10 hiring productivity hacks
Your cheatsheet to the most effective tips, tools, templates, and more.
Growing your team means an ever-growing list of daily tasks. Between planning and hiring, there’s much to do, and only so many hours in the day to do it. Our experts have curated 10 most effective productivity hacks designed to help you hire more efficiently – and to make workdays far more productive.
Hacks to the rescue
At every stage of hiring, get tips, tools, and templates to find the best people in no time.
Planning, sourcing, and engaging
How you kick off the hiring process sets the tone for the overall experience. Here are a few ways to save time and start things off right.
Productivity hack #1
Get key stakeholders to vet sample resumes before kicking off your search
Neglecting the planning and preparation stage of hiring can lead to time-consuming challenges later, so it’s worth it to do your due diligence early.
Put 10 minutes on the relevant manager’s calendar, bring them some sample resumes that you think are pretty great, and ask them to vet the candidates in front of you. Take note of what impresses them, what puts them off, and what they consider to be the minimum requirements.
You’ll leave with a clear picture of the ideal candidates, which will make writing the job description a breeze – and shave hours or even days off the process.
Productivity hack #2
Easily create consistent (and attractive) images and infographics with Canva
Building and maintaining a strong employer brand has its obvious benefits. And while taking the brand up a notch can feel like an endless task, it doesn’t have to be all-consuming.
Try Canva, a free design tool (with paid options) that allows you to create beautiful brand content in seconds. The high level of customization makes it easy to differentiate your company from competitors, giving candidates a powerful, lasting impression of your employer brand.
Canva features simple drag-and-drop templates, editable fonts and color schemes, plus more ways to add a personal touch to every piece of content.
Productivity hack #3
Set aside dedicated time on your calendar for sourcing
Sourcing candidates can help you make a quality hire faster than relying on applications alone. Save valuable time by better managing yours.
When you’re sourcing, it’s easy to get distracted by emails, calls, and a dozen other little tasks vying for your attention. Recruiting expert Stacy Zapar, founder of The Talent Agency and Tenfold, recommends blocking off time on your calendar to dedicate solely to sourcing.
Avoid scheduling meetings during this window, and shift into “do not disturb” mode. You can put your head down and source as efficiently as possible.
Productivity hack #4
Boost response rates by limiting messages to fewer than 100 words
Writing exhaustively long messages to candidates doesn’t just take time away from your outreach efforts – it makes candidates less likely to respond.
Focus on keeping messages concise. LinkedIn found that messages with fewer than 100 words tend to get higher response rates, while those that crest the 200-word mark are far less likely to be read entirely or to encourage a response at all.
Cutting your word count gives candidates just a taste of what you have to offer and makes them curious to learn more, so it pays to be brief.
Finding these hacks helpful?
Download 50 Productivity Hacks Essential for Hiring for even more tips, tools, and templates.
Screening, interviewing, and assessing
Between phone screens, in-person interviews, and follow-up, time management is of the essence. Use these hacks to make the most of your time.
Productivity hack #5
Standardize how you compare candidates after phone screenings
After you’ve put together a promising slate of candidates, you’ll want to test their mettle. If they lack the right skills, an interview probably isn’t worth your time.
When conducting phone screenings, it helps to establish a standard set of criteria before you hop on the first call. To give you a head start, we put together this intuitive initial evaluation form. Print one for each candidate you screen and fill them out as you go, ranking core skills and attributes on a simple scale.
By putting all the forms side by side, you can rapidly and objectively compare all candidates across the same criteria – leading to better, faster, fairer decisions.
Productivity hack #6
Tailor your questions to the role using the LinkedIn Interview Question Generator
It’s OK to have a few go-to, recurring questions, but generating a unique list for each role will help ensure you’re vetting for the necessary skills and experiences.
To streamline the interview process, we created an easy-to-use Interview Question Generator. Just select the soft skills you want to screen for and the tool will generate a series of questions. Select the ones most relevant to the role and you’ll get the printable guide, complete with a scoring system!
Use these questions as a starting point for your interviews to help you identify candidates that have the hard-to-find traits needed for your roles.
Download: The Interview Question Generator
Productivity hack #7
Set reminders to follow up with candidates after their interviews
Candidates appreciate being kept up to date on where they stand. But when you’ve got a dozen other responsibilities, following up can often be tricky.
The period between the interview stage and the offer is perhaps the most crucial time to focus on keeping candidates warm. They’ve made it that far for a reason, so you don’t want them to get away. But when you’re busy, it’s all too easy to forget to send a follow-up until it’s too late.
Add reminders on your calendar or ATS to follow up every few days or every week, depending on how long your company typically takes to extend an offer.
Making an offer, onboarding, and refining
Getting close to a hire? It’s important to close on a good note. Here are a few hacks to help you round out the hiring process.
Productivity hack #8
Automate background checks with Checkr to accelerate the offer phase
After countless hours of searching, you’ve found the perfect candidate. Now it’s up to you to make the more tedious aspects of the offer phase more palatable.
Unfortunately, running background checks can grind those final stages to a screeching halt. To speed this step up, try Checkr. Its software uses artificial intelligence to automate background checks, making them more efficient while ensuring you stay compliant.
Checkr can help correct for potential bias by allowing you to customize how much candidate detail, like their photo, you want to see.
Productivity hack #9
Follow this onboarding checklist to keep the process organized
The transition from candidate to employee can have a huge influence on a new hire’s tenure. It’s key to help them feel settled and satisfied with their decision.
Onboarding involves a lot of moving pieces. Don’t let any of them get away from you – use our comprehensive onboarding checklist. It covers all of the most important steps in the onboarding process, from planning right through to the employee’s first day, week, and month on the job.
You won’t have to create a list from scratch. Plus, you can check off each step as you go to stay on schedule – and on top of everything you still need to do.
Productivity hack #10
Test out the application process by applying at your own company
Do you know how long it takes to apply for a job at your company? Does the website run smoothly? Are there any cumbersome or redundant steps?
Discover the answers to all of these questions and more by applying for a job at your own company. This firsthand experience can be truly eye opening, helping you to immediately identify areas for improvement. But don’t just do it once.
A few times every year, set aside 15 minutes to go through the process again. If it takes you longer than 15 minutes, there’s your first area for improvement!
