Agile Recruiting: Meaning, Examples, and How To Begin

In today’s competitive hiring market, traditional recruiting strategies no longer work effectively. With traditional recruiting, many steps in the process are manual and time-consuming, leading to lengthy hiring timelines, high costs, and a poor candidate experience.

To more effectively attract and engage top performers, many organizations are turning to modern recruitment strategies, including Agile recruiting. Learn more about what Agile recruiting is, how this approach compares to traditional recruiting, key benefits, and best practices to implement Agile recruiting at your organization.

Table of contents:

• What is Agile recruiting?
• Real-world example
• Traditional vs. Agile recruiting
• Agile recruiting benefits
• How to implement Agile recruiting

What is Agile recruiting?

Agile recruiting is a talent acquisition and recruitment approach that borrows principles from the Agile method, which is most commonly used in Agile software development. This approach leverages the Agile Manifesto, which was written in 2001 and focuses on four core values.

The Agile Manifesto values include:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

A key element of the Agile method involves breaking tasks, projects, or processes into sprints, involving a short period of time for each stage, with incremental goals. For example, sprints during the recruitment and hiring process may include two weeks each for defining the role and its requirements internally, sourcing for the open position, and interviewing and evaluating candidates.

A sprint-based approach can help hold recruitment teams accountable for moving the process forward and drive hiring efficiencies, rather than following traditional drawn-out hiring processes.

Real-world example

To better understand what Agile recruiting looks like in practice, let’s look at the step-by-step process for a specific role. For this example, the open position is a UX designer role.

Using the Agile method, two-week recruitment sprints for a UX designer role may include:

• Defining the role and requirements. This sprint involves collaborating with the design or product team to understand the skills gaps they’re looking to fill, confirming the budget and timeline for filling the position, and writing the job description.
• Sourcing candidates. Once the role is open, an essential next step is attracting qualified candidates. Promote open roles across traditional job boards, niche job boards targeting UX designers, social media networks, and other channels. Also leverage sourcing tools and encourage referrals from existing team members to proactively reach out to skilled talent.
• Interviewing and evaluating. Complete initial phone screens and move the most qualified candidates forward for interviews with the hiring manager, prospective team members, and other stakeholders. Also distribute any necessary skills assessments or assignments to better understand candidates’ technical UX design skills.
• Extending and negotiating an offer. Collaborate with hiring stakeholders to select the most qualified candidate and schedule a meeting to extend an offer. Allow time for negotiations and confirm a timeline for the new UX designer’s start date and onboarding.
• Sharing feedback and identifying improvements. Because the Agile method emphasizes ongoing improvement, regroup with all individuals involved in hiring the UX designer to discuss what worked well, along with any roadblocks in the process. Also consider soliciting feedback directly from candidates to improve your recruitment processes moving forward.    

Traditional vs. Agile recruiting

Before determining whether or not Agile recruiting is the right fit for your organization, you’ll want to understand the differences between traditional and Agile recruiting.  

The table below highlights some of the key ways traditional and Agile recruiting differ.

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Agile recruiting benefits

As the world of work continues to evolve and hiring remains competitive, organizations need to continually identify new ways to improve recruitment processes. According to a Findem and KarmaCheck survey featuring 300 HR leaders, 70% of respondents have missed out on a key hire due to inefficient hiring processes.

When implemented successfully, Agile recruiting can offer organizations of all sizes and across all industries several key advantages.

Enhanced ability to adapt to market changes

HR and recruitment leaders have had to adapt to significant changes in recent years, including a rapid transition to remote work at the beginning of the pandemic, a competitive hiring market amid the Great Resignation, and increased adoption of AI and other technology. According to a survey of more than 1,000 HR leaders conducted by Sage, 91% of HR leaders say the profession has changed significantly over the last five years and 84% report regularly feeling stressed.

With an Agile approach to recruiting, organizations can more quickly respond to disruption and adapt their processes to meet changing market dynamics, rather than continuing to follow lengthy, outdated recruitment practices. For example, by focusing on continual improvement, Agile recruitment teams are more likely to monitor trends and embrace the latest technology—such as AI—to drive hiring process efficiencies.

