your application process. For the best insight, ask one or two of your current hourly employees to “apply” for the position and provide their honest feedback about what works and what doesn’t. A lot of job posting and applicant processing tools are designed for corporate staffing. This means they often include extra steps that simply don’t make sense for hourly recruitment strategies.. 

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This hurdle is made even clearer when you take into account the fact that around 70% of hourly workers report their smartphone as their primary means of accessing job listings and applying to open positions. Complicated applications that require candidates to provide extra documents like a resume or cover letter are going to cause a lot of well-qualified applicants to abandon the process. 

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Keep your application as short and simple as possible. Determine the essential information that you need from your applicants and eliminate everything else. People often balk at this idea of dramatically reducing the amount of information they are collecting about applicants. They are concerned that they won’t have everything they need to choose the best candidate. But here’s a different perspective. What if you have never even had the opportunity to connect with the best candidate because your overly complicated application kept them from even throwing their hat in the ring?

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 A straightforward and quick application process will dramatically increase the number of applicants who complete the process, giving you a much larger pool of candidates to choose from. More candidates mean more chances to find the one that is an ideal fit for the role, a core principle in effective hourly recruitment strategies.

Digitize the Hourly Hiring Process for Maximum Efficiency

The time it takes to move through the hiring process is far more important to hourly employees than it generally is for salaried staff. While hiring for salaried positions can take an average of a month or more, hourly employees typically don’t have the luxury of being able to wait an entire month or more to start collecting a paycheck. 

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Digital tools and AI-powered automation are the secret to a speedy hiring process in hourly recruitment strategies. Leverage Recruitment Automation Software to automate time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks like applicant filtering, profile parsing, and scheduling the initial interviews. 

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The latest generative AI models can even conduct your initial candidate interviews for you. Chatbots can be programmed to answer the most common questions that candidates often ask and provide on-demand assistance throughout the application process. Automated email responses and text messages can be triggered at specific points in the process keeping the communication lines open and reducing the risk of candidates dropping out of the process part way through. 

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Use some or all of these tools to move qualified candidates through the hiring process as quickly as possible, and you will increase the likelihood of attracting and winning the hourly talent, highlighting the importance of effective hourly recruitment strategies.

Structured Interviews and Background Checks

In the digital age, the evolution of the hiring process has led to the increasing popularity of video interviews, especially for hourly workers. This method stands out for multiple reasons, making the recruitment process not only more efficient but also more accessible for both candidates and recruiters, a key aspect of hourly recruitment strategies.

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Video interviews offer the flexibility that is often crucial for hourly workers. They allow candidates to schedule interviews at times that are most convenient for them, eliminating the need to take time off from their current jobs—a luxury that many cannot afford. This flexibility ensures that you do not miss out on top talent simply because of scheduling conflicts.

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Furthermore, video interviews can significantly reduce the time it takes for recruiters to conduct interviews. This streamlined process means you can engage with more candidates in less time, accelerating the hiring cycle without compromising the quality of your recruitment efforts, a hallmark of successful hourly recruitment strategies.

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In addition to the video interviews, a background check can be an essential part of the recruitment process for hourly workers. Utilizing a reliable background check service can uncover any potential issues early on, ensuring that you make informed hiring decisions to maintain a safe and productive work environment, a critical measure in hourly recruitment strategies.

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Adopting video interviews for hourly recruitment offers a balanced approach—merging efficiency with the depth of candidate assessment. This method not only makes the hiring process more accessible for candidates but also helps recruiters identify the best talent more effectively, ultimately contributing to the success of your business and embodying the essence of hourly recruitment strategies.

Create a Mobile-Friendly Hiring Experience

The two most common age ranges for hourly workers are the 18 - 24 age cohort, followed by the 25 - 34 cohort. These two age groups are far more likely to be applying for open roles via their smartphones. so any part of the application process that does not play well with the mobile device parameters will cost you candidates. Understanding this mobile dependency is crucial for attracting and engaging top talent in hourly recruitment strategies.

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By prioritizing a mobile-friendly application process, you remove a significant barrier to entry for potential candidates. Streamline your applications, keep typing to the absolute minimum, and make sure that your entire application process is optimized for mobile devices, a cornerstone of hourly recruitment strategies.

