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What's more overwhelming than filling an open vacancy quickly? How about filling hundreds or even thousands of roles at speed? This is a predicament that companies like Amazon regularly find themselves in, requiring 150,000 extra seasonal workers to meet demand during the holiday period.
But they're not alone—65% of companies have high volume hiring needs, meaning they must fill over 1,000 jobs yearly. There are plenty of positions that need new joiners, from gig workers to call center representatives, seasonal financial service staff, and extra healthcare workers. To find them, hiring teams can depend on high volume recruitment tools for a more efficient process.
This guide introduces the challenges of high volume recruitment, some suggested software platforms to consider, and the features you should look for.
What are the challenges of high volume recruitment?
Filling a large number of open vacancies requires a different strategy than filling one or two positions. Consider how you’ll overcome these challenges:
#Challenge 1: Mass hiring within a limited period
If your organisation is experiencing rapid growth in a new business area, or needs to ramp up hiring to meet seasonal demand, you may not have the luxury of time. Hiring and onboarding an entirely new team when you're up against a deadline requires fast execution, which is where the right recruitment tool can be a game-changer.
#Challenge 2: Sorting through a high volume of applications
A strong employer brand should attract a great response to any job ad posting. But this double-edged sword also means you'll need to wade through the applications to find the most skilled candidates for your job roles. This can be stressful in tight time frames.
#Challenge 3: Relying on a small recruitment team
If your company usually relies on a hiring manager or small talent acquisition team to fill a few roles at a time, you may lack the resources or structure to handle high volume recruitment. External recruitment teams or staffing agencies may be a good fit in this scenario.
#Challenge 4: Maintaining a positive candidate experience
According to Aptitude Research, 47% of job candidates who drop out during the application phase of recruitment do so because of poor candidate experience. Details like interview and test score feedback, strong communication, and a straightforward application process are essential for keeping potential hires engaged and motivated. But recruiters can lose this attention to detail during a mass hiring process.
10 features to look for in high volume recruitment tech
The right recruitment software will undoubtedly support your high volume recruiting strategy, ensuring that the process is efficient and that recruiting metrics like quality of hire and candidate experience remain top of mind. Look out for the following features when vetting high volume recruiting software:
1. Automatic job ad posting
A tool that automatically posts your job ads across multiple online channels can save you the time and hassle of manually uploading ads on each platform. Choose software that targets candidates on a broad range of job boards, including high-profile sites like Indeed and Glassdoor, along with lesser-known niche recruitment sites that appeal to diverse potential employees.
2. Inclusive job descriptions
70% of Latinx, Black, Asian, and BIPOC candidates abandon job applications if they perceive the hiring company doesn’t measure up in terms of diversity and inclusivity. This perception begins with your job ad, which can be littered with gender stereotypes or unconscious biases. If you want to hire at scale, use a tool that composes gender-neutral job descriptions and inclusive language to reach a more diverse talent pool and increase the volume of applications you receive.
| Mission / Values Alignment | Culture Fit Alignment |
|---|---|
| Passion for your company’s missionA shared approach to working/collaborating | A shared educational, cultural or professional backgroundSimilar demographic (age, social class etc)Mutual hobbies/interests |
| Mission / Values Alignment | Culture Fit Alignment |
|---|---|
| Passion for your company’s missionA shared approach to working/collaborating | A shared educational, cultural or professional backgroundSimilar demographic (age, social class etc)Mutual hobbies/interests |
| Mission / Values Alignment | Culture Fit Alignment |
|---|---|
| Passion for your company’s missionA shared approach to working/collaborating | A shared educational, cultural or professional backgroundSimilar demographic (age, social class etc)Mutual hobbies/interests |
3. Structured interviews
If you’re conducting hundreds of interviews, each led by a different hiring manager or panel, a structured interview process compares potential employees and provides consistency and clear criteria. A quality high volume recruitment tool uses standardised interview stage questions, which make it easier to score candidates on a uniform scale and track those scores throughout the hiring process.
4. Chatbots
Strong communication is a key factor in maintaining a positive candidate experience. AI-powered chatbots field basic questions from applicants and provide automated responses without any intervention from your recruiting function. This allows you to handle larger volume enquiries from candidates at scale with more accuracy and speed.
5. Automation
Manual recruitment tasks and complicated workflows drain your time and prevent you from focusing on the candidates that matter. Automation tools help by automatically scoring cognitive tests, providing automated feedback to unqualified applicants, and sending offer letters with one click. Whether you use an all-in-one ATS, or build a tech stack of preferred recruitment tools, automation keeps you organised throughout any volume recruiting process.
6. Predictive shortlisting
Let's say you have thousands of applicants for your roles, and you want a snapshot of your most suitable candidates and how they might perform once they've joined your crew. Predictive shortlisting scores applicants based on their answers to cognitive, numerical, analytical, and problem-solving tests. Next, the software ranks them against other candidates, allowing you to whittle down the competition and pinpoint your successful hires.
