How Recruitment Tools are Reshaping HR

The Great Resignation is continuing to get, well, greater.  Employees are continuing to depart from the workforce in increasingly larger numbers and employers have little choice but to confront this growing phenomenon head-on if they expect to be competitive.  The mass exodus has been widely attributed to the pandemic with most HR thought leaders theorizing that the radical changes brought on by the pandemic caused many employees to reconsider their career paths, and priorities.

In the wake of this mega-departure from the workforce, HR professionals and recruiters are increasingly turning to technology to help them attract and hire the best talent amidst what is most decidedly a “Job Seekers Market.”  Still, it is important for recruiters to keep in mind that 70% of the global workforce consists of passive talent, or people who are receptive to considering new career opportunities.  The question HR professionals then need to ask themselves is what tools they can adopt to not only reach, but engage, this pool of passive candidates.  

Fortunately, recent innovations in HR technology have produced a wide array of new and effective solutions for candidate engagement and recruitment.  With so many companies, large and small, scrambling to invest in these latest advancements hoping to gain a competitive edge, the rapid and wide adoption of these technologies has gone on to actually reshape many traditional HR processes.    

Modern Recruiting is Strategic Marketing

A recent survey reported that 86% of HR professionals currently believe that modern recruitment has more in common with strategic marketing than it does with traditional recruitment.  To be successful at recruiting passive candidates, more and more HR professionals are adopting new recruitment technologies to promote their company’s work culture on social media in an effort to cultivate a pool of candidates they can draw upon for current and future job opportunities.

The technical tools that HR professionals are increasingly adopting have successfully reduced the time they need to spend on repetitive recruitment efforts and have allowed them to dedicate more thought to how they can use technology to engage prospective candidates on social media.  In so doing, these tools have essentially digitized not just the recruitment process, but the entire profession of human resources.

Digitization of The Recruitment Process

The way companies recruit talent is undergoing a revolution.  Sometimes referred to as “the future of work,” the way we recruit, hire, and train talent is all heavily influenced and augmented by newer and newer technologies.  HR technology has evolved in such a way that companies can now depend on one centralized system where they can work to attract, manage, and communicate with all their candidates.  HR departments are trending towards these robust and scalable advanced application tracking systems that automate repetitive tasks and create more time for recruiters to build strategic recruitment campaigns. 

Remember, a larger part of the workforce desires flexibility and the option to connect with you on their terms.  As we will show you below, by digitizing your recruitment processes you offer more options to job candidates and that creates a positive, highly engaging candidate experience.  

Companies that are serious about competing for the best talent must be willing to invest in technology that digitizes their recruitment processes. 

Automation – ATS systems

An ATS, or Applicant Tracking System, is the marquee technical resource used by companies of all sizes to administer their hiring and HR processes.  An ATS holds all information from candidates in one database, making that information immediately accessible and searchable for recruiters and HR professionals.  Over time, the technology behind ATSs evolved to include tools that allow recruiters to sort through resumes using algorithms that determine the best candidates for a position.  The technology behind ATS systems continues evolving, but at their core, an ATS system takes a significant load off your HR staff by handling much of the manual work.  

While an ATS is generally a centralized and powerful tool that can handle all the components of screening, hiring, and onboarding new employees, the best ATS systems come absolutely loaded with a swath of tools that are proving to be revolutionary in terms of recruitment success.  We point out some of the best recruitment tools below:  

Virtual Hiring & Recruiting

Having the tools to conduct job interviews virtually is proving to be quite a boon for recruiters and candidates alike.  Like it or not, office life won’t be as prominent as it used to be.  About 85% of Gen Zers say they want the ability to work remotely - that’s nearly a quarter of the U.S. population.  While we wait to see just how much of the workforce remains “remote,” it seems likely that virtual job interviews are here to stay.  One of the trends started by the pandemic is that the initial interviews that companies have to do are now almost always offered to candidates on a remote basis.

