# Fast and Efficient Hiring Processes with Jira

> How Jira Service Management automates hiring processes: ticket tracking, Kanban workflows, email integration and automation rules explained.

Source: https://www.xalt.de/en/blog/efficient-hiring-processes-with-jira/

TEAM XALT Atlassian Platinum Partner · 22 February 2021 · 9 min

> **"The biggest challenge I am currently facing is long lead times. Active candidates want a job NOW or as soon as possible. In my own company, the time to fill positions has extended from about one month to two months now. It is always difficult to retain the best candidates during this period…"**

Many growing companies require a standardised and formal application process. This is partly to manage the effort involved in onboarding additional staff or hiring new employees. Part-time consultants, external recruitment firms, or HR departments are often not an option for smaller companies due to high costs. Therefore, it makes sense to address personnel management early and build an internal application process to ensure the next phase of company growth.

Every new application increases administrative capacity. Therefore, small, growing companies must find ways to manage this effort efficiently. One of the first tasks is to make the basic processes as efficient as possible. Choosing the wrong tools often requires a high amount of manual effort. Therefore, the best approach is to use software that automates a large part of the administrative work in the application process. In our view, one of the best tools to achieve this is **Jira Service Management.**

A quick note for all readers: If you have never heard of Jira Service Management, you should take a look at this product guide. Here you will get a brief overview of the tool and its use: [Jira Service Management & Ticketing.](https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/service-management/features/service-desk)

## How our solution works

Jira Service Management (JSM) is a versatile project management tool for departments such as finance, marketing, sales, and human resources. Among other things, HR professionals can use Jira Service Management to recruit new employees, track candidate interviews, or manage candidate pools. Fundamentally, JSM can be configured so that every new application automatically creates a ticket, which you can assign to individual employees or teams (e.g., HR). This significantly simplifies your entire candidate management with a visualised workflow. With this, you can also quickly respond to comments on applications and adapt quickly to changes. For example, you can quickly ask candidates to submit work samples, certificates, etc., via the comment function. In Jira Service Management, you can: (1) Manage tasks and processes through workflows. (2) Display the steps and status of a task in the workflow. (3) Individually adapt the way the workflow works. (4) Change individual specific tasks or the entire workflow process.

A standard Jira workflow could look like this:

![Screenshot des Standard-Workflows eines Jira-Projekts mit seinen Statusübergängen](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/c475o02b/production/b5dfbf2032f34e8069e80a961b8078ac65e9e0c1-1160x740.png?w=1504&q=75&fit=max&auto=format)

Here is a brief overview of what is possible with Jira Service Management and the benefits of using Jira for recruiting. We also explain how we plan and manage our HR processes with the powerful Atlassian tool.

### 1. Tracking candidates

An important application of Jira in recruiting is candidate tracking. Tasks for candidates, such as uploading all important documents, are automatically created.
Depending on how you design your application process, you can set the ticket status of your candidates to "done" when the process is completed. If you still need to complete other tasks, such as background checks or administrative work, you can set the task to 'in progress'. Additionally, specific subtasks can be set up under 'in progress', such as 'to call' or 'to invite', if you want to get to know candidates better after the first screening. Such tasks can be repeated each time a new candidate enters the application process.

### 2. Managing relevant files

When you are recruiting for an open position in your company, you often receive hundreds of applications with different attachments. With Jira, managing these documents is very convenient. You only need to select a specific ticket and click on the attachments symbol. All relevant documents are automatically added there by an automated workflow.
Additionally, your team members responsible for recruitment can easily communicate the progress of an application in the comment section within a single ticket. Other team members can also be mentioned in the internal comments, enabling smooth and optimised team communication.

### 3. Creating a customised Jira workflow

With Jira Service Management, you can manage and complete workflows, tasks, and subtasks in parallel. Jira is a versatile tool that can be adapted to the requirements of your application process and your team. For example, the status workflow can be tailored to your process, even if it includes several intermediate steps (e.g., multiple interviews per candidate).
Furthermore, you can create a modifiable Kanban board to get an overview of your recruiting stream and your progress.

### 4. Measuring performance

As Jira is a project management tool, you can accurately measure the performance of your workflows and team members. For example, the average duration from application to hiring of your candidates. Thanks to detailed reports, it is easy to identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks before they become problems.
The formalisation and automation of hiring workflows also lead to a more productive and satisfying working day for HR professionals. With Jira, you ensure that your responsible team members can spend more time reviewing candidates, which also leads to a better and more thoughtful selection of candidates.

### 5. Onboarding

Finally, you can also use Jira for the onboarding process of your new employees. We recommend that you adapt and extend your onboarding process in the Jira project with team-building events. You can easily record all important information, such as equipment provided or training results, required for onboarding.

## How we implemented our Jira workflow

Last year, our teams grew rapidly. The large number of new applications and onboardings presented a challenge for our HR specialists. Consequently, we had to go through new applications every week, check them manually, and create a series of identical topics and tasks. Ultimately, we decided to set up a new Jira workflow. In this workflow, various steps are automated, including the creation of various specific subtasks, descriptions, and text templates.

### First steps and basics

The first steps in setting up our workflow were: (1) A brainstorming session about the various open positions in our company. (2) Planning each individual step in our new Jira workflow. For the workflow, our IT and business development experts pooled their knowledge. The result was: a workflow with individual processes in **5 overarching steps** as well as automated intermediate steps and required action fields. Here you can see a brief excerpt from our workflow from steps 1. Application received and 2. Application review.

