First impressions aren’t just important — they’re everything. And when it comes to hiring, how you treat candidates in those early stages speaks volumes about your company. After all, 76% of employees say a positive hiring experience influenced their decision to accept an offer. That’s a big deal.
But we get it. Recruitment is time-consuming, and with so many moving parts, keeping up with every application can feel impossible. That’s why it pays (literally) to automate as many of the administrative tasks as you can.
By using a skills-first ATS like Toggl Hire, you can instantly send follow-up emails, move candidates seamlessly through stages, and ensure no one gets left behind — all while focusing on skills-first hiring.
Not only does this improve the candidate experience, but it also creates a streamlined and efficient workflow for your team. Wanna learn how? Let’s explore how automation can transform your recruitment process for the better.
Smart screening
To truly identify top talent, it’s important to go beyond what’s written on a CV. Setting up a role-specific skills assessment immediately after the application form allows you to evaluate candidates based on their real abilities, not just their credentials or experience.
To do this quickly and easily in Toggl Hire, combine these two automations:
- Move to another pipeline stage: Auto-progress applicants to another pipeline stage once they apply.
- Test invite when a candidate enters a stage: Automatically invite candidates added to a stage to take a test. Pro tip: You can (and should) also set up reminders!
Emails tied to pipeline stages
For your team, automating email communication means less manual outreach and more time spent on high-value tasks, like evaluating candidate skills and conducting interviews.
Automated messages can acknowledge applications, update candidates on their status, and schedule next steps — without anyone having to chase their inbox.
For candidates, timely and consistent communication makes them feel valued and informed throughout the process. No more wondering if their application got lost or if they’re still in the running. Instead, they receive regular updates, which increases their satisfaction and confidence in your organization.
Here’s the automation we suggest for this:
- Emails when a candidate enters a stage: Whether that’s an assessment invite, a link to schedule an interview, or another part of the recruitment process, this option helps you ensure that you send communications to candidates entering a stage on time.
Automations based on assessment results
In Toggl Hire, close-ended questions in skills assessments are automatically scored, eliminating the need for your hiring team to manually review every response.
This approach means you can quickly spot top performers and keep the hiring process moving forward without unnecessary delays. By letting Toggl Hire handle the scoring, your team saves valuable time and can focus on connecting with the most qualified candidates right from the start.
Here, you can use our recruitment automations to:
- Move candidates above the threshold to a different pipeline stage: when a candidate scores more than XX%, move them to a different pipeline stage
- Reject candidates below the threshold: When a candidate scores less than XX%, mark them as rejected and send them a rejection email. You can also just mark them as rejected without sending an automatic email.
Build a recruitment flow that works for you
Ready to try it for yourself? Create a free account here and then follow these four simple and effective steps to get started with recruitment automations:
- Start with a job application form and automatically invite all applicants to take a skills test.
- Set a passing threshold to automatically advance high scorers to the next stage.
- Let the results guide your focus. Once test scores are in, zero in on the top performers and review their application details.
- Use the time you saved to dig into high-potential candidates and have more meaningful conversations.
And before you start to make objections about how this might reduce the human touch in your hiring process, we just want to say one thing: automation in Toggl Hire is designed to enhance your hiring process, not replace the human elements that make it special.
Basically, by automating routine tasks, you’re cutting out the noise and freeing up time to focus on what really matters: building a fair, fast, and skills-first hiring process.
Elizabeth is an experienced entrepreneur, writer, and content marketer. She has nine years of experience helping grow businesses, including two of her own, and shares Toggl's mission of challenging traditional beliefs about what building a successful business looks like.