7. Central candidate dashboard
High volume hiring teams need a clear overview of their recruitment process, with the ability to store and track all applications in a single location. A centralised dashboard allows high volume recruiters to view, rank, and filter quality candidates. You’ll also manage your talent pipelines by tracking the different stages of recruitment for each role.
Assign permissions to your hiring team and give them access to your central dashboard. From here, they can liaise with fellow hiring team members, respond to notes, and update the candidate database as required.
8. Automated interview scheduling
35% of recruiters identify interview scheduling as the most time-consuming aspect of recruitment, with 67% claiming it takes between 30 minutes and two hours to arrange a suitable time. A further 17% spend two to five hours on this task.
Win back valuable time in high volume hiring cycles by using a recruitment tool with in-built interview scheduling capabilities. Candidates have the option to self-select interviews (either in-person or video interviews) from a list of slots which eliminates the back-and-forth of email chains. Automated interview scheduling also allows recruiters to send reminders and follow-up messages, helping to track conversations and upcoming tasks.
9. Branded careers pages
Glassdoor finds that 75% of job seekers are more likely to apply for a job if the employer actively manages its employer branding. One way to boost your employer reputation is to use company careers pages providing insights to job seekers about your company culture, and the opportunities available. Your career pages should be accessible, and responsive on any device, with a clear call to action for prospective candidates.
10. Mobile applications
Unsurprisingly, potential candidates want the convenience of applying for a job from their mobile phone—in the same way they shop, respond to business emails, scroll their social feed, or order takeout. More than two-thirds of job applications came from mobile devices in 2021, up from 51% in 2019. People are busy, so if you want to attract a high volume of candidates, choose recruitment software that enables applications on the go.
5 high volume recruitment tools for your next hiring campaign
The best-fit tool for your high volume hiring campaign will depend on various factors, like your recruitment budget, the size of your hiring team, and the recruitment process you want to implement. Here's a list of five high volume recruitment tools to consider:
1. Avature
Avature is an enterprise talent acquisition and management software offering a broad range of features to streamline and optimise recruitment. For example, Avature's Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) system enables recruiters to build and maintain relationships with potential candidates through personalised communication. It also uses AI algorithms to quickly source qualified candidates for open roles.
Avature supports inclusive hiring through a blind-screening portal which hides sensitive data such as names and other identifying information, instead highlighting skills, scores, and recruiter ratings.
2. Harver
Harver provides a suite of tools to support enterprise-sized organisations with testing applicants during the application. The platform offers reference checks, interview software, and a broad range of assessment tools, including cognitive, traditional behavioural, gamified behavioural, job knowledge skills, and more—each designed to predict performance and mitigate bias.
Harver offers an impressive testing suite, but it's not an all-in-one solution, so you'll need to integrate with your ATS to cover your entire hiring cycle.
3. Phenom
Phenom is a talent management solution for hiring phenomenal people quickly into open roles. Using AI, the platform leans on providing personalised application experiences to convert potential candidates into applicants. It also offers text-based conversations, enabling strong candidate communication throughout the hiring process.
Although Phenom believes in predictive testing to improve candidate quality, it uses its own Phenom AI to create a dynamic fit score that ranks candidates based on job type, experience, skills, and location. A more inclusive approach would be to focus on skills alone and ditch the experience from previous roles criteria.
4. Humanly
Humanly is a modern and innovative support act to your hiring strategy, rather than an end-to-end solution. The platform is powered by artificial intelligence to automate your recruitment cycle and shave hours off your bulk hiring campaign. Humanly uses a conversational bot for screening, scheduling, background checks, and candidate engagement. Similarly, it changes your interview experience by allowing you to concentrate on the candidate while the software takes notes and summarises the most important parts of the interview to review later.
Side note: Always be aware of the implications of using AI in the recruitment process.
5. Applied
Applied is an all-in-one applicant tracking system that manages your mass hiring needs. Our platform is based on 50+ years of research into behavioural science, and you can use it throughout the following application stages:
- Candidate sourcing: Attract a diverse intake of job applicants with inclusive job ads posted in a variety of locations
- Anonymous assessment process: Tailor specific assessments such as cognitive or numerical tests to specific roles
- Predictive shortlisting: Rank job applicants based on work samples and skills tests alone to accurately predict quality of hire even in high candidate volumes
- Structured interviewing: Ensure consistency by following the same interview questions and review process for each candidate
- Inclusive hiring: Provide tangible feedback for unqualified applicants, extend offers to quality candidates, and maintain relationships with your entire talent pool to maintain a steady hiring pipeline
Applied has already achieved impressive results for the half a million candidates that have used our system and the employers who've reviewed their applications:
- Up to 4x increase in the ethnic diversity of candidates
- Traditional hiring would miss 60% of Applied hires
- 3x more suitable candidates
- 93% retention rate after a year
- 9 out of 10 candidate experience rating
Applied is the essential platform for unbiased, predictive recruitment automation - purpose-built to reduce bias and reliably predict the best talent.
Start transforming your hiring now: book in a demo.
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