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Rather than requiring that candidates upload a resume and cover letter, consider more mobile-friendly ways to get an idea of their personality and skills. Consider interactive multiple-choice survey-style assessments that ask candidates prequalifying questions to make sure they meet the basic requirements for the position. This approach not only streamlines the application process for candidates but also allows recruiters to quickly identify those who possess the desired qualifications and personality traits that align with the company's culture and needs, a smart tactic in hourly recruitment strategies. By leveraging such innovative screening methods, recruiters can more efficiently narrow down the pool of applicants, ensuring they spend time engaging with the best candidates who are most likely to suit the business needs, an effective practice within hourly recruitment strategies.

Rethink Job Advertising Strategies

Take advantage of the latest advertising and marketing innovations to attract hourly employees in the same way that you would attract customers.

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Programmatic Job Advertising modernizes the job posting process by leveraging the power of Data combined with sophisticated targeting algorithms to create a dynamic job posting campaign that displays your job posting wherever your ideal candidates are most likely to be. Your job postings might be shown on the news sites or entertainment apps that your candidates visit most often. They can also appear on social media platforms where your candidates tend to gather.

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The dynamic nature of these ads means that when your candidates shift their attention to a new location on the web the job posts tag along. Compared to traditional job posting boards, programmatic advertising offers a far broader reach, increased visibility, and more fine-tuned targeting to ensure that your job post is being seen by the right candidates for the role wherever they happen to be, an innovative hourly recruitment strategy that maximizes exposure and appeal to potential candidates.

Recruitment Automation Software vs. Corporate ATS

Corporate Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have become the standard across the bulk of industries, but they may not be the best option for recruiting and hiring hourly workers. ATS was designed for recruiting candidates for corporate teams. They are built to work with the complex workflows and achievement-based values of the corporate world. This makes them a poor tool for assessing a typical hourly worker.

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Recruitment Automation Software was purpose-built to better address the unique aspects of the hourly worker hiring process. Recruitment Automation Software prioritizes and optimizes the candidate experience by automatically applying all the tips that we have discussed in this article. This means a mobile-friendly application experience, automated pre-screening tools, and AI-powered interview scheduling bots designed to move candidates through the hiring pipeline as quickly and effectively as possible, embodying the principles of effective hourly recruitment strategies.

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Thanks to the latest AI innovations, chatbots can even engage candidates with regular communication advising on the status of their application and inviting them to schedule an interview if their application is selected to move forward. Modern chatbots can conduct skills assessments and answer frequently asked questions, providing a flexible recruitment, hiring, and onboarding experience that works for hourly applicants, a key aspect of modern hourly recruitment strategies.

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Prioritize Candidate Experience

With the competition for hourly employees growing more fierce year over year, businesses hoping to recruit, hire, and retain the most skilled employees need to ensure that they are providing an optimized candidate experience across every stage of the recruitment and hiring funnel.

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Every hourly worker hiring experience should begin with a mobile-first application process designed to display properly on mobile devices and require a minimum of typed input and uploads. Mobile-first optimization will make it much easier for candidates to complete the application process from anywhere, a crucial part of hourly recruitment strategies designed to enhance accessibility and engagement.

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Leverage the power of generative AI natural language models to create custom chatbots that can answer common applicant questions and offer assistance throughout the application process. You can program chatbots to communicate with candidates regarding their application status, schedule initial interviews with candidates who are selected to move forward, and guide the candidate through engaging interactive behavior assessments.

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Keeping candidates informed throughout the hiring process, and offering an engaging but efficient experience is the key to providing a top-notch candidate experience, a cornerstone of successful hourly recruitment strategies.

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Conclusion

Hourly employees provide a broad range of services from entry-level to skilled. This demographic is as varied a cohort of workers as you are likely to find. A rigid one-size-fits-all hiring process won’t work for these workers.

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Employers who embrace a dynamic digital application process that is mobile-friendly and intuitive can help you attract, hire, and retain top talent. When you are ready to get serious about modernizing your hourly employee hiring practices, emphasizing effective hourly recruitment strategies is essential for success in today's competitive labor market.