Improved candidate experience

According to a report from Greenhouse, 60% of job seekers surveyed believe companies should improve the recruitment experience. Additionally, 75% of respondents have been ghosted after a job interview—meaning they never heard back from the recruiter.

Agile recruiting places an emphasis on candidate communication, feedback, and defined timelines for each step in the process, all of which can contribute to an improved, more engaging candidate experience.

Faster hiring process

A survey from Spark Hire featuring more than 1,000 HR decision makers found that 84% of respondents are actively trying to improve time to hire. The longer the recruitment process takes, the greater risk organizations face in areas such as increased hiring costs, candidate disengagement, and lost productivity due to the unfilled role.

By adhering to Agile recruiting principles during the recruitment process, such as working in sprints, soliciting feedback, and proactively identifying process improvements, teams can decrease overall time to hire and onboard new workers sooner.

Cost-effectiveness and efficiency

The Sage research cited above found that 90% of HR leaders surveyed said limited budget is the biggest challenge for 2024. Given this, HR and recruitment teams need to identify ways to optimize and reduce recruitment costs.

By improving efficiency and streamlining time to hire, Agile recruiting can help reduce overall hiring costs. Implementing recruitment technology as part of an Agile recruiting strategy can also help automate routine tasks, saving recruitment teams time and resources.

How to implement Agile recruiting

Adopting Agile recruiting principles is a journey, not a destination. The process requires thoughtful planning, alignment and buy-in from team members, and a commitment to ongoing improvement.

Steps to include in an Agile recruiting strategy include:

1. Assess the current recruitment process
2. Conduct team training on Agile methodologies
3. Select and integrate Agile tools and methodologies
4. Develop flexible and iterative recruiting strategies
5. Foster team collaboration and inter-departmental involvement
6. Set and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs)
7. Conduct regular retrospectives and identify areas for improvement

1. Assess the current recruitment process

Before implementing Agile recruitment methodologies or other improvements, evaluating your organization’s existing recruitment strategy and process can help your team understand strengths and areas for improvement.  

Consider asking the following questions to assess your organization’s current recruitment process:

• When was the last time your organization evaluated or updated your recruitment process?
• What works well with the existing recruitment process at your company?
• How can the process improve or become more efficient?
• What is the average time to hire at your organization?
• Which bottlenecks exist in the current recruitment process?
• How much time does your recruitment team spend on routine tasks each week?
• Who is currently involved in the recruitment process?
• Which other team members should ideally be involved?
• Who would take ownership for implementing Agile recruiting methodologies?  
• What does internal communication or collaboration look like for the existing process?
• Which tools or technology solutions are currently in place to support recruitment?
• What’s the ROI for existing technology solutions?
• How much budget is available to invest in new recruitment tools?

2. Conduct team training on Agile methodologies

Effectively training all team members involved in recruitment on Agile methodologies can help increase the likelihood of Agile recruiting adoption and success.

Consider the following steps to train team members:

• Schedule multiple training sessions to support flexibility based on team members’ availability
• Enlist the support of a member of your software development team who already uses Agile methodologies to help lead the training
• Engage an independent Agile professional if teams at your organization don’t currently leverage the Agile approach
• Introduce core Agile principles, such as welcoming change and increasing team collaboration
• Encourage role-playing to help team members practice Agile methodologies in mock recruitment scenarios
• Record training sessions and store in a shared folder, extending access to individuals who couldn’t attend, team members who want a refresher, and new workers as they join the organization
• Provide resources and support, such as online courses, assessments, and articles, to help team members continue to learn after scheduled training sessions

3. Select and integrate Agile tools and technologies

With a traditional recruitment approach, many steps in the process are completed manually, which requires a significant amount of time and resources. Whether recruitment teams are adopting Agile methodologies or looking for other ways to make the process more efficient, various technology solutions are now available to streamline or automate recruitment routine steps.

According to a survey of 1,200 HR decision makers and recruiters conducted by Jobvite, among teams that plan to increase their recruiting spend in 2024, 50% will increase their budgets for new recruitment technology and 47% will expand their existing recruitment technology stack.

Implementing technology can help speed up time to hire and improve the candidate experience, while enabling recruiting teams to track critical metrics, focus on building relationships with talent, and spend time on other strategic priorities.

