Introduction
In 55 B.C., Julius Caesar decreed that soldiers of the Imperial Roman Army, which had somewhere close to 200,000 positions to fill, were to receive 300 sestertii as a reward for bringing in new recruits. That does not even include auxiliary positions such as medical personnel, engineers, hunters, builders and even psychics and fortune-tellers to aid in strategic planning. Thus began the recruitment industry.
For a long time, however, all hiring decisions were made by a single person, the head of the Senate, also known as the Consul. Imagine what life had been like being the Consul of Rome, juggling the multiple concerns of the most powerful empire on Earth and making sure every single member of the 200,000-strong Army is fit for battle.
Recruiters of the 21st century find it challenging enough to sort through resumes, write an email and talk to a client on the phone all at the same time. How does one person do all that and more? There was no inkling of resumes, emails and telephones thousands of years ago, but the idea remains the same.
It is not surprising that the Consul had to delegate this responsibility to the local commanders. It is too much for a single person to do. And even then, the "recruiters" had more pressing military tasks to attend to than to nitpick through a handful of applicants that met the Army's stringent standards and fill in 5,000 posts. Unfortunately, it was something that had to be done. There was simply no way of getting around this tedious and time-consuming task.
Sound familiar? The same problem faced by the "hiring managers" of the Roman Army still plagues modern-day recruiters. The only advantage you have over the Roman commanders of old is your access to user-friendly software that can be used to make life for a recruiter a bit easier to manage. Now, that is definitely a big advantage.
Choosing the Right Technology for Your Recruitment Firm
If only the legion commanders had known a thing or two about automated recruitment, they could have spent more time fortifying their walls against barbarian invasions and wars waged by their Persian rivals. The Empire could still be in place today had it not been for its antiquated recruitment processes. The soldiers could have been astounded to learn that, now, you can simply feed applicants' information into a computer and let it come up with a list of names that are qualified to join the Imperial Army.
Modern-day recruiting, of course, is not about letting a piece of software do all the work. Recruitment software, which has its roots in information-parsing software designed for intelligence and other military applications in the 1990s, is simply a tool for streamlining processes, cutting costs and improving efficiency.
It has an impactful role in any recruitment business, making the decision to buy recruitment software as crucial as deciding upon a new manager. Choose the right software and you witness efficiency boosts, all-time morale highs and, in general, better profits. Take a wrong turn and business could plummet, dragging with it what used to be a positive disposition and the bottom line.
The Seven Things You Need to Know Before Purchasing Recruitment Software
For any business, it is essential that you take a look back at your business goals before pursuing any further action. The goals you set at the beginning are there for a reason: to guide you when it comes to making decisions and taking action.
Purchasing recruitment software, whether you are a startup recruitment firm or have already been in the industry for quite some time, is never a walk in the park. It is not like going into a coffee shop and choosing your cup of coffee for the day. If it turns out all right, you can thank your lucky stars. If things go wrong, you can always purchase another cup the next day. That is not how it goes when it comes to recruitment software.
Financial cost is not simply the reason. It takes some time before the members of a recruitment team learn the ins and outs of software that was designed to take over a huge bulk of their tasks. Ignoring your employees' needs and installing the wrong software can also cause them discontentment, leading to productivity lows and an unused technology that continually puts pressure on your company coffers simply to keep in place. It is, therefore, a must that you go through your business goals once again and keep them in mind while you shop for recruitment software.
However, while every business has its own unique set of goals, there are a number of factors that are critical for recruitment software to work for you. These are your bare-bone essentials. Complicated add-ons will not make up for the most basic of your software needs because without them, you might as well shelve the use of software for recruitment purposes. Any decent recruitment software should be able to provide all of the following benefits. Otherwise, you are looking in the wrong place to purchase.
1. Security
There ought to be zero compromises when it comes to protecting the information that you feed your software. After all, you assure your clients and candidates of their privacy, don't you? All data that you feed into your system should be available only to you and to specific personnel you have authorized. Otherwise, you run the risk of setting out your business files into the open for feasting on by hackers who could easily get their way into your system.
Password access, of course, is no longer a question. Every single online service provider should require the use of passwords for protection. However, an additional layer of protection is needed because of the sensitive nature of information that is kept in a recruitment database. Encryption via Secure Socket Layer (SSL), a protocol used for sending and receiving private information, is a must to ensure utmost security. SSL is commonly used for passwords and credit card numbers. There are two ways data is translated through SSL:
- Via a public code through which nobody can view your information, which explains the black dots or asterisks you see on your screen when you type a password or credit card number; and
- Via a secret code only the intended receiver can read, which is why a website's server can read your password and allow you access to your account.
