The 6 Questions Recruiters Always Ask (and the answers)

When you run a software company, you get asked a lot of questions by burgeoning entrepreneurs. When you run a recruiting software company, you get asked a lot of questions by recruiters. And some even ask for advice. Here are the questions that come up the most and how I answer them:

Q: How can I “do” social recruiting? It seems like so much work.

Social recruiting is a broad term and many times what they mean is “How do I build social into my workflow ?’ The first step to that is making sure that you are not repeating processes. If you are updating jobs, update them everywhere. Create social broadcast channels through which at least some of the work is done automatically via your recruitment platform. If your ATS doesn’t offer some social account integration … get a new one.

Bottom line: When you automate repetitive tasks, you free up time to engage on the social networks where your candidates live.

I can barely stay on top of my open reqs. How do I get some structure?

Taking the time to structure your recruitment process will ultimately pay HUGE dividends. If you only have time to do one things, this should be it. Look for products that have customizable workflows built in (much like email marketing programs include “trigger” actions for automated campaigns) so that when you finally build it out, you can implement it quickly.

Bottom Line: Workflows and structure are simply a series of steps that you and your team can follow. Organizing it will improve your candidate experience, internal collaboration and much more.

How can I get my team to take on more responsibility?

To this I say, forget your team, how about the whole company? Invite your entire company to be a part of your recruitment efforts. Marketing can pitch in with branding and hiring managers can assist with interviewing. As recruitment expands to include more professional skills, there is no reason you can’t learn AND teach on the job. Assign tasks, provide quick hit training and choose an intuitive, easy to learn system.

Bottom line: When you give select employees ownership and responsibility and make the systems collaborative and easy to use, it’s much simpler for everyone to pitch in.

How do I make the most of my applicant data?

With the advent of social recruiting, talent communities, and “mining your own database” the data that you have on your employees, applicants and candidates has become more valuable than ever. With today’s recruiting platforms, you can customize the amount of information you receive. Don’t ask for useless info you don’t need.

Bottom line: Get only the data you need and use it to customize your candidate communications and make searching your database even easier.

How do I improve candidate experience?

There are a lot of answers to this question but some can be solved with software like keeping your applicants organized, being able to share evaluations, and creating notes and emails to candidates.

Bottom line: Improving candidate experience can’t be solved with software, but the right technology can improve response time, communication and help set expectations.

How do I integrate all the new tools into my day-to-day?

This is actually the toughest one to address. While there are a host of recruiting technologies out there to assist the busy recruiter, a good chunk of them are not designed specifically for your business. Look for specific tools that integrate with common tools like email, search engines and more. Powerful import/export features for multiple formats are also something to keep an eye out for.

Bottom line: The amount of tools available can be overwhelming, but most software vendors are creating systems that integrate with lots of other systems and tools. Find those.

If you have a question for me, leave it here in the comments, I’m happy to respond!