Talent acquisition is at a crossroads. In an era of cost-cutting and ROI scrutiny, recruiters can no longer afford to be seen as purely transactional workers. Talent acquisition teams that can build relationships with managers and candidates, source top-tier talent and carry out other high-value work will not only be more likely to receive ongoing support but also become important strategic partners for the business. Teams that are stuck carrying out primarily transactional work are increasingly at risk of being automated or outsourced out of existence.

In this article, we’ll break down the amount of time that recruiting teams spend answering questions from candidates about the hiring process. The more time your recruiters spend on this administrative task, the less time they have for the strategic recruiting work that can help you outmaneuver your competition in the talent marketplace. After briefly discussing the benefits of technologies like AI for reducing administrative work, we also highlight seven low- and no-tech ways you can work to free up time for strategic work in recruiting.

Tracking administrative time in recruiting

According to data compiled by the American Productivity & Quality Center, recruiters spend a median of 10% of their time answering candidate questions about the hiring process. Recruiters in the 75th percentile spend 15% or more of their time answering these questions, while those in the 25th percentile spend 7% or less of their time on the same work.

Why you should pay attention to this measure

This measure tracks the administrative time that recruiters spend on queries—not the time they spend building relationships or engaging in higher-value candidate interactions. Keeping your percentage for this measure as low as possible will leave more time for recruiters to spend on strategic tasks like sourcing, screening and relationship building with candidates and hiring managers. Helping your organization stay competitive in the talent marketplace through activities like these is always going to be a better use of your recruiters’ time than having them answer the same basic questions from candidates over and over.

There are at least three other reasons why you should track this measure:

• Scrutiny on HR costs: This and other time allocation measures can help you identify where administrative work is happening and where you can cut costs without sacrificing talent acquisition outcomes.
• Many talent acquisition functions are or will be embarking on initiatives to implement automation and AI and to streamline talent acquisition processes. This measure can be used to set a baseline before launch, assess progress along the way and demonstrate impact to make the business case for additional funds or initiatives.
• Many talent acquisition teams are striving toward more data-driven decision-making in order to provide stronger support for the business. Keeping administrative time low gives recruiters the capacity to develop and apply data and analytics to make better decisions.

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