This means only your staff members can view the information you feed into your software. Even your provider should not be able to see the contents of your database unless you give them permission.
Information security, however, is not just for protection from the prying eyes of the competition. It is also against system shutdowns, bugs and human errors in processing. Complete and regular backups, therefore, are also imperative as they guarantee that no single piece of data is lost. Vendors may bloat the bill for backup storage into their servers. You are occupying more space in the system, after all. Backups, however, should always come with the software for no additional fees.
Do not fall into the trap of paying for something so basic that you can get it for free. Good recruitment software should not incur extra costs for backups and security.
2. Ease of Use
Sometimes, providers miss the fact that they are selling to recruiters, whose specialization lies in dealing with people. They are not programmers and they do not have time to figure their way around a labyrinthine interface to be able to use it. Recruitment software should be easy to use. If it is easy to use, it must also be easy to understand. You should, therefore, choose a provider that goes out of their way to make things easy for you.
Simple features such as drag-and-drop support and the automation of repetitive tasks like the writing and sending of generic emails are standard. Absence of these features should ring a warning bell that the software might not be what you need.
At the same time, evaluate the overall experience of using the software. Do you feel as though you are going nowhere when you first start using the software? Is it time-consuming trying to learn where things are and how you can do things? The least a vendor could do is to provide a video demonstration of how to use their software. A comprehensive knowledge base for all sorts of questions that could crop up during the process should also be available. Unless you can afford to dedicate a huge chunk of your business time to learning new software on your own, the learning curve should not be steep.
There is one more thing. If your recruitment software offsets business processes it does not cover, you might try to look for something else. It should not only be able to take charge of the dull and automatable tasks; it should also contribute to enhance other activities, such as the management of vacancies, events and regular day-to-day activities. These are not extra features that cost more to use; these should be freely integrated into your recruitment software, whose function is not solely to store and organize information but also to organize and manage processes that are needed to make business quick and effective.
3. Accurate Searching
Some people say that a recruitment firm is only as good as its recruitment database. What good is an extensive database, however, if searching returns irrelevant results? Inarguably, any respectable recruitment software must at least have a CV parser with decent searching capabilities. Unlimited searching is only a minimum requirement. Accuracy is something not a lot of vendors are known for, but is one of the most basic needs of a recruiter turning online to automate processes.
There are three algorithms by which recruitment software comes up with results: keyword-based, grammar-based and statistic-based. To keep things simple, we won't go into the technical details of each algorithm. It is sufficient to know that not one of these algorithms is the best, but a combination of all three should produce quick and accurate results in no time.
Again, creating searchable records and searching these records later on should not be painful labour. It should take nothing more than a quick dragging and dropping of CVs into your database or an easy uploading process to create records. The best recruitment software can even automate the process for you. By integrating your software with multiple job boards, your software automatically generates records every time an applicant replies to your job board advertisement and sends his resume. That could be around 300 new records created for each advertisement, less the number of candidates who have responded to multiple ads.
4. Good Backup
Backing up your data is not a question; it's an absolute must. Sure, it helps to think positive, but it helps even more to anticipate problems that may appear and have a secure system in place to address these problems. If you're not much of an optimistic person, there are all sorts of things that can possibly go wrong-bugs, viruses, malware, scammers, hackers, floods, fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, the end of the world, etc. Of course, nothing more than a bug could occur, but you get the point. Back up, back up, back up.
Here is what to look for in recruitment software: free and regular backups. Some vendors will automatically charge an additional cost for what they call value-added service, incurring extra fees you weren't aware of until billing time. Others will only provide backups when requested, also setting another price tag for the service. Data security, however, is an integral part of keeping and maintaining recruitment software and should not be considered a separate component of the database.
Think of a pirate's treasure chest filled to the brim with gold and precious stones. To keep his loot away from meddling hands, he padlocks his treasure chest and keeps the silver key in his pocket at all times. Without his lock and key, all that treasure is forever gone once his mates get their greedy hands on it, or when Wendy and friends stumble upon it, or when the ship topples over. It isn't enough that he has a chest to stash his prize away in; there has to be a way to make sure that the gold is always there. That is why stores sell jewellery boxes and locks as one unit. One cannot go without the other.
