Best Recruitment Tools for SMBs to Hire in 2023

Yes. Running a small business can be overwhelming, but now is the time for small business owners to consider adopting the market’s best recruitment tools if they hope to attract the kind of talent that can contribute the most toward their long-term growth and success in 2023.

Knowing what we do about the current job market, especially the ongoing war for talent, is there anything your business could be doing differently to build its workforce? Do you understand the causes of the employee turnover that occurred in 2022? Have you tried applying to your own company to see how your online application process works? 

Without the best recruitment tools to help you obtain answers to these crucial questions, any hiring missteps that may have occurred in the past are bound to be repeated.  Fortunately, we’ve done the research for you, and we’re pleased to present you with the HR industry’s best recruitment tools that small businesses like yours are turning to in 2023 to remain competitive in the modern job market.   

HR Software Solutions

Today’s talent acquisition and hiring activities are happening largely in a dynamic and digital environment where speed and automation are winning the talent wars. To navigate this choppy environment, small businesses are integrating HR software solutions that allow them to attract the market’s best and brightest.

As we explore the best recruitment tools below, you’ll discover that they are largely rooted in technology. Many of these technology-based recruitment tools can help your small business not only accelerate the hiring process but they can make your small business look very attractive to passive and active job candidates.    

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1. Recruitment Software as a Service (SaaS) for Small Businesses

As small businesses struggle to adapt to the post-COVID way of working, an increasing number of small businesses are taking advantage of cloud-based recruitment SaaS platforms to help them with the management of their talent acquisition strategies. 

A recruitment software as a Service, or SaaS, refers to a third-party software solution that can be accessed online by everyone involved in your hiring process, including recruiters, job candidates, and clients. The cost benefits of recruiting SaaS solutions alone are what make them one of the best recruitment tools on the market. 

SaaS solutions are often available as subscription-based services that can be accessed from practically any smart device, and they don’t require a heavy, upfront investment in technology to get started. A large majority of the businesses that have adopted SaaS solutions report experiencing relatively higher levels of employee engagement – another item in our list of the best recruitment tools that we’ll discuss later!

2. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

Of all the best recruitment tools in the HR tech stack capable of carrying much of the workload that’s involved in attracting and hiring the market’s best job candidates - an applicant tracking system (ATS) - is undoubtedly one of the best recruitment tools that small businesses need to be looking at for 2023 if they haven’t already. 

An ATS software platform is chiefly responsible for effortlessly sourcing job candidates across multiple channels and transitioning all incoming applications into a centralized database.  

Basically, an ATS is the best recruitment tool in the HR tech stack, capable of inventorying massive volumes of applicant data that small businesses can draw upon later to fine-tune their talent acquisition strategies. 

But the technologies within the market’s best ATS platforms have made these systems much more than just a warehouse for applicant data. Using automation and artificial intelligence, modern ATS systems can help small businesses eliminate many of the time-consuming processes of scheduling and interviewing candidates. 

If you still don’t think an ATS is necessary for your small business, consider the following: Nearly every Fortune 500 company has an ATS powering their hiring efforts. Smaller businesses are beginning to follow suit.

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3. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just for movies and novels anymore – it’s an evolving technology that’s become the fabric of our digital lives, and it’s also become one of the best recruitment tools for 2023. Smart devices are getting smarter through AI and machine learning. That means machines are now capable of reliably completing tasks that were previously reserved only for people. 

AI technologies are now playing a huge role in the functionality of modern ATS systems, and they can significantly accelerate the hiring processes of small businesses through automation. AI has quickly become a recruitment tool that gives small businesses the tools they need to reliably handle traditional screening and scheduling processes that formerly took up so much of an HR professional’s time. 

4. Mobile-First Recruitment

Did you know that almost the vast majority of Americans - 97% - including those in the job-seeker category, own and use a smartphone? To attract this talent, one of the best recruitment tools for small businesses is to adopt a mobile-first recruitment strategy. By taking a mobile-first approach in developing your recruitment strategies, you can maximize the returns from all the online sources that are used in modern recruitment, like social media, apps, and popular job boards. 

For example, in America, job seekers want to apply for a new job in the same way they check football scores on ESPN – using their smartphones. With smartphone users across the globe numbering in the billions, having a mobile-friendly hiring process is considered one of the best recruitment tools because of how it can put your small business in a very favorable light amongst job seekers, and that news is likely to spread. 

RESOURCES: Add hundreds of free and ready-to-use job description templates to your HR toolkit.

PODCAST: The Impact of HR Tech on Hiring Practices (with Anita Lettink)

5. Centralized Recruitment Data 

Earlier, we showed you what makes an ATS system one of the best recruitment tools for 2023, but the extraordinary value to be gained from tapping into these systems to extract key recruitment metrics should make them even more appealing. 

The collection and analysis of crucial recruitment metrics are paramount to understanding the effectiveness of each step in your talent acquisition process. The best ATS systems allow you to perform an in-depth analysis of these metrics and allow you to distribute them in detailed reports.

For example, some of the most crucial recruitment metrics that an ATS can give small businesses access to include:

• Time to Hire
• Source of Hire
• Cost per Hire

Of course. There are myriad other metrics your ATS system will provide you with. Over time, you can set internal benchmarks for tracking your progress and compare them to industry benchmarks.

6. Social Media Enrichment

An estimated 8 out of every 10 job seekers rely on social media to carry out the search for their next job. Small businesses that want to attract the best talent need to have a presence on social media if they hope to be successful in finding great workers in 2023. The best news of all is how little it costs small businesses to gain access to the 3.5 billion combined users that are on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook!

Another huge plus for small businesses is that social media can put them in touch with passive job seekers. While perhaps not actively looking for a new role, a social media presence provides an excellent opportunity to begin building relationships with these candidates before they look for a new job.

Finally, what makes social media one of the best recruitment tools for hiring is that the best ATS systems give small businesses the tools they need to access a wide array of online sites to compile an extensive profile of their job candidates. 

LEARN: Why Manatal’s ATS is one of the best recruitment tools for SMBs

Conclusion

For small businesses that are ready to adopt the best recruitment tools mentioned above. A key first step is to assess their current HR tech stack and make the proper investments in the technologies that can help them handle the demands of the modern job market. Many small businesses across the world continue to rely on the technical innovations of the industry-leading HR-software developer, Manatal.  

For years, Manatal has built a reputation for packaging the best recruitment tools that technology can offer within its robust ATS platform - a SaaS platform that provides small businesses with many of the recruitment tools listed above and at an affordable price.

To discover for yourself why Manatal’s SaaS platform is widely recognized as one of the best recruitment tools for 2023 and beyond, you can take advantage of the 14-Day free trial the company is offering.