Finding Good Candidates Faster

Tracking and prescreening applicants for myriad positions in a major healthcare system is a full-time job. Doing this job manually to recruit for a large organization is not for the faint-hearted.

Analogue applicant tracking

It isn’t uncommon for Michelle Robertson to track 70 or more open positions at any given time, and certain postings attract hundreds of applicants.

“When we got a bunch of applicants, we had to shortlist (prescreen) them manually,” says Robertson, a human resources associate at Sarnia-Lambton Ontario healthcare facility Bluewater Health.

Sometimes, Robertson and her colleagues would call applicants to ask if they had specific skills. “It wasn’t much of a prescreening process,” she recalls.

Repetitive strain

Another needless time-consuming part of shortlisting applicants: Bluewater regularly hires people for the same types of positions, and previously unsuccessful applicants may try again for the same job. And they must be prescreened again.

Prescreening: a better way

Online recruiting tools can’t eliminate the need for prescreening, but they can greatly reduce the effort HR professionals expend to narrow a field of applicants to only the truly qualified.

Bluewater Health uses Njoyn, applicant tracking software that helps people like Robertson ensure prescreening happens, without much involvement from her.

Robertson sets up questionnaires in Njoyn that applicants must complete to be considered for open positions. Candidates answer questions when they apply that would normally be asked during an interview.

When Robertson designates questions as mandatory, Njoyn obliges candidates to reply. She attaches point values to the answers so Njoyn can compile applicant scores once applications are complete.

And Njoyn excludes applications where applicants give any “deal-breaker” answers. “It gives us an idea of who has the qualifications we’re looking for,” Robertson explains. “I can sort by the top applicants.”

(Robertson doesn’t use Njoyn’s ability to automatically send “decline” messages, since declined applicants sometimes prove qualified later on.)

Once a questionnaire exists in Njoyn, Robertson can reuse it each time she posts similar positions. Even performing minor tweaks (like changing scoring on questions) to better reflect what Bluewater needs from a specific posting takes much less time than recreating questionnaires.

All these tools enable Robertson to find the best available candidates fast. After all, good candidates don’t remain available for long.

This is part 1 of our 7 part in depth and expanded case study of how Njoyn integrates and provides solutions for Bluewater Health. Click here to read part 2: We Need to Recruit Staff – Fast! and if you would like to learn more about Njoyn you can contact us here.