HR professionals are increasingly seeing “remote hiring” as a revolutionary tool that can be used very effectively in the hiring process.  Recruitment strategies that combine virtual and in-person interviewing processes are being widely adopted and are soon expected to become the standard due to the associated savings in time and in expenses.  

Virtual interviewing is a strategy that gives the interviewee a greater amount of control over the hiring processes and saves an extraordinary amount of time by eliminating the need to facilitate the processes involved with hosting on-site interviews.  That’s a win on both sides.  

Artificial Intelligence in Recruiting

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has become a heavily relied upon resource for recruiters.  In fact, the more robust and innovative ATS systems on the market have AI functionalities included meaning recruiters are able to utilize the AI functionalities of their ATS systems to automate specific parts of the recruiting and hiring processes that were once time-consuming, manual tasks they had to do themselves.

On the candidate’s side, the benefits of AI include a reduction in the likelihood that candidates will be impacted by biases, and more likely to feel as though they’re more engaged in the recruitment process.  For example, some versions of AI allow candidates greater control by allowing them to schedule their own assessments and interviews, without needing a recruiter to assist them with scheduling those components of the hiring process.  

AI is a marvelous tool that has demonstrated its ability to leverage all data related to candidates in order to create extensive “scorecards” and utilize both candidate and job information to simplify the hiring processes with dedicated AI-driven recommendations.

Social Media ~ Using Company Culture as a Recruitment Tool

The terms “recruitment” and “strategic marketing” were married earlier in this article, but the truth is that the companies that are enjoying the highest rate of success in attracting and hiring talented employees are the same companies that are successfully promoting their company culture on social media.  Yes, it’s a newer trend but social media can be a very potent tool in your battle for talent, so long as HR professionals can adopt an entrepreneurial spirit and are willing to think like marketing professionals.  

It's not enough to have a website with a “Career Page.”  Social media sites, especially LinkedIn, are terrific mediums to promote your company culture and present a dialogue that can be effective at attracting talent.  Posting consistent updates about news at your company should be another tool in your recruitment toolbox.  Press releases, news of major achievements for your company, and the like can all serve as tools for getting the word out about your company culture.  By consistently posting such information, you are increasing the visibility of your company.  This activity can serve to develop a talent pool by engaging potential applicants, even when you don't have current job openings.  This is one of the most proactive steps a company can take in their effort to continuously attract talent.

There is a lot of value to be gained from your current employees too.  If you can get your existing employees to share their experience on social media, that communicates volumes to prospective talent.  The companies that are successful at using this strategy have a practice of encouraging employees to create shareable videos where the employee discusses what they love about working where they do.  This is a strategy that communicates a message about how employees feel they are being taken care of by their employer.

Candidate Enrichment Features

This is one of the most resourceful and revolutionary recruitment tools available.  And it is often included in the array features offered by the best ATS systems on the market: the candidate enrichment feature.  Enrichment is a tool that recruiters use as they are working within their ATS systems to “enrich” a candidate’s profile with all the data that they can get from internal and online sources.  Enrichment is a powerful tool capable of accessing a candidate’s email or public social media resources to obtain additional data that is publicly available on the web about any potential candidate.

Recruitment starts with the qualifications of a candidate, and the resume is still the main piece of information that recruiters use in determining if a candidate should be pushed onto the next stage of the recruitment process.  It can pose a roadblock in recruiting if all resumes being assessed are not up to date.  With candidate enrichment, when data is incomplete or incorrect, there are ATS systems capable of browsing the web in search of data across a wide array of commonly used social media platforms. 

The candidate enrichment feature allows recruiters to get a fully detailed assessment of their candidates including their capabilities, and even their goals.  Once the candidate enrichment feature has been applied to a resume, an ATS platform will display all the information gathered from the candidate’s social media accounts on a single page.  Automated enrichment features provide recruiters with both data and social media integration for a comprehensive candidate overview.

