Slack is a powerhouse software for companies, big and small. Companies across the globe use Slack for their workplace needs – especially those that have teams working remotely, trust Slack to manage the biggest of projects. As the Slack ecosystem grows, HR is emerging as a key area that is ripe for disruption as it is subsumed by Slack. In fact, HR is the most active category and is home to 650 of the close to 2000 apps listed in the Slack app store.
With new work trends, such as continuous performance management as opposed to the dreaded annual review, Slack is well-positioned as a platform to enable novel ways of delivering new HR processes in a place where people are already spending most of their day. Recruitment is a key HR function that is especially in the limelight given the record low unemployment rate in the US.
Slack is stepping up its game to go beyond being just a “communication app”. With more than 1500 apps built on top of Slack, automating tasks and storing files has become a cakewalk.
The best part? Slack caters to the modern HR and the different roles they need to juggle on a daily basis. Multiple apps have been created to automate your daily tasks like employee attendance, shift management, and feedback collection, Slack cuts down your task list in half and makes you more productive and efficient.
Modern HR Practices for Recruitment
The changing role of the human resource manager doesn’t just need new management strategies, but also newer solutions to enable those strategies. Take for instance how companies have inculcated social media within their team culture and how task management has been automated. The latest to the list is the changing interviewing styles.
Recruitment is one of the most important parts of an HR’s role, but it is also time-consuming. From marketing your job application and reaching out to potential candidates to interviewing and selecting the right candidate, recruitment is a long and slow process.
Here’s what the various stages of recruiting typically look like:
But, with Slack, much of your workload can be managed more effortlessly. Here are the top modern HR practices that you can implement within Slack to make your recruitment processes more efficient:
6 steps to recruit smarter with Slack
1. Use Slack communities to spread the word about your job listing
One of the most underrated features of Slack is its ability to collaborate with open communication channels. Just like LinkedIn and Facebook groups, Slack has communities based on different interests or topics where users gather to discuss, share insights, and provide assistance over the topic of the channel.
By using these communities, modern HR can quicken their recruitment process. There are communities on different categories of skill sets, allowing you to join and post within these channels.
For instance, if you are looking for a developer, channels named ‘#frontenddeveloper’ or even specific to skills like #rubydevelopers’ can help you post your job listing on appropriate channels. What’s more, since these Slack channels are unlike noisy social platforms, your job posts will get more engagements, shown only to a relevant audience.
Want to adopt this modern HR practice to get your job listing more traction? Get started with this list of 400 Slack communities.
2. Set up apps that manage job applications
Imagine this— you have listed your new job opening on 5 different professional networks from Angel to LinkedIn. What’s more, you even have multiple referrals coming in from fellow co-workers regularly. It’s too much data scattered across your networks. A spreadsheet is not going to suffice here. What you’ll need is an automation tool to keep it all in one place.
Slack has HR-specific apps that cater to your employee recruitment, retention, and management needs.
Apps like SmartRecruiters and Teamtailor allows you to collate every job application you receive within your Slack. You can set up announcements like new applications, connects from third-party, and even notes about referrals to be sent to any channel. This way, all your job applications are in one place so you can spend less time collating the applications and more time evaluating the potential candidates.
On the other hand, Greenhouse, a popular recruiting software integrates with Slack to allow you to manage job applications within Slack. You can view the candidates as they apply and approve or disapprove them within the platform. This ensures you have fewer emails to sort through.
3. Power referral management and collection
Many companies strongly believe in using their employee networks to get the most of out their talented team. Referrals coming from employees are much better vetted and have a higher response rate than other leads. But, most often, a new referral is mentioned during a coffee break and without a system in place, you are bound to miss out on a referral.
Use the Slack app Teamable to facilitate referrals in a systematic manner. Your employees can refer folks within the communication platform and add notes about them. In turn, your employees can also provide feedback about potential candidates that you, as an HR, have asked to know about.
4. Automate recruitment funnels within Slack
When you’re in the HR, you have too many applications on your desk for you to be manually tracking. You’re responsible for tracking each one’s progress too on a spreadsheet. Right from the applicant’s existing company to contact details, you need to keep updating this sheet on the go and doing it all manually is just too daunting.
Instead, what you need is a workflow that automates actions and tracks candidate progress throughout the recruitment journey.
There’s a Slack app for that! Teamtailor allows you to set up your custom recruitment funnel based on how your company hires. Once you have your funnel set up, you can easily visualize how your candidates are progressing. Powered with tools like scorecards and reviews, as well as actions like messages and scheduling, this dashboard will change how you recruit for your company. The app allows you to filter candidates by keywords and phrases, making it search accessible. Teamtailor works within Slack to keep you updated and allows you to see your application details within the communication tool.
Another advantage of this funnel is that it allows you to be more responsive to the candidate. Leaving your candidate hanging is never a good reflection of your company. By setting up reminders within the funnel, you can promptly send them an email or message. Keep them in the loop, either informing them they have been chosen for the next round of interviews or letting them know they haven’t been selected.
“Teamtailor’s applicant tracking system is extremely intuitive and has helped us drastically improve our entire recruitment process.”
Annie Schreiter
Talent Development Manager, Boozt
Slack wrote a step by step guide on using their app and Teamtailor for recruitment. Read it here.
5. Simplify interview planning
One of the most time-consuming parts of recruitment is interviewing and feedback. This is especially hard when it’s a group interview with multiple stakeholders. But, in most cases, you are usually actively recruiting to fill the job opening with the right candidate immediately. This means that it’s crucial to make your timeline shorter.
So, instead of having a pre-interview meeting to decide the time that is suitable for every interviewee, create temporary Slack recruitment channels. These channels can be used to quickly agree on dates and times for the interviews.
You can either have individual channels for each candidate and track their recruitment timeline with their respective channel or just have one thread for each candidate within one channel.
Once the interview date for each candidate is fixed, you can set reminders within Slack with ‘/remind’. Doing so will send an alert to each of the interviewees a few minutes before the interview.
If you want more structured interview planning, you can use a Slack app called Lever that automatically sends reminders and alerts mentioned employees. It also provides candidate details within the reminder, creating quick access for interviewees to run through pre-interview.
6. Make post-interview discussions more structured
With in-person meetings, post-interview conversations can take a tangent. And sometimes, you’re bound to spend more time on the discussion than planned. This is why one of the smartest modern HR practices is to use dedicated Slack channels. These channels can be used to discuss each candidate’s potential.
Create private channels like ‘#interview-[candidate-name]’ to store a candidate’s details like a resume, jot down notes during the interview, and run debriefs.
If you prefer to keep your hiring within one channel, you can create threads about each candidate. Then follow the discussions within dedicated threads.
Also read: 10 ways to make your Slack channels more effective
Slack HR – The new way to recruit
Modern teams are already making the most of Slack for team communication and project management. So why should modern HR look any different?
With these best HR practices, you are now equipped to set up a stellar recruitment process within your Slack. The changing role of human resource management requires you to be more efficient and adapt with the times.
These Slack HR tips will transform your hiring strategy. It will make it less overwhelming for you to reach the right candidates. And how you walk them through the hiring process.
Oh, and don’t forget to get your hands on these 5 apps to power up Slack for modern HR.
But what they will ensure, is your productivity!
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