4 Things Recruiting Technology Decision Makers Need To Know

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seeing softwareIs your old recruiting system inefficient and causing your company to take too long to source and recruit candidates? Do you often feel that your organization just missed out on great candidates because it couldn’t move fast enough to make important decisions? Do usability issues with your previous-generation recruiting system often frustrate your HR staff, candidates and employees? These are some of the common symptoms in organizations captive to prolonged use of older recruiting systems!

Every workplace has its own unique recruiting challenges and requirements. The challenges for finding hires with good ROI are clearly different for a large company than for a new startup. As the decision maker at your company, you need to look critically at the technological options at your disposal. However, there are some general rules that apply to companies across the board in every industry.

Below are some key areas that need your careful consideration before deciding on your company’s new recruiting technology.

How to address your company’s needs

Your company’s size, industry, and recruitment needs are all important determinations when looking to upgrade your technology. To get the most ROI from both your recruitment technology and your hires, you will need to determine your exact company needs. Ask yourself a series of important questions about your current hiring processes:

  • What is the main issue with our current recruiting strategy?
  • How do our candidates and internal staff like working with the current systems?
  • What do we need most from our recruiting technology?
  • What kind of candidates do we need at our company to compete in the marketplace?
  • What are our main recruitment goals?

It’s essential to know the hiring objectives of your organization. A common goal for every company is to find and hire the best people, but depending on your specific needs, the inroads to accomplish this task will be different.

How to leverage referrals

When overhauling your recruitment technology platform, do not ignore the power of employee referrals functionality. These referrals are an essential tool for finding and securing great candidates. According to a study by CareerXRoads, employee referrals are the number one source of external hires. At 28 percent, they rank higher than job boards and social media recruiting.

When looking into new recruiting solutions, cloud-based platforms that provide the ability to easily activate and manage employee referrals should be at the top of your list. In another CareerXRoads survey, 70 percent of employers said they had an employee referral program as part of their applicant tracking system or hiring platform.

Any technology you select for your company should include the functionality to easily handle and track employee referrals. Referrals can help your company speed up the hiring process, allowing you to secure great candidates before your competition. In addition, tracking and reporting features will help you clearly see the referral chains to determine which of your contacts were most helpful in providing referrals and identifying the ones who should be rewarded or incentivized further. Considering how prevalent and important these referrals are, you want to develop a system where everyone can have input in the process.

How to empower your team

Your team is an essential part of the hiring process, or at least they should be. Great hires come about when a candidate can fit in as part of the team and be able to contribute from day one. The best way to ensure this outcome is to keep your team engaged in the recruiting process via a collaborative software-as-a-service platform that provides the latest capabilities, yet is simple enough for anyone to use, and is easily accessible from anywhere. If your old recruiting system is riddled with usability issues which frustrate your staff, you are less likely to benefit from team-based collaboration.

When looking into new social recruiting technologies, this consideration should be front and center in your mind. Make sure you look at technological tools that will simplify the sharing process among your recruiting team and between departments. With all the costs involved in hiring, employers wants to minimize the chances of rehiring for the same position. It is, therefore, important to be able to provide a platform where notes, evaluations and comments related to candidates can be easily shared to keep everyone on the same page, mitigating the risk of errors or oversight and increasing the likelihood of selecting the right candidate for the open position.

How to tap into talent communities

Creating and managing talent communities is a great way to start a talent pipeline for your company. With talent communities, you have the ability to quickly tap a pre-qualified, select audience of qualified candidates with whom you may already have a relationship or prior communication. This can save you endless hours searching for candidates and weeding through resumes.This year recruiters will use social media in their search for at least 80 percent of all positions. Don’t let your organization get left behind in this social arena.

To tap into talent communities, you should first determine where your ideal candidate is spending time. Are they on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn? Once you have determined where your talent gathers, it’s time to use the platform to your benefit. For example, if your talent is on LinkedIn, start contributing to industry-specific LinkedIn groups. These groups can help you engage with talented job seekers interested in open positions. Create a company page on LinkedIn that job seekers can refer to for information and job postings. If you share relevant content and add to discussions, you’ll be developing invaluable contacts and piquing interest in your company.

Social media will be an increasingly important facet of recruitment efforts in the future. Taking an active role in your talent communities will save your company time and money down the line. Keep this in mind when looking for technological solutions to your company’s hiring woes.

What are some additional things recruiting technology decision makers need to know? Share in the comments!

By Sajjad Masud