Google unveiled its Hire by Google recruiting tool last year, offering a streamlined hiring solution specifically for small and medium sized businesses. The app is available for users of Google’s G Suite tools that have fewer than 1,000 employees.
How to Use Google Hire Effectively
If you’re already using Hire or are considering getting started with it, here are some tips for making the most of it to grow your team.
Take Your Hiring Seriously
The first step in getting results from Hire is to recognize the importance of hiring great people and finding the best process for doing so.
Meagan Hency, product marketer for Hire by Google said in a phone interview with Small Business Trends, “When working with small businesses, one of the things we hear over and over again is that hiring is one of the most important factors that contributes to the growth and success of their business. When you can find the right talent for your business, you can spend more time building relationships and focusing all of the other things that go into building a successful business.”
Don’t Assume You’re Too Small for a Hiring Tool
Even if you take hiring seriously, you might not realize how much a dedicated hiring system can help your business.
Berit Hoffman, senior product manager for Hire by Google said in a phone interview with Small Business Trends, “One of the things we hear over and over again from customers is, ‘We didn’t know how much we needed this, and now we can’t imagine what we’d do without it.’”
Get Familiar with G Suite Tools
In fact, Hoffman said that one of the things that drove them to create Hire was the realization that many companies were already using G Suite tools like Gmail, Calendar, and Google Sheets for certain parts of the process. So Hire natively integrates with all of those platforms, meaning you need to use them in order to make the most of the system.
Get Your Jobs Found
One of the first steps in the hiring process is creating a job listing. With Hire, you can create a job description and then publish it directly to a jobs page on your website or to third party job sites. Google also includes a feature that makes sure your postings will be easily found when job seekers search on Google.com.
Create a Process for Hiring
Once you’re in the process of sifting through applicants and setting up interviews, it helps to have a process already in place. Hoffman suggests taking some time to familiarize yourself with Hire beforehand and considering what you want your actual hiring process to look like.
Hoffman says, “It’s worth taking a little bit of time as a team to create a process so that you have some structure. Ultimately taking the time up front can serve customers better in the long run.”
Be Specific for Each Type of Role
More specifically, you might include different tasks or sections for applicants in different types of roles.
Hoffman explains, “For example, if you’re hiring for engineering jobs, you might want to have an extra page in your application for a coding review. Or if you’re looking to fill sales jobs, you might have an extra pitch interview as part of your process.”
Aggregate Resume Information
Finding the best resumes to move on in your hiring process is an important step. And hire aggregates the information from resumes and applications so that you can streamline the process of finding the candidates with the most relevant skill sets and experience.
Reference Search Data
In addition, Hire includes some information from online searches of candidates, like their LinkedIn profile and social media accounts. So you can also take that information into account when making decisions.
Use Email Templates
To save time on communicating with candidates, you can also set up email templates for various parts of the process. For example, you might have a template for scheduling interviews with candidates you like and another one to let people know that they won’t be moving along in the process.
Sync with Your Calendar
Another component of hiring that tends to take up a lot of time is scheduling interviews. However, Hire lets you sync up your Google Calendar and the calendars of the rest of your hiring team so that you can quickly identify time that’s available for interviews.
Specify Time Blocks for Interviews
In order to make the most of the time that you and your team do have for interviews, it can be beneficial to set aside blocks of time so that you can all get together for multiple interviews. You can create specific time slots so that candidates can select the times that work best for them and you can bundle all of those interviews together rather than going back and forth between tasks.
Confirm Appointments to Cut Down on Wasted Time
The Google Calendar functionality also allows you to send invitations to candidates that they can respond to. So when you have that confirmation, you can hopefully cut down on wasted time waiting for candidates who will never show up.
Take Consistent Interview Notes
Once you’ve interviewed candidates, it’s also a good idea to add some notes to that section of the Hire app so that you can easily sort through candidates both in the immediate and distant future.
Hoffman says, “Having a structured system for interview feedback allows companies to quickly identify candidates and understand why a particular candidate might be a great fit for a different job, maybe the timing was just wrong the first time around. Using those interview notes also signals as a factor into the ranking of those candidates when you go to search through them later on.”
Get Your Team Involved
Whoever you end up hiring for a position is ultimately going to make an impact on the rest of your team. So it can be a good idea to have other members of your team get involved in the process, either by including them in the interviews or giving them access to the information from resumes and Google searches. Google Hire lets you share all that information with all of your relevant team members so that you can be sure to find someone who’s a good fit with everyone.
Include Relevant Keywords in Communications
At some point in the hiring process, you might want to go back and find a particular candidate so you can communicate with them or get some extra information. Hire does include a search function to help you find the information you’re looking for, though the function doesn’t just work by identifying exact keyword matches. So as long as you know the general skill set or experience you’re looking for, you should be able to pull up some relevant candidates.
Take a Look at the Insights
Hire also includes an insights feature so you can view analytical data about your candidates or hiring process as a whole. Taking a look at this data periodically can help you potentially identify some areas for improvement in the future.
Identify Previous Candidates for New Roles
Once you’ve filled a job, there’s a good chance that there are still some good candidates out there who you didn’t hire. So when you have new job opportunities become available, you might want to get back in touch with some of those candidates to see if any might be a better fit for your new opening. Use Hire’s search function to locate the most relevant candidates and reach out to them.
Set Reminders
You can even set reminders through each part of the process to help you stay on track through your deadlines for posting an opening, organizing applicants, scheduling interviews, and making final decisions.
Build a Stronger Collaborative Team
One of the major benefits of using Hire for recruiting is that your whole team can get involved. This can allow you to find the candidates that are most likely to really mesh with your company culture. So make sure you keep that benefit in mind throughout the process.
Use Extra Time to Grow Your Business
Finally, the app should also make the process go significantly quicker. So use all of that extra time wisely and enjoy the opportunity to focus on growing your business in other ways.
Hency says, “A lot of companies are seeing their hiring process move faster since they don’t have to spend time on something simple like scheduling interviews, especially with a small team.”
Image: Google Hire
This article, “20 Insider Tips When Using Google Hire for Your Small Business” was first published on Small Business Trends