Examples of technology solutions that can support Agile recruiting include:

• Talent sourcing tools  
• AI-enabled recruiting assistants and job applications
• Interview scheduling software
• Talent assessment tools
• Chat and video collaboration tools
• Project management software
• Applicant tracking systems
• Talent management software

4. Develop flexible and iterative recruiting strategies

A common challenge with traditional recruitment processes is that they often follow rigid, predefined steps and remain unchanged for years, even if they don’t always drive the desired results.  

With an Agile approach to recruiting, organizations are more flexible and always seek ways to improve the process. Some ways to do so include:

• Dividing the process into sprints. Define short, focused cycles for specific tasks such as sourcing, interviewing, and job offer stages. Assign a set time period for each sprint to ensure the overall hiring timeline stays on track.
• Prioritizing tasks within each sprint. Based on learnings from previous recruitment processes, rank tasks based on importance and urgency, allowing adjustments as needed.
• Embracing experimentation. Rather than relying on the same process and tactics, test different sourcing channels, staffing solutions, interview formats, assessment tools, and communication methods. Each time your team experiments with a new tool or tactic, analyze results and adapt your recruitment process based on what works best.

5. Foster team collaboration and interdepartmental involvement

Rather than only having a recruiting team member or the direct hiring manager involved in decision-making, Agile recruiting encourages collaboration by involving existing workers on the direct team and across departments in the recruitment process.

The Agile approach also emphasizes a regular cadence of communication to ensure all team members share feedback and are informed about recruiting progress.

Here are some ways to drive collaboration and involve more team members in the recruitment process:

• Establishing cross-functional teams that include hiring managers, team members, HR personnel, and other relevant stakeholders in the recruitment process
• Encouraging team members to share open roles on social media and with their professional networks  
• Implementing an incentive-based worker referral program
• Asking existing team members which soft skills are important to team collaboration and productivity  
• Scheduling peer interviews between existing team and prospective team members to help the team understand how the individual may communicate and contribute if they join the company
• Centralizing communication and feedback by leveraging an applicant tracking system or similar tool
• Promoting transparency by regularly sharing recruiting progress, candidate insights, and decision-making rationale with all individuals involved in the recruiting process
• Distributing feedback surveys to recent candidates and hires to improve the recruitment process

6. Set and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs)

Regularly tracking specific recruitment metrics offers insight into what’s working and what’s not with your recruitment process and can help your organization identify ways to improve your process over time.

While specific goals and objectives may vary from one business to another, many of the same recruitment KPIs are beneficial to monitor across businesses.

Common KPIs to measure recruitment effectiveness include:

• Total number of applicants
• Percentage of qualified applicants
• Time spent in each hiring step
• Total time to hire
• Cost per hire
• Sourcing channel performance
• Total recruitment technology investment
• Recruitment technology ROI
• Offer acceptance rate
• Recruitment process satisfaction
• Worker retention rate
• Quality of hire

7. Conduct regular retrospectives and identify areas for improvement

One of the defined principles of the Agile Manifesto is, “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.” While the Agile Manifesto was originally developed for software development, this principle can also be applied in recruitment.  

Steps to apply this Agile principle in recruiting include:

• Schedule post-sprint and post-recruitment process feedback sessions. Dedicate time after each sprint once each new team member is hired to reflect on what worked well, what didn't, and how to improve next time. In Agile terminology, these meetings are often called retrospectives or postmortems.
• Collect feedback from all stakeholders. Encourage constructive criticism and suggestions from recruiters, hiring managers, other team members, and candidates. Consider distributing standardized forms for feedback and also leave space for open-ended feedback.
• Track industry trends and technology advancements. In addition to collecting direct feedback, conduct regular market research to gain insight into the latest trends, market shifts, Agile methodologies, tools, and technology that can make your recruitment process even more efficient.
• Refine the recruitment process based on feedback and insights. Review recruitment KPIs and feedback to address and overcome challenges, adjust workflows, and consider implementing new tools—or eliminating tools that don’t drive results.

Explore Agile recruiting with Upwork

When implemented effectively, Agile recruiting can help drive improvements throughout your recruitment process, while decreasing time to hire and hiring costs and improving candidate engagement as a result.

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