Many companies have turned to Jira to streamline their recruitment processes. The flexibility of Jira allows HR departments to customize workflows, track the progress of each candidate, and ensure that no step in the hiring process is overlooked.

Here’s how a typical HR hiring workflow might look in Jira, utilizing the capabilities of the tool to organize and manage recruitment effectively:

  1. Creating a ‘Position’ Issue Type: Each open position in the company is created as a standard issue type named ‘Position’. This allows for a structured and organized way to manage different vacancies within the Jira project.
  2. Subtasks for Candidates: For every ‘Position’ issue, subtasks are created under the name ‘Candidate’. Each subtask represents an individual applicant, allowing HR managers to track their progress through the hiring process separately.
  3. Kanban Board with Custom Swimlanes: The project uses a Kanban board for visualization and management of tasks. The board is divided into swimlanes, each representing a ‘Position’. Swimlanes make it easy to see how many candidates are in each stage and to identify any bottlenecks in the process.

Now, let’s delve into the hiring workflow stages:

  • Waiting Screening: This is the initial stage where candidates’ applications are collected and await initial review.
  • HR Interview: Candidates who pass the initial screening are moved to this stage where the HR team conducts an interview to assess their suitability for the company culture and role.
  • Awaiting Test Results: If the position requires it, candidates might need to take a test. This lane keeps track of those awaiting results.
  • Technical Interview: For positions that demand specific technical skills, a technical interview is conducted, and candidates’ abilities are rigorously evaluated.
  • Team Review: After passing the technical assessments, the candidates are reviewed by the team they will potentially join.
  • Approved: Candidates who have successfully passed the previous stages are moved to the approved lane, indicating that they are shortlisted.
  • Awaiting Manager Approval: Even after approval, a manager’s sign-off is often required to proceed with an offer.
  • Offer Sent: Candidates who receive the green light are extended a job offer.
  • Awaiting Client Interview / Approval: For consultancies or client-driven roles, the candidate may need the client’s approval before finalizing the hire.
  • Revisit: Serve as repositories for candidates who are to be reconsidered.
  • Reject: Those who are not selected
  • Hired: The successful hires

Custom Fields for Detailed Tracking

To capture more detailed information about each candidate and position, custom fields are invaluable. Here are a few custom fields that could be particularly useful:

  • Source: This custom field captures where the candidate found out about the position, such as LinkedIn, a job board, a referral, or a company career page. This data is essential for understanding the effectiveness of various recruitment channels.
  • Position Type: This might include full-time, part-time, contract, or internship. By tracking this information, HR can quickly filter and manage applications based on the employment type.
  • Salary Range: A field for the expected or offered salary range helps in ensuring that candidates are within the budgetary constraints of the department and position.
  • HR Responsible: This field is used to assign a specific HR team member as the point of contact or responsible party for the recruitment of a particular position. It ensures accountability and provides a clear reference for who is handling each stage of the hiring process for a candidate.
  • Experience Level: Indicating whether the position is for an entry-level, mid-level, or senior candidate can help streamline the selection process.
  • Department/Team: This custom field allows for the specification of the exact department or team within the organization that the position belongs to.
  • Location: For companies with multiple locations or remote positions, this field can specify the geographic location or the option for remote work.
  • Urgency: The urgency or importance of filling a position. For example, a ‘High’ priority could be used for roles that are critical to operations, while ‘Low’ priority might be applied to roles that are important but not urgent.
  • Interviewer Notes: A text field for each stage of the interview process allows interviewers to add their notes and feedback about a candidate.
  • Start Date: For positions that need to be filled urgently or have a specific start date, this field can track when the candidate is expected to begin.

Workflow rules for leveraging the Workflow:

  • Screening and Filtering: During the initial screening, HR can filter candidates based on the custom fields, like focusing only on those who applied through preferred channels or match the desired experience level.
  • Transition Conditions: You could set up conditions in the workflow that require certain fields to be filled before a candidate can move to the next stage, such as having the ‘Source’ field completed before proceeding to the ‘HR Interview’ stage.
  • Automations: Jira allows for the creation of automated rules. For instance, when a candidate’s ‘Position Type’ is marked as ‘Internship,’ they could automatically be assigned to a specific team member who handles intern hiring.

This structure can be used to generate detailed reports, and here I suggest using EazyBI:

  1. Time-to-Fill Report:
    • Purpose: Tracks the average time taken to fill a position from the date it is opened to the date an offer is accepted.
    • Benefits: Helps identify inefficiencies in the hiring process and sets realistic timeline expectations for different roles.
  2. Source Efficiency Report:
    • Purpose: Analyzes which sourcing channels (e.g., Linkedin, referrals, career site) lead to the most hires.
    • Benefits: Assists in optimizing advertising budgets and efforts towards the most fruitful sourcing channels.
  3. Recruitment Funnel Conversion Rates:
    • Purpose: Measures the conversion rate at each stage of the recruitment funnel, from application to hire.
    • Benefits: Pinpoints stages in the hiring process where candidates drop out or fail to progress, indicating possible areas for improvement.
  4. Diversity and Inclusion Report:
    • Purpose: Breaks down candidate demographics to ensure diversity in the hiring pipeline.
    • Benefits: Supports the company’s commitment to creating an inclusive workplace and identifies any unintentional biases in the recruitment process.
  5. Offer Acceptance Rate:
    • Purpose: Tracks the percentage of job offers that are accepted by candidates.
    • Benefits: A low rate could indicate issues with compensation, candidate experience, or employer branding.
  6. Candidate Satisfaction Survey Results:
    • Purpose: Gathers feedback from candidates on their experience throughout the hiring process.
    • Benefits: Provides insights into areas that enhance or detract from the candidate experience, which is crucial for employer branding and process improvement.
    • Tip: I’d use an integration with external satisfaction surveys for this one, which I posted here.
  7. HR Workload Distribution:
    • Purpose: Shows the number of positions and candidates each HR team member is responsible for.
    • Benefits: Ensures balanced workloads among HR staff and can help in resource planning.
  8. Cost-Per-Hire Report:
    • Purpose: Calculates the total cost involved in hiring a new employee, including advertising fees and HR team hours.
    • Benefits: Helps in budgeting and identifying cost-saving opportunities.
  9. Department/Team Hiring Needs:
    • Purpose: Details the number of open positions, filled positions, and pending positions by department or team.
    • Benefits: Assists in strategic planning and prioritizing recruitment efforts according to business needs.
  10. Retention Rate of New Hires:
    • Purpose: Tracks how long new hires stay with the company, particularly within their first year.
    • Benefits: Identifies the success of the recruitment process and the effectiveness of onboarding programs.
  11. Interview-to-Offer Ratios:
    • Purpose: Assesses the number of interviews conducted per offer made.
    • Benefits: Can indicate whether the bar for initial interviews is set appropriately and can also highlight the efficiency of the interview process.

Using Jira in this manner provides a clear, step-by-step overview of the recruitment process, offering transparency and efficiency. It not only keeps the HR team organized but also enables better communication across departments, ensuring that everyone involved in the hiring process is on the same page.