Enhanced Hiring Results through Analytics

Industry leaders are continuing to rely on technology capable of yielding the most accurate recruitment analytics.  Accurately interpreting recruitment analytics makes predictive analysis more precise, allowing hiring managers to make informed, fact-based decisions based on the collected data.  Collecting and analyzing your recruitment data is essential if you are tasked with accurately determining why some recruitment activities achieve success and why others do not.  The raw data that you extract from your ATS system can be invaluable as your company establishes new objectives and goals for recruitment. 

A solid ATS system should furnish your recruiters and HR staff with the tools required to administer an in-depth analysis of your recruitment trends and be able to prepare detailed performance reports that can be easily interpreted.  

Optimized Sourcing

A job opening posted on your company’s website should be expected to achieve only so much in terms of your recruitment goals.  The right candidates need to know an opportunity has been posted to begin with and hoping a career page will achieve that can be wishful thinking.  However, optimized sourcing is one area where ATS systems have truly revolutionized recruitment.  With the touch of a button, your ATS can automatically generate candidates from a wide array of recruitment sources that are commonly populated with active job seekers.  With a capable ATS system, whenever you create a job opportunity, it will automatically be posted on your company’s website and also on the most popular job boards.

The more advanced ATS systems work tremendously well in this capacity.  They can give exposure to job openings by sharing them, in just a few clicks, on thousands of free and premium channels globally.  Imagine being able to post on all major job boards such as Indeed, Monster, Linkedin, Facebook, Google for Jobs as well as many more local and specialized job boards, all with the click of a few buttons within your ATS system!

Interviewing Software

Interviewing software is a newer recruitment tool that allows recruiters the ability to facilitate the entire interviewing process from within the parameters of a software package.  One of the newer tools being used in recruitment, the true impact of interviewing software is still being determined, but the benefits are intended to be a more engaging and positive candidate experience.    One appealing feature of this tool is the ability to record and transcribe interviews, meaning the recruiter will be able to focus entirely on the visuals like the candidate’s demeanor and physical responses to questions while knowing the dialogue of the interview will be recorded.  Some interviewing software packages will call up critical questions to ask the candidate, which helps to ensure every interview is conducted in a consistent way.

Another component of interviewing software is its ability to provide certain analytical insights that companies may find useful for fine-tuning questions and their overall interviewing process.

All-in-One ATS Solutions 

Technical innovations have advanced so rapidly that industry-leading companies are making the choice to invest in an all-in-one ATS system that comes with customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities fully integrated.  These ATS systems offer a swath of useful tools, including some of the ones mentioned above, that allow agencies to centralize the management of their leads, clients, and candidates all in one platform.  There is no longer a need for two segregate systems, and that can mean a reduction in administrative costs, enhanced levels of efficiency and better collaboration.

History continues to show the many returns that can be gained from investing in an ATS platform that allows agencies to manage all their leads and clients in the same platform as their candidates.

Conclusion

Widely recognized as the industry leader, Manatal is a company with a verifiable history of providing the most technically accelerated, innovative ATS systems for both small and large companies across a wide array of professions.  Manatal has successfully applied years of expertise to develop one of the finest and resourceful ATS software systems on the market with an emphasis on technologies that can help simplify a company’s hiring process.  Manatal’s ATS system is recognized for its ability to offer companies the recruitment tools they require to help them select the best candidates, manage talent pools, strengthen team collaboration, and hire top talent. 

Most important of all, Manatal is a company that has gone beyond the basics to create an assisting ATS, or an ATS that can use AI recommendations, advanced processes, and automation to simplify recruitment into a handful of clicks.  Manatal has achieved such remarkable results all the while ensuring the highest level of security and confidentiality when it comes to your candidates’ data.

Manatal is offering a free trial of their ATS software via their website, or you can also book a demo with one of the professionals who can share specifically how your company can benefit from using their ATS software.  It is the best way for you to discover how Manatal can be used to make recruitment and talent management your best competitive advantage.