If you ever go through all the stuff you have tucked away in your attic or basement, you’re sure to find some antiques, like a landline phone. As great as they were growing up (I still miss my hamburger phone), imagine trying to communicate today using it. You can’t. It’s inefficient.

The same holds true with your hiring team’s early-career recruiting process. What worked then doesn’t necessarily work now.

Early-career recruiting has drastically changed from the days when landline phones were prevalent. So if your team is stuck in the past like Marty McFly, here’s how you can lead your team’s early-career recruiting process back to the future.

Old On-Campus Recruiting Efforts Cost More Money—A Lot More

Then: We spend thousands of dollars on on-campus recruiting—$6,275, in fact, on average—because we pay someone to be on-campus. We travel constantly. We create resume books. We give out swag. We have hoarse voices from giving the same presentation hundreds of times. We go to the same 25 schools, if that, to meet with and recruit candidates.

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Now: We spend much, much less—zero, to be exact—on on-campus recruiting. We have a cost-per-hire of $2,027, which the National Association of Colleges and Employers found companies save without the cost of personnel and travel. We use a fraction of that on online job sourcing to create a deep pool of top talent from all across the country. We see our family and friends throughout the week. We don’t have to give the same presentation ad nauseum, constantly traveling just to hit a handful of campuses, until the end of time. We don’t have stacks and stacks of resume books cluttering up a storage cabinet. We no longer have thousands of leftover branded hacky-sacks collecting dust.

Reviewing Unqualified Applicants’ Resumes Is A Time Suck That Prevents Strategic Thinking

Then: We spend 13 hours per week painstakingly reviewing resume after resume after resume after resume. We’re lightheaded from all the blood we’ve lost because of papercuts. We barely have time to enjoy our lunch break, let alone think about how we can hire top talent more strategically.  

Now: We use technology to quickly filter out unqualified candidates. We can select which candidates we want to move forward with in a fraction of the time. We treat ourselves to a cookie. We spend time brainstorming how we can better recruit early-career candidates. We develop assimilation programs. Because of this, we hit our diversity hiring initiatives and create welcoming environments for all kinds of candidates.

Screening Unqualified Candidates Is Wasting Everyone’s Time

Then: We have a recruiter talk to job applicants at a chaotic career fair. People accidentally bump into us, and someone walks by with a boombox blaring. We can’t remember which candidates we liked or didn’t. We’re so exhausted we can’t remember which state we’re in. We don’t have time to devote resources to underrepresented minority candidates. After career fairs, we have to try to review resumes and screen hundreds (or even thousands) of applicants. We can’t get to all applicants, so we send 98 percent of applicants to the resume black hole.

Now: We have a recruiter talk to job applicants over the phone, since only 53 percent of Gen Z college students attend career fairs to search for a job. Both are in quiet environments. We only spend time screening qualified candidates—no matter where they’re sourced from. We’re focused on whether or not the candidate has the traits we’re looking for. We can provide a quality—and consistent—candidate experience to all applicants. We have eliminated unfair advantages that candidates from the “top” 25 schools received. We offer the same resources to underrepresented minorities as well as all candidates, all across the country.    

Bringing In Everyone For An In-Person Interview Is Insanely Inefficient

Then: We bring candidates in multiple times to interview with several people. We lose productivity as multiple people are pulled away from their work. We pay travel expenses for all the candidates we interview. We debate whether or not another round of interviews is necessary.

Now: We bring candidates in once to interview with a select group of people. We have candidates interview with only the people who are responsible for their success at the company. We use technology for efficiency, and we save both time and money. We hire qualified candidates more quickly because of all this.   

The Old Way Is Clogging Your Hiring Funnel

Then: We don’t push candidates quickly through our hiring funnel. We want to be absolutely, positively, no doubt, 100 percent sure that…oh, they took a job somewhere else.

Now: We move candidates through our hiring funnel efficiently, making sure our hiring team is working smarter to more thoroughly evaluate a candidate in a shorter amount of time. We make offers to top talent who have the same characteristics as our most successful and productive employees.

If your early-career recruiting process has the efficiency of back then, you’re going to lose out on top talent now.