In an ideal world, all you must do to get hired is be a good candidate. Still, with too many people competing for the same spot, being good is not good enough. So, is being an ideal candidate enough?
Not necessarily.
You see, being the best employee is something you’ll have to prove, but even to start proving it, you need to get the job. Since no recruiter has a magic eight-ball, they can only speculate on how good you’ll be if hired.
In other words, being the best candidate and appearing like the best are separate things. Usually, the latter gets favored more when it comes to the hiring process.
So, to maximize your chances of getting the job, you need to learn how the hiring process works. In the modern job market, this means understanding how modern technology is changing the job application process.
Here’s what you need to know!
The internet changed everything
The majority of people nowadays find a job via the internet. This can happen on several platforms, from LinkedIn and job rack to standard social media like Facebook or Instagram. This omnipresence of the job market in the social network environment has helped employees and employers.
However, the fact that job postings are not present online and that many enterprises hire remotely also creates a new unique problem. Now, you’re no longer just competing against the locals.
People all across the planet are competing for the same spots. Some of these people live in areas with a lot lower standard of living (places with lower purchasing power parity). This means they would be willing to do the same job for a lower wage.
The key thing to remember is that while the competition is greater, so is the offer. You can easily apply for several postings in a matter of minutes. Provided the application is not too complex and your CV is decent enough, you can send hundreds of emails to potential employers daily.
This is much easier to achieve with a cover letter and CV templates. Still, there’s an additional way to improve your application procedure, and we’ll discuss it shortly.
Resume summary generators increase efficiency
Using a resume summary generator can be useful for applicants to keep their points concise or use a summary of their resume as a cover letter.
While you don’t want to leave out any achievements, you need to give the recruiters an option to quick-read through your resume. A summary is a great way to do so. It also helps you make a good impression. After all, you’re highly organized and can be concise when needed.
Using the same resume every time is not necessarily the smartest option. Why? Well, because you may want to emphasize a specific aspect of your business more. Just think about it, an employer doesn’t care about how good of an employee you are; they care if you would be a good fit for their business.
So, you may have to make a new resume and focus on new traits every time you apply. Thankfully, with a resume generator, this process will no longer take as much time. More importantly, this will allow you to apply for more positions than you could otherwise.
Quicker onboarding with automation
Automation can make onboarding incredibly quick. This means that employers no longer dread the idea of having to hire new people. Instead, they can just find a new hire, sign a contract and have them up and running quickly.
Quicker onboarding is also cheaper onboarding, which is why it makes the entire hiring process a lot cheaper for the employer.
For new employees, simpler onboarding means an easier transition from being unemployed/in a different organization to working for this specific employer. While evaluating one’s productivity is supposed to start much later, the truth is that some employers evaluate you from the very start. With great onboarding, you’ll be able to prove yourself much sooner.
One more thing worth mentioning is that, traditionally, onboarding was always the job of HR. Now, department team leaders have an easier job of directly overseeing it. This completely changes the internal structure of the company, as well as the hiring process infrastructure.
However, this also has a negative connotation for potential employees. In the past, onboarding was so arduous that you knew your employer hated the idea of doing it all over again. With onboarding so much easier, one could also argue that a new hire has become more easily replaceable.
Simpler communication
Communication is easier than ever before. Just by email, you’re cutting out so much unnecessary back-and-forth. Every applicant submits their email, and an employer has a simple and direct way to contact them.
The applicant submits their info via an application form, and the recruiter reviews it and then invites the applicant to an interview. Now, they can invite them to the office if it's an on-site job, but an online interview is more than fine.
This interview method saves a lot of commute time and reduces travel costs. An applicant doesn’t have to travel for hours, get stuck in traffic, and spend their own money on gas/public transportation tickets. They can just ask their family/roommates to be quiet for 15 minutes, dress in their best shirts, and sit in front of the camera.
An established line of communication is important from the start, but most companies also have their line of communication. Instead of allowing employees to use Facebook Messenger for work, they may insist on an IM tool like Slack. This can also be symbolic since being invited to a workspace on Slack means you’re officially in.
Data analytics
Let’s say you’re a huge corporate conglomerate with an amazing position opening. How many hundreds and thousands of applications can you go through in a single day? Probably not too many. So, what do you do?
Your options are quite simple, you take a lot of time to review them all, get more people involved to help you, or you don’t look at all of them. Each of these three options has a downside, with the third method being the worst. Why? Because you potentially miss out on some amazing candidates.
With the help of data analytics and AI-powered resume filtration, you can sort the applicants by how suitable they are for the position (based on their resume). Then, with this kind of list (even a ranking list), you’ll have a better idea of narrowing down your interest to a few candidates.
Remember, this tool cannot help you choose the ideal candidate. Sophisticated as they are, this is still not something an AI can do. They’re merely there to help save time for actual recruiters and give them a narrow list of candidates with the highest likelihood of being what the position needs.
One more thing worth mentioning is the efficiency of the process. Human recruiters spend about 40% of their time just sorting through resumes. A machine can sort resumes even more quickly and efficiently, but what it can’t do is have a one-on-one interview with a potential candidate to determine if they’re the right fit. In other words, this just comes down to a more efficient division of labor.
Less bias in the hiring process
While there are a lot of ethical concerns about various AI processes, these methods of filtering and selecting candidates are less biased. The biggest problem with biases is that we’re not even aware of them most of the time. You just click with someone, which makes you evaluate them more favorably. Well, this is not something that can happen to a tool.
This isn’t to say that hiring tools are perfect. Tools see everything through data, which means that it all depends on the type of data you feed it to. This is why it’s still an assistance tool, not an independent recruiter.
Then, some biases stem from personal beliefs and subconsciously rooted stereotypes. You can program a tool to exclude the age, gender, or background of the candidate from the equation and only focus on the most relevant KPI metrics. This way, you’ll always get the best candidate, not a candidate belonging to a favored demographic for the job.
Once again, a lot of bias is unconscious, so the only way to root it out is to entrust this task to a tool incapable of such thoughts by design.
Modern technology can help improve the efficiency of the hiring process
The modern hiring process depends on technology to sort out resumes, reduce the influence of bias, and improve communication between the applicants and the recruited. After hiring, it facilitates onboarding and helps people get to work the quickest they can.
While these tools exist to help recruiters, there are so many tools available to the applicants, as well. Also, applicants can drastically increase their chances of getting hired by understanding how these recruitment tools work.
By Srdjan Gombar
Veteran content writer, published author, and amateur boxer. Srdjan is a Bachelor of Arts in English Language & Literature and is passionate about technology, pop culture, and self-improvement. His free time he spends reading, watching movies, and playing Super Mario Bros. with his son.
