Traditional interviews have been the norm for years, and they are starting to take a toll on a recruiter's physical and mental health. Recruiters track down the ideal hire and carefully craft a positive candidate experience. Many recruiters love these opportunities, but prolonged stress, monotony, and little free time lead them to burnout. Not to mention the wild fluctuations in the supply of jobs and the demand for employees over the last few years.
Traditional phone interviews take crucial time out of a recruiter's workday and give recruiters a heavier workload.
Recruiters don’t have enough hours in their workday and struggle to find a healthy work/life balance.
This is why hiring processes need on-demand interviewing methods like automated phone interviews. Recruiters are increasingly cutting down on traditional phone interviews and investing in automated phone interviews. Companies need to acknowledge the risk of burnout and improve the recruiter's workday with on-demand hiring tools if they want to increase recruiter retention.
Recruiters Face High Burnout Rates
As the hiring market gets more competitive, recruiters' workdays are busier, and more recruiters are experiencing burnout. Psychology Today characterized burnout as “exhaustion, depression, and cynicism” over a long period of time.
A person may not be burnt out if they come home tired from one long day at work. But they may be if they come home feeling stressed and lack passion in their work every day. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that cases of workplace burnout could need medical attention. The WHO has named workplace burnout as an “occupational phenomenon.”
Burnout is one of the symptoms leading to The Great Resignation. Employees in every industry felt overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. When people lose passion for their job, they quit. This level of burnout is especially prevalent in recruiters, as recruiters said their stress levels increased to 61% after the pandemic. Even 19% said that they experienced a dramatic increase in stress. Recruiters can have a very emotional role with candidates, and these emotions may have been increased post-pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to many employees losing their jobs and many recruiters having to let those employees go. It has placed an emotional burden on all sides.
Recruiters are changing people’s lives for better or for worse every day. When recruiters fire an employee or deny a candidate a position, they are the first to hear their reactions. This can take an emotional toll on the recruiter.
On top of handling an emotional job, recruiters are responsible for building a company's team. They have to find the perfect hire within a competitive job market while assessing future success. The nature of the job itself can be taxing on a recruiter, but there are many more factors that may contribute to burnout.
What is Causing Recruiter Burnout?
Cases of burnout are not brought on suddenly, but many do not know the warning signs. If a job is emotionally and mentally demanding, it can take a toll on a person's mental health. This can specifically affect a manager’s work life.
When asked what led to their burnout, 40% of managers said an overwhelming workload. On top of this, 37% said that feeling disconnected from their colleges contributed to burnout. About 34% said they felt conflicted between their work-life and home life.
Respondents of the Recruiter Nation’s annual survey also said that burnout came from a low number of resources, job insecurity, and high demand for filing positions. While handling these work stressors, recruiters still have to take care of themselves during a global pandemic.
Recruiters are driven to burnout when they do not have the resources to succeed and still have high expectations placed on them. Recruiters are looking for better resources and a stronger connection with new hires. Most recruiters want to help their companies succeed. When given the proper hiring tools and resources, their workday can improve, along with their mental health.
Use this guide to speed up the entire hiring process.
Traditional Phone Interviews are Causing Recruiter Burnout
Recruiters work hard every day to create and staff a positive work environment for their organizations. They are creating and monitoring multiple job postings, sourcing quality candidates, scheduling and conducting interviews, and collaborating with hiring managers throughout the entire hiring pipeline. According to the Undercover Recruiter, conducting consistent phone interviews also means that recruiters are spending 78,352 minutes on the phone every year. These long hours on the phone conducting one-on-one interviews can fill a recruiter's day with monotony, diminishing their passion and contributing to burnout. With many job openings, they are often doing each of these things simultaneously and working fast to stay competitive.
When recruiters are making sure each step of the hiring pipeline goes smoothly, each of these tasks, they don’t need a task that eats up more time. Recruiters often conduct phone interviews, which take the longest time out of any step in the hiring process.
Traditional phone screenings add 7 days to the hiring process. Without phone screenings taking up an entire week, the recruiter could have less stressful and more productive workdays.
Phone screenings are detrimental to recruiters and negatively impact the entire organization. If a phone screening process takes too long, a company could lose up to 89% of its potential candidates. That is why companies are looking towards automated interviews. Many virtual hiring platforms provide virtual phone interviews or virtual video interviews. These tools allow recruiters to conduct asynchronous interviews, where recruiters can record their questions on their own time, and candidates can answer when it is best for them.
Both virtual phone interviews and virtual video interviews are popping up in recruitment trends. Still, companies are seeing more benefits in virtual phone interviews. This is because video interviews tend to take longer to review, which creates a longer time-to-hire. Automated video interviews also diminish the candidate experience when they have to visually record themselves and often hinder a company's diversity and accessibility goals.
Recruiters also often find video interviews frustrating. About 37% of recruiters say that poor internet hinders the interview experience and 25% say that a candidate’s inappropriate attire inhibits the interview. More recruitment trends like on-demand interview tools are working to reduce burnout. However, noting the recruiter experience with these hiring tools is the most effective way to improve retention.
What is the Solution?
The best solutions to recruitment burnout provide recruiters more time to complete their tasks while reducing stress in their workday. If recruiters are stressed about deadlines, they are more likely to blur the lines between their work and personal lives.
Qualifi is an on-demand interview platform that uses the ease of virtual phone interviews to meet hiring demands. Qualifi allows recruiters to record their interview questions while simultaneously inviting hundreds of candidates to a virtual interview. Qualifi can save recruiters the time of phone screening —recruiters no longer have to schedule or conduct interviews. On average, it only takes 1 day to screen a candidate with Qualifi.
Along with relieving workday stress, Qualifi helps recruiters leave work at work. Qualifi acts like a recruiter that works 24/7, so that recruiters can focus on the things they love. Give recruiters the resources they need and reduce the risk of burnout with Qualifi.
Which methods help you hire faster — a phone interview or a video interview? Read about the difference between virtual phone interviews and virtual video interviews here.
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