[Tutorial] Managing a recruitment campaign with a high volume of applications

By Julie Croyal

Published: 28 April 2025

When we advertise a vacancy, we always try to get as many applicants as possible. However, having too many applications can be more of a handicap than anything else.

In this recruitment tutorial, we'll look at how to manage these high-volume campaigns and gain better control over your recruitment processes using ATS software.

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How can you optimise your recruitment process to manage a massive influx of applications?

Context

An excessive volume of applications is often the result of a badly-written advertisement. If you are not sufficiently selective about the profile you are looking for, you run the risk of being swamped by applications, the vast majority of which will be of no interest.

Nevertheless, in some sectors, it's impossible to escape this flood of applications. For example, on average there are more than 270 applications per vacancy for receptionists (despite several thousand active vacancies).

Many other professions are affected by this problem, including surface technicians, switchboard operators/receptionists, entertainers, lifeguards, medical secretaries, security guards, warehouse staff, etc.

Solutions and methods

To remedy the problem, let's act methodically.

Before publishing the job offer

👉 Set up an application evaluation grid

This scale will enable you to quickly assess applications objectively.

First, you need to list the profile criteria, then divide them into mandatory on one side and optional on the other, and rank them in order of importance.

Finally, give each criterion a score. Once the scale has been completed, each candidate will receive an overall mark, or score. The best marks represent the best candidates for the job.

This preparatory work will also give you a better idea of the profile you're looking for and improve the way you write your advert.

👉 Draw on your internal resources

Once you've established the scale, consult your CV library. It's easy to forget to use the resources we have at our disposal. And that's a big mistake. You've spent time putting together a qualified CV library. You might as well use it!

When you publish your advert

To write your ad properly, look at what works: the keywords used, the salary ranges offered, the sites on which the jobs are advertised...

👉 Monitor the competition

You're not the only one looking for these profiles. Take a look at what your competitors are doing, which will make it easier for you to position yourself and stand out from the crowd.

👉 Use keyword tools

Refine your searches with tools like Google trends! It will allow you to compare the search expressions most used by candidates.

👉 Consult job board comparisons

By visiting job aggregators such as Google for Jobs, you can quickly get an idea of the most widely used job boards. A few internet searches will help you complete your selection.

Selecting candidates

👉 Draw up your interview evaluation grid

This has the same advantages as the application evaluation grid. Many interview evaluation grids are available free of charge on the web. However, we recommend that you use these models to draw up your own grid. The criteria that seem relevant to you may not be so relevant to another company. There's no substitute for tailor-made solutions.

👉 Draft model responses

Another good practice to put in place at this stage: reply email templates. These should be provided for all scenarios: rejection of application before interview, rejection of application after interview, thanking the candidate after rejection... Don't try to save time by not replying to applications, you risk damaging your employer brand.

Use applicant tracking software (ATS)

By managing your entire recruitment process with a dedicated tool:

You save time by automating a whole series of repetitive actions in the recruitment process,
You maintain a qualified CV database,
You can advertise on several sites simultaneously,
Optimise your search for candidates and the management of your applications,
You integrate managers into the process for collaborative recruitment,
Communicate with candidates across all media.

Tutorial for organising a recruitment campaign using ATS software

As we have just seen, there are many advantages to using recruitment software. Let's take a concrete example and look together at the best practices to follow in this tutorial for organising and managing a recruitment campaign with a high volume of applications.

Claire is a recruitment officer at Jobic, an interim agency. For one of her clients, she's looking for receptionists in Paris for a 3-month assignment.

For this demonstration, we'll be using the ATS Beetween software, which can be used to multicast job offers and manage CVs online.

Stage 1: writing a job advert for a client

Claire first draws up an evaluation grid in which she enters all the criteria (mandatory and secondary) for the profile she is looking for and ranks them in order of importance. This grid will enable her to highlight the essential criteria.

Claire then uses an advertisement template to draft her job advert and even has her client automatically pre-fill certain fields (such as the company description).

View of the selection of an ad template when writing a job advert

When writing a job advert, the software gives recommendations and prevents it from validating an advert that might be rejected by the job boards, in particular because of vocabulary problems (certain expressions are prohibited for anti-discrimination reasons. For example: "A young and dynamic team" is likely to be rejected because of the adjective "young").

Stage 2: Posting the advert

Now that the advert has been written, Claire has to get it out there. She needs to publish it on the most relevant sites. In her case, job boards such as AccueilJob or HotesseJob would be particularly appropriate. Depending on the profile sought, Claire will also publish on more generalist sites (Pôle Emploi, Indeed, university websites, etc.).

At this stage, using ATS software is a major advantage: with just one click, Claire will distribute the advert to all the selected sites!

Stage 3: Pre-selection of candidates (1)

In just a few days, Claire received over 200 applications. It's not humanly possible for her to reread all the CVs received, especially as this was not the only advert to be published.

Claire relies on pre-selection tools.
An initial selection is automatically made when the application is received. Claire has programmed a questionnaire to be sent to the candidate as soon as the application is received. Rules have been put in place to ensure that certain profiles are automatically eliminated on the basis of the responses received.

View of the questionnaire received by the candidate. The questions asked are at the recruiter's discretion.

Stage 4: Qualifying the application

To continue the selection process, Claire qualifies the various applications considered relevant following the 1st selection stage.

One effective method is the use of tags. These are keywords recorded on the file. To choose her tags, Claire will use the evaluation grids she has drawn up.

Once the tags have been created, Claire uses automatic parsing. Thanks to this feature, her software will analyse the documents provided, such as the CV, and automatically record the desired keywords. Some of the tags can also be qualified using the candidates' responses to the questionnaires.

Let's take an example. Claire records the tag "Years of experience". During parsing, the number of years of experience recognised on the CV will be automatically entered.

Qualification of a candidate file using tags. The content of the tags can be used as a filter in the advanced search.

Stage 5: candidate selection (2)

Unfortunately, Claire still has far too many applications to process for this course. A 2nd sorting is necessary.

This 2nd stage will be carried out using "matching": a system for scoring applications according to how closely they match the criteria in the advert. Claire will then have to select a certain number of candidates. This 2nd selection will enable us to prioritise the candidates to be interviewed (for example, candidates whose profile matches at least 90% of the criteria sought).

Selection of candidates following a response to an ad based on their match with the ad
(match expressed here as a %).

Stage 6: Candidate selected for interview

Claire finally has what we call a "short list", a reasonable list of candidates to interview.

To save time, she sends the candidates a request for a deferred video, a list of questions that the candidate must answer by filming himself on video using the internet link provided. It then shares the relevant files with the managers so that they can conduct the interviews. The manager can then decide whether to conduct the interview in person or by videoconference.

View of the interview proposal sent by email (here, a physical interview). An identical view for videoconference interviews is available in the "video" tab.

Step 6 bis: the candidate is not selected

To optimise her recruitment process, Claire has drawn up some email templates. This means that as soon as a candidate is registered as unsuccessful, the corresponding email is automatically sent to the candidate, whether this is due to a refusal at the pre-selection stage, or a refusal from the manager.

Stage 7: End of the process

Claire has found her rare gem. She automatically generates the employment contract using the registered templates and sends it by email to the lucky candidate.

She then closes the recruitment process, which automatically removes the ad from all the sites on which it was published.

Finally, Claire keeps the unsuccessful candidate files in her talent pool (CV library). If a profile has not been retained for this recruitment, it may prove interesting for another.