10 Tech Tools Your Staffing Company Should Adopt
Welcome toTop 10, Recruiter.com’s weekly rundown of the best of the best in recruiting! Every Friday, we release a list of some of our favorite people, things, and ideas dominating the industry. From awesome tech tools and cool companies to great books and powerful trends, no stone in the recruiting space will be left unturned.
This Week: Top 10 Tech Tools for Staffing Companies
While the disciplines of staffing and recruiting are often referred to in the same breath, there are some meaningful differences between the two fields, not the least of which is the fact that staffing firms are often under intense pressure to deliver candidates quickly to fill short-term or project-based roles. Without performing an in-depth analysis of what, exactly, goes on in the world of staffing, suffice it to say that staffing firms face their own unique sets of challenges that recruiting firms don’t necessarily deal with.
With this in mind, we compiled a list of ten tech tools that can help staffing firms overcome obstacles and deliver results again and again. Check them out below:
1. Wunderlist
At any given moment in any given staffing firm, there’s a lot going on – interviews, screenings, start dates, payments, etc. Juggling it all – while ensuring everyone is on the same page – can be a nightmare. Wunderlist, a collaborative to-do-list app, can change that.
While not a staffing firm, the folks at Geo Owl do a lot of recruiting. The company’s CEO, Nicholas Smith, says his organization uses Wunderlist “to track and share dates, upcoming interviews, phone calls, and starts. It works pretty well between our team [members], and everyone is looking at the same list, which helps with communication.”
2. LiveHire
Sure, LiveHire is an applicant tracking system, and there are tons of those to choose from – but LiveHire is different. It prioritizes the building and management of talent communities over simple resume parsing.
As explained by Ken Kwan, a 20+ year veteran of the talent sector who founded the candidate experience consultancy Career Prophets, “The main game-changer [for LiveHire] is the system’s function to allow for candidates to opt into an organization’s talent pool and be marketed to for future job opportunities. The organization can also send out invites for candidates to join.”
Every staffing firm could benefit from a robust and active talent community. LiveHire is a great way to build one.
3. Transformify
While job-matching is Transformify’s primary function, the platform is especially useful for staffing companies because of its billing and payment functions. As Transformify founder Lilia Stoyanov explains, “Our billing/self-billing and payments services allow staffing companies to hire independent contractors worldwide and transfer secure payments to them via a click of a button. No need to set up individuals as vendors – they transfer payments to and receive invoices from only one vendor, Transformify.”
Also of note is Transformify’s commitment to social responsibility. The platform is dedicated to helping historically economically disenfranchised populations find work, including seniors, single parents, people on the Autism spectrum, people with disabilities, and people living in areas with high unemployment.
4. Bullhorn
We gave Bullhorn a shoutout in a previous installment of Top 10 for its comprehensive functionality and customizability. These features also make it a great choice for staffing firms. Just ask the staffing and recruiting experts at WinterWyman.
“We are long term-users of Bullhorn – 14+ years – and were early adopters,” says Ben Hicks, partner/managing director of the software technology search division at WinterWyman. “It is the best tool of this type out there.”
5. Textio
Struggling to promote a job opportunity? Textio can help. The “augmented writing platform” analyzes the successes of millions of job posts to identify the qualities that make for a successful ad. Textio then uses those insights to predict the performance of your ad while offering real-time guidance on how you can improve it.
(Thanks to Melissa Sepp, recruiting expert and growth nanager at Hundred5, for nominating Textio.)
6. Skillsoft
Want to establish your staffing firm as a premier provider of qualified talent? Give your candidates advanced training through a platform like Skillsoft.
“One of the benefits staffing agencies can provide to workers seeking jobs is training on basic skills, from customer service to computer skills,” says Laura Handrick, HR analyst at FitSmallBusiness.com. “Therefore, purchasing an LMS or using a vendor’s training content like Skillsoft with an LMS allows the staffing company to recruit and provide training to local staff so that they’re ready to accept job placements. Businesses seeking workers like knowing that the staff they hire is trained on things like food safety, avoiding sexual harassment, or VOIP phone systems.”
7. Workloud
Workforce management is easy with Workloud, an end-to-end cloud-based employee scheduling, time, attendance, and absence management solution. If your staffing company handles worker payments, Workloud is a great choice for tracking your placements’ time and making sure everyone is properly paid. The system is especially handy when unexpected absences occur. When a worker calls out at the last minute, you can fill their spot on the fly.
8. Herefish
Another recommendation from WinterWyman’s Ben Hicks, Herefish is a marketing automation tool that helps staffing firms keep the candidates in their pipelines engaged through regular, personalized contact. When prospecting within your own candidate database, look no further than Herefish.
9. SkillSurvey
Seven of the ten largest staffing firms in the U.S. use SkillSurvey, and for good reason. SkillSurvey streamlines the reference-checking process by getting rid of the phone tag and moving the process online. Candidates submit their references, the references provide their feedback, and staffing firms and their clients have the information at their fingertips in record time.
10. Zoom.ai
Reference checks aren’t the only thing you can automate. The artificially intelligent assistant Zoom.ai can handle repetitive administrative tasks like scheduling, call transcription, and follow-up emails. That leaves your staffing firm’s personnel with more time to do strategic, high-value work.