Until recently, recruitment software was the enemy of top recruiters. They all worked around databases because there was little point in using them. Why waste time manually entering candidates and data when you can’t ever find it later? For many recruiters, software is still just a barrier to making placements – but it doesn’t need to be this way.
So is your software slowing you down? Is it eating up time you could spend connecting with candidates and clients?
I would say there are seven sure signs your software is making you less competitive:
- Recruiters don’t use your database. If recruiters aren’t using your CRM or database, the software is failing them. It takes too long to enter candidates, it’s impossible to find them later, or perhaps both. Your recruiters are likely using LinkedIn or Microsoft Outlook as a surrogate CRM. Unfortunately, this means there is no permanent record of the candidates they’ve work hard to cultivate, nor any notes that may help you reconnect with their candidates down the road. If your recruiters leave, they leave without any trace of the network they established.
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- You’re struggling to attract and retain Millennials. The new graduates entering your workforce grew up using fast, modern software to simplify every aspect of life. This means your database from the late 80s is a concern to them. A Millennial has to think, “What’s wrong with your business if you’re software is older than me?” It comes across as a failure to evolve. Millennials are attracted to the latest technology because it signals an openness to experiment and innovate.
- Your back office is running inefficiently. If payroll, accounting and other back office operations require a huge amount of time and manpower, your software is failing. No one should have to manually re-enter data, nor should your recruiters have to ask accounting to produce invoices. With modern software, that’s a self-service task. Your back office functions should be lean and heavily automated.
- You don’t have access to real-time analytics. Are you hitting goals and metrics? Do you want to know now, or three weeks later? Are your recruiters spending hours each week filling in Excel spreadsheets just to document what they did with your software? If your recruitment solution isn’t able to collect and visualize performance data in simple charts or graphs, you’re at a strategic disadvantage. You’re discovering patterns and insights long after you could have acted on them – and perhaps long after your competitors detected a similar trend.
- Your recruiters can only get work done in the office. Can your recruiters work outside the office on any smartphone? After a trip out of the office, do they waste time manually entering notes in your database that they couldn’t enter in the field? If your software isn’t mobile, it’s killing valuable time. Getting out in the field and meeting candidates is an essential part of a recruiter’s job. It shouldn’t prevent them from staying connected to your database and the tools they rely on.
- Your on-premise software is extremely expensive. Today, there are few good reasons to keep software on premises. The cloud is simply more cost-efficient, scalable, reliable and secure. Think about it this way – Salesforce is a multibillion company, and their entire business depends on keeping your data safe and available 24/7. They can afford to spend a lot more on IT infrastructure and security than you. Why not leverage that? Turn your capital expense into an operating expense.
- Your recruiters are spending more time on the computer than the phone. Ultimately, to win business and make placements, your recruiters have to spend more time with clients than computers. If the entire recruitment process can be done without any human-to-human communications, then recruiters don’t have a purpose. Executives want their recruiters on the phone because that’s where the magic happens. Software should create more time for this, not less.
At any recruitment firm, the most valuable asset is people. If you and your associates spend your days fighting and circumventing shoddy recruitment software, then it’s limiting your potential. The purpose of software is to speed up your workflow and free up your recruiters’ time.
Software should be a competitive edge, not a burden. If your software is making you less competitive, what’s holding you back from evolving?
