In recruitment, you generally need the gift of the gab, though interpersonal skills and knowledge of the recruitment industry definitely helps. As well as your abilities and skill-set, recruitment software tools are another element to help your recruiting efforts. Software tools make recruitment tasks less time-consuming, and most recruiters use them to achieve their recruitment goals.
Though a large range of tools are available, they all serve the same purpose—help the recruiter find and recruit candidates. Whether it’s to pre-screen CVs, monitor candidates’ progress or track job advertising packages, here’s our rundown of five valuable recruitment tools:
1. Networking and social media
While not a ground-breaking technique for recruiters, the use of social media is becoming an increasingly useful recruiting strategy, especially when searching and applying for jobs.
LinkedIn is one of the primary platforms with an entire feature for recruitment; it has the capability to search for candidates by skills, location or previous roles, and also offers the opportunity to join a wide network of talent.
Here are some pros and cons of recruiting with LinkedIn:
Pros
- An up-to-date profile—LinkedIn users tend to keep their qualifications and experience updated, making it easier to seek out potential candidates.
- Many users—with daily users on a popular social channel, LinkedIn has an abundance of potential talent and a good chance of finding a great fit.
- Referencing—you can easily find common connections between users and check their references.
- Professional—the search technology allows you to be specific in the type of candidate you’re sourcing and LinkedIn, in particular, focuses on work profiles rather than on personal lives.
Cons
- Too many users—with the sheer plethora of people using LinkedIn worldwide, finding a potential candidate on this platform can be time-consuming.
- Passive candidates—most users don’t actively search for jobs and will be unlikely to take up your recruitment invitation. They can also negotiate from a position of power because you need them more than they need you.
- Costs—if you want to use LinkedIn in a more professional manner, costs can quickly escalate. The social network has a recruiter plan for corporate companies, but you have to pay monthly.
Apart from recruitment and job searching, recruiters should use this platform for self-promotion. First impressions count and when someone can find you on LinkedIn, you have the opportunity to brand yourself as an active recruiter and an influence in your field.
2. Job distribution
This software keeps job posting activity in one place, allowing recruiters to post onto multiple boards. Posting jobs is the primary feature on any multi-poster and helps recruiters save time. Most multi-posters let the recruiter manage and track job adverts with simultaneous analysis of how many applications they are receiving.
WaveTrackR is a reasonably new job distribution tool, and another helpful one is the advance recommendations feature. It offers analysis about the job board that recruiters may gain the most job applications and hires from. The software also offers greater management over media contracts, lets you select where to advertise jobs, and decide where to make the best investments.
3. Applicant Tracking Systems
Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is an application that lets you electronically handle applications. The system is important because it aims to improve hiring challenges. An ATS normally serves as a database and preserves all candidate profiles.
ATS enable recruitment companies to easily follow and organise candidate information while also manage other phases of their recruitment process. And ATS is automated, meaning there is no need for recruiters to manually input every detail from an applicants CV; there are features in place aimed at relieving any recruitment-associated, time-consuming tasks.
ATS tools are a huge benefit in improving the time, cost and quality of the hiring process. They automatically parse and screen CVs, breaking them down and scanning for keywords that relate to the job. If you want someone with a specific qualification, an ATS will find CVs with that qualification by using the right keyword.
Other useful features can include interview scheduling and group collaborations.
4. Analytic software
Analytics is vital for any recruitment company, whether to view the success of a job advertising campaign or to monitor the activity on your recruitment website. Software like Google Analytics enables recruiters to recognise the behaviour they receive, improve problems and identify success.
For example, if your target market is primarily based in the UK but you have mass visits from the United States, your adverts could be targeting the wrong audience. Identifying this problem can let you change your approach to find suitable applicants.
Listing jobs on your own website brings an opportunity to find more candidates. With Google Analytics, you can gage the level of interest in a job advert by the web page activity. You can see where the traffic originates from and which traffic converts to leads.
5. Job boards
Advertising and marketing on job boards is imperative to making your vacancy more visible to potential applicants. Without the exposure from job websites, recruiters wouldn’t entice as many applicants.
By advertising jobs on job boards, recruiters are able to search and attract a large number of potential candidates to their jobs, and all for a relatively low cost, when compared to older methods like print advertising. This also benefits job seekers, enabling the users to apply for multiple jobs with just a few clicks; all they have to do is upload a digital version of their CV. It’s a win-win for both recruiters and job hunters. For recruiters, this means more applications to their offers.
These days many job boards also use aggregators like ZipRecruiter and Adzuna to boost the number of jobs on offer and provide a higher variety of roles. Aggregators are sites that collect related content or links and display them on their job site. You can also promote the jobs for more reach.
With many recruitment tools out there, it’s important to identify which can serve your needs effectively. Though recruitment tools are handy they won’t, on their own, make you a recruiter.
