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Call center staffing can be a challenge. Many out there consider call centers one of the most stressful office jobs out there between the monotony and constant bombardment of angry customers looking for the person in charge. That’s why it’s no surprise that call centers have a remarkably high turnover rate. In fact, the average turnover rate for call centers is between 30 and 45%, twice the average of other departments. Faced with a constant flow of incoming and outgoing employees, call center recruiters often find themselves open to high-volume recruiting.
And that ultimately means call centers need to hire faster, at least as fast as their already high turnover rate. Otherwise, this results in a slow time-to-fill that accrues additional costs while positions wait to be filled. More specifically, the average open role costs an organization $1,000 - $5,000. As such, hiring quickly is paramount to cost-effectiveness.
When hiring for a customer service role such as a call center, the first thing we need to consider is sourcing. Filling many roles at once requires a healthy candidate pipeline. After all, recruiters can’t hire if there are no applicants to begin with. This itself can be a challenge.
Start by taking a look at how you leverage posting sites such as LinkedIn and Indeed. This is often the first impression potential candidates have of your business, and how their first step in the hiring process. So, your job posting needs to be designed with keywords in mind to improve impressions while also remaining appealing to said candidates.
From there, you will need to appeal to those looking for customer service positions. Build a strategy that considers what these applicants are looking for. And that includes offering a fast hiring process. According to CareerPlug, 84% of job seekers say that employer responsiveness influenced their decision to accept an offer.
High-volume hiring requires high-volume screening. Recruiters tackling hundreds of potential candidates, and using traditional methods, will be stuck screening for months. You’ll need a system in place to prevent this massive bottleneck. And for bulk interviewing, it’ll take an approach unique to the high-volume recruitment efforts.
First, be sure your entire process is mapped out and tracked from start to finish. You’ll want to know what phase your applicants are in and how long you expect them to be there. This will establish insights to refine the process to be as fast as possible. And for bulk hiring, speed is paramount.
Then you’ll want to find tools to automate the process where you can. Using manual methods such as live interviews will eat up hours of recruiter time for every candidate. According to Yello, 30 minutes to 2 hours of this process is spent scheduling alone. That’s not even counting the interview itself. In the end, the manual approach will take upwards of 2 and half hours per candidate. That’s time you don’t have.
Automating scheduling and the initial screening process with an on-demand platform can and will save hundreds of hours recruiters can better spend on finding quality candidates.
Another important aspect to consider is how you will simplify the recruiting process. For complex, senior positions, a long and complex process may be warranted. However, in call center staffing, that’s not what we’re looking at. We’re looking to hire many roles at once.
For example, Qualifi customer Five Star Call Center re-engaged 50% of their lost candidates after adopting Qualifi as part of their pre-screening process. And this was because they were able to streamline the hiring process. Before Qualifi, they were using a complicated hiring process for entry-level positions, causing candidates to drop out of their pipeline.
Afterwards, they were able to reach out to candidates first. This is what Five Star wanted to begin with, but admitted it wasn’t realistic. People weren’t answering their phones. They needed a simpler way without taking the human element out of their recruitment process. Qualifi allowed them to automate the first phone interview and maintain their brand voice.
And this is exactly what every call center facing bulk hiring needs a simplified process. A needless complex interview stage will cause candidates to drop out of the hiring cycle, costing recruiters valuable time and effort.
One of the best tools available to call center recruiters is on-demand interviews. These interviews are quickly becoming synonymous with modern recruitment. They allow for a quicker hiring process and allow recruiters to reach out to every candidate at the click of a button.
So, let's explain why you should use virtual interviews for your own recruitment efforts.
Also known as virtual interviews, this screening tool starts with a recruiter recording their end of the interview. Using their own voice, they maintain the brand and the human element in recruiting. The recording is sent out to the candidates. Each candidate is then able to record their own responses at a time of their convenience. That’s why they’re often known as virtual interviews.
It’s that simple. Virtual interviews offer the key benefit of drastically reducing the time it takes to schedule and interview screenings.
However, despite its simplicity, asynchronous interviewing comes with serious benefits.
Just because a bulk-recruitment effort is focused on quantity, there’s no need for the quality of hire to suffer.
Measuring the quality of hire refers to measuring how much value a new hire brings to a company through their contributions. It’s focused on the future, long after the initial hire was made. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to measure. However, there are key indicators to consider when measuring this important metric.
For one, consider job performance as this is the most obvious metric to consider. Although performance itself is subjective, 50% of companies surveyed by Linkin considered performance reviews when calculating their quality of hire.
Retention is another factor. The longer an employee stays with the organization, the more value their hire contributes to the business. Therefore, turnover factors into the quality of hire as well.
Then there’s the matter of ramp-up time, or how long an employee takes to reach ideal productivity. This period of time typically revolves around the onboarding process, and how long it takes an employee to acclimate to the work environment.
