7-Piece Tech Toolkit for Recruiters in 2013

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Technology in the hands of businessmen In recent years, we have seen sweeping changes in the employer-candidate dynamic as the relationship has moved from walk-in job shop, to print, to online, to social media and to mobile. During this time, the process has moved from technophobic to technological and now to techno-social, which means that to engage effectively, the modern recruiter needs to be an early adopting, innovating technophile who embraces technology and who is not afraid to push back the boundaries.

As I just mentioned, hiring technology has moved beyond technical to social, and modern recruiters now need to be able to use new technologies to enhance their talent networking capabilities. And below, I have set out the ideal 2013 Technology toolkit for recruiters:

Item 1: Employee Referrals App.Several studies (including the CareerXRoads Annual Source of Hire Survey), tell us that the most influential form of hire in 2013 is not job boards, as you might think, but networking. Yes, most jobs are filled via word-of-mouth. To fully exploit this trend, employers should be encouraging their staff to refer top talent using an employee referral scheme. This used to be a cumbersome and awkward process, but it has been made a much more user friendly process for employer and employee by the introduction of employee referrals apps on the marketplace, such as GooodJob, BullHorn Reach, JobVite etc. Every recruiter (and not just corporate recruiters) should have one.

Item 2: Video Interviewing App.In today’s time-pressurized environment, both candidates and interviewing panels can struggle to find mutually feasible dates for interview, causing interview delays, no shows and cancellations. Employers should be introducing greater flexibility into the interview process by allowing out-of-hours interviewing or first-round video interviewing. There are a range of professional video interviewing applications on the market such as HireVue, Async Interview, and Sparkhire which allow recruiters to easily manage and orchestrate live or recorded and fully branded video interviews. Every recruiter should have one.

Item 3: ATS.We all know about these and we won’t spend too long here. Make sure to choose an ATS with: a slick, user friendly interface; that is mobile friendly and social media integrated; and with powerful semantic, key word search algorithms as minimum. The key with your core ATS is usability – make sure your team loves working inside it all day long.

Item 4: Smartphone or mobile device.The apps listed above will work perfectly well from a desktop and you may gain added value from these apps using a smartphone. The following hiring assistance apps are designed for smartphones and if you want to make best use of these crucial apps, you need a smartphone, ideally a 5-inch plus screen.

Item 5: People/Who’s Who App.You are a talent scout and always on the look out for talent when out and about networking. You need on-the-spot, on-demand information about candidates who you may meet or you may just have met. The best way to do this is to have a people app on your phone, and probably the Rolls Royce or Cadillac of people-based mobile apps is LinkedIn. And this is a key mobile tool for any recruiter wanting to survive 2013. Get active on LinkedIn and network with everyone relevant to your work that you can using their platform.

Item 6: Augmented Networking App.There are so many apps available to help augment face-to-face networking with candidates, and recruiters should be using some of these to get the most out of their networking interactions. I would choose at least one memory augmentation app like Evernote, (which allows you to take detailed notes on candidates on the spot in a highly retrievable way), plus an app like CardMunch, which allows you to photograph business cards and automatically upload them to your phone. Or Bump, which allows you to exchange contact details simply by bumping phones.

Item 7: Stalking  Apps.Sometimes recruiters need to “stalk” and track down people who are difficult to pin down. Foursquare is a key people tracking app that allows you to track when contacts/targets arrive at events. Unsocial is another powerful people tracking app, which gives you a run down of key talent in your proximity and enables to you to exchange contacts and potentially meet the person.

Want some more tech tips? Download Recruiter.com’s 2013 Recruiting Technology Trends report for free (no registration required)!

By Kazim Ladimeji