![Horizontal flow diagram with status boxes and decision points](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/c475o02b/production/094db8e9134a9111824098b0099fe2d1b3452150-875x543.jpg?w=1504&q=75&fit=max&auto=format)

Despite the carefully considered steps, our workflow initially had some flaws. However, after the first practical use, we could quickly identify these flaws and the workflow was adjusted. Here is another advantage of Jira: Changing workflows and automations is quick and uncomplicated. Changes can be made at any time without having to adjust the entire project.

### Creating a Jira workflow and Kanban board

Once you have defined your own workflow, it is time to integrate it into Jira. To do this, a new project must first be created.

1. Click on **Projects**\> **View all projects**
2. Click on **Create project** in the top right corner
3. Select **Basic project\*** \> Enter the name and key of the project

\*We recommend using the basic project. This offers the best options for tracking, prioritising, and resolving requests (or, in other words, applications).

1. Click on **Boards \> View all boards**
2. Click **Create board** in the top right corner
3. Select **Kanban board** \> **Board from existing project**
4. Enter the name and select the project you just created for the board

Once the board and project have been created, click the Project settings button. Here you can configure automation, workflows, SLAs, as well as users and roles. We will show you as an example how we designed our workflow and Kanban board. We are happy to provide further information upon request. In addition, there is detailed documentation on customising workflows in Jira by Atlassian: [Jira Workflow Overview](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/overview-of-jira-cloud-workflows/)

For the Kanban board in our Jira project, we use **7 columns** with a total of **22 statuses.** For a quick workflow, it is important: (1) To choose a simplified workflow schema. (2) To create cross-linking between the individual statuses. This allows the status of any ticket in this workflow to be moved to any other status. This creates high flexibility, ease of use, and a simplified workflow for the Jira project. With the simplified workflow, the content of the Kanban board (including columns and statuses) can be changed at any time.

![Screenshot der Spalten eines Kanban-Boards für Bewerbungen in Jira](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/c475o02b/production/cb656455d19ee36679f199e7a1ad67f6d036e21e-1224x489.png?w=1504&q=75&fit=max&auto=format)

### Email forwarding

It must then be specified that all applications received via email are automatically linked to the project. In other words, all applications sent by email should automatically create a ticket in your configured project. To achieve this, you should integrate Jira with your email system. This setting can be changed under **Project settings \> Email request**. Make sure that you have the…

- permission to manage projects.
- public sign-up or adding customers to your Service Desk project enabled.
- appropriate request types configured as required visible fields.

Click [here](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/receive-requests-from-an-email-address/) to learn more about receiving requests via email. See the following guide for [Email troubleshooting](https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-to-troubleshoot-issues-with-the-email-channel-973489501.html) if you encounter problems when setting up the email channel.

After setup, incoming applications will now be transferred and automatically converted into **Jira tickets**. This allows your team to focus immediately on the applicants without having to manually manage multiple inboxes.

### Automation with Jira

Automation is one of the greatest strengths of Jira Service Management. The simplest example is automation upon receipt of the application. When someone applies to you, a ticket is created and the ticket is moved to the "New" column with the status "Open". The goal of this automated process is to thank applicants for their application to us and let them know that we have received their documents and will review them in a timely manner.

![Screenshot der Anpassungsregeln eines Jira-Bewerbungsprojekts](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/c475o02b/production/a2c64aa208b33beb14a9b17885c7f270fc94513d-904x304.png?w=1504&q=75&fit=max&auto=format)

You can add **"If"** triggers, **"When"** conditions and **"Then"** actions. These parameters determine the flow and create the automation. The automation for receiving the application is to be configured as follows:

*IF: Issue created OR Status changed \> WHEN: Issue matches Status = Open \> THEN: Send email = Template "Reply to Requester(Applicant)" AND Transition issue = Request/Application confirmed AND Add comment = 'XALT Bot: Request/Application received and confirmed' AND Edit issue = Assignee changed to user XY AND Notify user = User XY*

You can also add **additional automations** such as **SLA** (Service Level Agreement). This rule alerts you or the assigned person about at-risk SLAs, helping you keep track of time-critical issues. For example, assigned users can be alerted after a certain period if a request or application has not been processed within a specified timeframe. We set the SLA in our workflow to 16h and the automation to:

*IF: SLA remaining time = at risk (30 min remaining) \> IF: Issue matches = all issues \> THEN: Notify user = User XY*

## Customisation for your benefit

Of course, recruitment processes vary from company to company. Therefore, you should complete the following tasks to ensure our workflow fits your individual process:

- Adapt the workflow to your recruitment process. Pre-screening, General, Shortlist
- Create an issue for each role and use sub-tasks to track candidates
- Customise the Kanban board to create the desired view of your HR stream
- Implement and use text templates and your CRM system

## Conclusion

The benefits of Jira Service Management are extensive. Jira is, unlike other tools in the recruitment sector, very cost-effective (from 10USD/month) and has significantly more features. Furthermore, it is very easy to use (even for people who do not come from the IT industry). In addition, Jira enables automated workflows, which can achieve enormous efficiency and speed.

Especially for small and growing companies, it is important to be able to respond quickly to an application. Otherwise, valuable candidates will be invited for an interview by the next big company and be lost to you. A fast workflow is a first step to solving this problem.

This blog post is intended to provide initial assistance in this regard. Of course, we welcome feedback and are happy to provide more detailed information about our workflows, templates, and processes. Further information can also be found on our Solution page [Jira Applicant Tool](https://www.xalt.de/en/jira-recruiting-tool/).

## Ready for faster hiring processes?

We'll help you set up Jira Service Management for your recruiting and automate your hiring process.

[Talk to us](https://www.xalt.de/en/contact/)

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