Here’s the thing about workflows. They are very difficult to understand until you actually start working with them.

But, for recruiters, juggling work comes naturally–the daily slog of candidate interviews, the never-ending list of calls and follow-ups, client meetings, and deadlines. However, there’s also enough to balance alongside all of this, like delayed time-to-fill, employee retention, surviving the competition, among other things.

This is why carefully-curated workflows within your applicant tracking system (ATS) ensure that you’re always on top of your work. Workflows help you streamline and automate all your tasks, so you can spend your time on the things that need your attention. This, in turn, increases productivity and collaboration within the team, and helps you stay focused on strategy.

How to create workflows that work.

Involve all stakeholders.

Here’s something to watch out for: Developing workflows is no cake walk. Recruiters must take into account the needs of all stakeholders –including clients, candidates, and teams — consider the big picture of matching the right candidates to the right jobs, without neglecting several other minute details that are involved in the interview process. It’s okay to create multiple workflows between two stakeholders, but be careful not to repeat the same loop anywhere.

Build workflows that same way you build strategies.

Jot down the goal you want to achieve. For example, engaging a candidate throughout their interview process, or keeping clients updated about a candidate’s progress. Once your goal is set, list steps that are mandatory to achieving it.

Consider this example. We are creating a chain of emails to be sent to candidate, triggered when they complete a certain assessment or round. To make this workflow work end-to-end:

(a) Create email templates with personalized content for each stage, specific to each job opening.  List their next interview date, time and venue, elaborate on any documentation work to be processed by them, provide information about what they’re expected to prep for their next round, and offer the feedback form.

(b) Specify the criteria when each of these emails have to be triggered. Specify if you also want to send an SMS to the candidate, and add this condition.

(c) Always do a test drill before you push it out live.

Communication is the way.

More often than not, miscommunications can create significant problems. As important as it is to have a proper communication channel within the team, many companies aren’t as proactive as they could be. The Harvard Business Review stated in this article states that, “communication is critical, and it bleeds into all other workplace practices. Bottom-up communication is as important as top-down.”

Design workflows within your team’s hiring process to function like a relay race. When an interview round is conducted, trigger an SMS, schedule a task, add a calendar invite and also a gentle reminder 30 minutes prior to their next interview.

Moreover, workflows help counter human error by sticking to protocol. When you start designing workflows, you get an idea of who’s the right person to be assigned to a certain task. While organization-specific workflows are definitely challenging to design, as a recruiter you know that they are important for your organization.

We’re sure you have curated some strategies with workflows that have been clicking great with your team.

Write to us on how you use these workflows, and how they have helped you. We’re all ears.