According to ONS data, there are 934,000 job vacancies in the UK. Businesses are eager to fill these roles, but the findings from Indeed show that teams spend too much time on inefficient processes and mundane tasks. In fact, the survey of UK businesses found that employers say the second biggest challenge to hiring is the process being ‘time-consuming’, only behind talent shortages.

Businesses bogged down by administrative tasks

On average, employers spend a third (33%) of their hiring budget on administrative tasks. While hiring decision makers are spending the majority of time (6+ hours per week) on this type of work, including CV screening (56%), candidate assessment (55%) and candidate sourcing (55%).

This trend is also evident on a wider business level. On average, employers spend 37% of their time on tasks associated with hiring activities, showing that these processes have become a major time drain. 

Employers also say that administrative parts of hiring can be the most challenging, including candidate sourcing (29%), candidate assessment (23%), resume screening 22%) and background checks (21%). 

Employers aren’t yet taking advantage of AI to accelerate hiring

Despite the need to make processes more efficient, a significant 42% of businesses aren’t using AI in their hiring process, despite so many mundane tasks being ripe for automation. Indeed, 86% of those who are using AI say it’s had a positive impact.

Against this backdrop of time-sucking tasks, more than half of businesses say efficiency (53%) and time savings (51%) are the top advantages of implementing AI.

Employers who do not use AI in their hiring process say that interview scheduling (45%), CV screening (41%), background checks (34%) and candidate sourcing (30%) would all benefit from the technology, reflecting areas that businesses have highlighted as challenging or time-consuming.

Using AI to reduce the time spent on these processes would free up hiring decision-makers to focus on other work that they say should be human-driven, including final decision-making (55%), candidate interviews (52%) and personalised communication (43%).

The latest iteration of automated hiring

With these challenges in mind, Indeed today launches its latest iteration of its industry-leading matching technologies. Indeed’s automated hiring tools are designed to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, and allow employers to hire faster than ever before. The features being rolled out increase speed of hiring in three main ways: reach, efficiency and control. The tools are:

• Direct to Interview - Fast-track hiring by simply setting job criteria and availability and Indeed connects employers with matched candidates for a first conversation. Jobs using Direct to Interview schedule 10.5 times more interviews on Indeed. They are also completing a successful interview 33% faster than other jobs.
• Direct to Message - Employers can automatically start conversations with qualified candidates.  Simply set your job criteria and use Indeed to help screen candidates and send a pre-created message to candidates who have passed your criteria.
• Hiring Events - An all-in-one solution to help attract talent. This tool helps automate tasks such as interview scheduling, and candidate messaging, and will then run virtual and in-person hiring events efficiently and cost-effectively. Employers can also have more control over automating functionalities that could help save screening time. With businesses losing so much time to schedule interviews, the average employer on Indeed Hiring Events has 18 candidates show up ready to interview.

Raj Mukherjee, EVP and General Manager at the global matching and hiring platform Indeed, said: “In order to stay competitive, employers need simpler ways to get to hire faster. Indeed’s research indicates that businesses believe more can be done to improve the efficiency of the hiring process, and that many of the most time-consuming and challenging tasks are ripe for automation. We’ve created our new hiring tools to eliminate manual tasks so that employers can focus on what matters most – human connection.

“Indeed is uniquely positioned as an end-to-end hiring platform to help businesses address their hiring pain points. Our automated hiring capabilities serve employer’s wide range of hiring needs from self service, to fully automating all of their administrative tasks. These tools further Indeed’s evolution into a matching and hiring platform that delivers unparalleled access to the most qualified candidates.”