The same is true for purchasing software to store all your recruitment information in. There has to be a way to make sure that all your data is always there. Backups are crucial for business and your peace of mind. They have to be performed at least every two weeks so that every single piece of information in your database is current and up-to-date.
5. Disaster Recovery
So what happens when something actually goes wrong? What if your office network contracted a virus and all systems had shut down for an indefinite length of time? Disasters, whether they are part of nature's cycle or due to human actions, can happen. When they do, they can cause a lot of heartache over all the time, contacts and resources lost during the catastrophe.
Your provider should understand that the most significant chunk of your recruitment business is in your recruitment software. In the recruitment industry, data lost is business lost. In the past, recruiters had to retrace their steps and go back to square one. Today, having all this technology in place should make it easy for your provider to create a disaster recovery plan should things go wrong.
It cannot be emphasized enough how important backups are. Single backups are insufficient. Go for a vendor that provides multiple backups at least two times every month. Your data should be stored in separate servers so that you still have your information available should one of the servers crash.
6. Competitive Pricing
While price isn't on top of the list of things to consider when buying recruitment software, it still is part of the list. There is no question about it. Businesses in all industries are always looking for ways to cut down on costs, not excluding recruitment firms.
There are two payment methods common in this industry: a one-time license-based fee and a regular subscription fee. The former, while initially more expensive, may seem more attractive, but software that is paid through a license-based fee normally does not come with the benefits of subscription-based recruitment software. For example, you may have to pay to install upgrades onto your computer, but subscription software upgrades are normally available for free.
The latter also allows you to take the software on a test drive as you pay for use every month. If you find it not working for you, you can simply stop paying and get it out of your mind. With licensed-based software, you pay for the entire package in one transaction. However, if things don't go well for you, there is no other way but to live with your software and the costs it brings you.
Another issue to content with is data migration. Some vendors see this as an opportunity to make more out of their non-techie clients, but data migration normally doesn't take much. This is because most recruitment databases usually employ a similar format and your new provider will not have to do much tweaking to import your data from your old database into your new one. Ask about data migration costs upfront. They should be zero to minimal. Otherwise, you might not get the most out of a potential new provider if they say they have to charge you for that one.
7. Great Customer Service
Software providers sometimes don't understand that other people lack the time or the skills to figure things out themselves when they come to a roadblock in the use of new software. It goes without saying that after-sales customer support is not given the attention it deserves, with much of the energy focused on closing a single sale. Fortunately, software providers are quickly realizing that customer service is a vital aspect of their business because it determines the customers who stay and those who are not satisfied.
Good software is not just good software. It should come with a variety of support services that guide the user along. Any new software that is not easy to learn is not worth learning at all. It is not enough that the software feature an intuitive interface; there should also be plenty of training materials to help you learn the software on your own. Text manuals and video demonstrations should be easy to use and should be readily available if you need to consult them. When your questions are not covered by the starter manuals, there should always be a support staff ready to answer your queries.
Phone, email and live chat support are standards in the industry, although in some instances you will be interacting more with a chat robot than a real, live human being. After-sales support is important. If you do not want to be relegated to the bottom of a list of support tickets, look for a vendor that provides real-time, live support that actually comes from a person.
Conclusion
Let's take another brief look at the seven things you need to know before shelling out good business money for recruitment software:
1. Security
2. Ease of Use
3. Accurate Searching
4. Good Backup
5. Disaster Recovery
6. Competitive Pricing
7. Excellent Customer Service
Don't settle for recruitment software that meets four or five or six of these requirements. Each cannot work properly without the rest. Customer service may be excellent, but you simply don't want to be in touch with support the entire time. Of what use are multiple backups if your information is freely available for the taking? Powerful search capabilities may not even make up for software that is a burden to learn. And you might as well pay a steep price for high-quality recruitment software than scrimp on one that doesn't do the work it promises.
Take an all-or-nothing approach with this list. It is an exhaustive list, but it is not impossible to find recruitment software that can meet all of these requirements.
The eBoss online recruitment database management solution offers the abovementioned benefits and more, including email integration, job board integration, workflow management, diary and event management, vacancy management and optional website integration.
For more information on recruitment software, check out eBoss Online Recruitment Solutions at http://www.eboss.co.uk/ or send an email to info@eboss.co.uk.
For a quick, hassle-free, obligation-free chat, add recruitment software on Skype and talk to David himself, managing director of eBoss Solutions.
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