How to Spend Your Recruiting Tech Dollars

In the race for a better, smarter, more efficient recruiting process, there are lots of options competing for your recruiting dollar. Because every business has different business objectives, every business has completely different talent acquisition and recruiting strategies. In simpler terms, the kind of organization you have, the kind of recruiting you do and even the current recruiting team you have in place will affect the kinds of tools you use.

Tools that are strictly recruiting technology fall into a few categories: ATS, Job Distribution Systems, Sourcing/Search Engines, Recruitment Marketing Platforms, Referral Software, CRM and Social. But most, if not all of the tools on the market provide at least two or three of these capabilities and are actively integrating more, particularly in regard to social. Nearly every recruiting technology is attempting to be plug-n-play solutions that bolts on to an ATS, so overlap is common when purchasing.

If you’re a Fortune 500 with global requisitions you need: an ATS  that supports integrations with other business technology, 24/7/365 support in multiple languages and a defined process for implementations and trouble ticketing. But you probably also need to look for: secure storage, an intuitive user interface and a CRM for candidate communications. Automated workflows are also important.

The players: Taleo, Ceridian, SuccessFactors, and Kenexa have all been dominating the market for years, and provide lots of the must-haves listed above, but newer standout picks include iCIMS and Jobvite, both ATS products that offer strong core functionality and burgeoning social offerings.

If you’re a small business or a start-up, your choices take on a slightly different flavor, as many businesses don’t start evaluating recruiting software until they are in dire need of it. Because start-ups are often competing for top-notch talent and many small businesses don’t have a dedicated recruiting team, the recruiting software they choose has to be able to do the heavy lifting of a normal ATS, but also be simple enough for theoretically everyone in the company to use it.

The players are ever evolving in this category, with social recruiting startups a hot place for tech innovation. Look for an easy to use system that doesn’t require extra storage or software, but one that allows you to own your data and access it at any time. A strong sourcing function and a built in career site are must-haves for this market segment. Take a look at Jobscore, SmartRecruiters, and Simplicant, all of which include a career site and simple import/export functionality for teams used to Excel and Craigslist. Standout pick? RecruiterBox, which has a sweet price point, laundry list of features, rave reviews and has been around for a few solid years.

If you’re a growing medium-sized business with multiple offices and hiring managers, iCIMS, PCRecruiter and Silkroad are all great options. These tools provide the flexibility and support that growing businesses need, while providing short implementation times and providing excellent return on investment. Our standout pics also include relative newcomers myStaffingPro and The Resumator.

A quick editorial note not from the author: we’ve worked with many if not most of the vendors listed here in an advertising capacity. We did not use these relationships to make up this list, it’s just that there are only so many players in this field and we work with a lot of them. But in any case, be sure to do your homework and evaluate any vendor carefully – it’s a super important decision.