Admittedly, it's been a while since I worked in recruitment. But I'm willing to bet that things haven't changed all that much. If I knew back then what I know now, I’d have been advocating for custom recruitment software and fighting to get some bespoke solutions in my office. So, I’m certainly an advocate now.
Businesses change, technology has developed, and industries evolve. But, as I say, I don’t think some things will have changed. I’d say, even if you have some good recruitment technology solutions running, you are still dealing with manual, monotonous, and admin-heavy tasks every day. And I'm pretty sure that your office’s “To Do List,” includes getting out to see more clients and making more sales calls. I bet you it’s circled or underlined too.
I would imagine that at least one of these scenarios applies to you.
1. Your staff are dealing with a volume of candidate applications every day that they don't need to be. Either you are getting too many applications to deal with effectively. Or you are getting applications from candidates that you cannot immediately help. And you want to get back to all of them.
2. You have many different vacancies to fill from multiple clients and the information about each of these vacancies is stored in more than one place. It takes time to effectively match candidates to all the different vacancies and opportunities you might have because it takes time to locate the vacancy or the client details. If you consultants deal with their own individual clients and vacancies, well then you have the problem of sharing too.
3. You have at least one client who has multiple staff provided by your agency and who does not use a timesheet or hours tracking system that integrates with your own payroll system. Even if your clients use the most cutting-edge clocking-in and clocking-out software the report you get for your candidates at work still does not automatically integrate with your payroll workflows.
4. Your internal staff turnover is higher than you would like, and you find yourself training new consultants on a regular basis. Part of this training sees you teaching your new consultant to find the information they need to perform their job, and it’s located in many different places and probably involves more than one different brand of software.
5. When it comes to reporting, you are spending multiple hours each week or month collecting data in a variety of formats from any number of sources. This could be how your major contracts are performing against your client KPIs or branch forecasts. This could be how your staff are performing compared to their peers and the targets they have been set. Or you might be finding yourself needing to collate complex data from one system into a format suitable for critical reporting, even for external compliance.
You may well be running a great off-the-shelf recruitment CRM already, but I find it highly unlikely it’s meeting all the unique features of your recruitment business properly. If you are not running a recruitment CRM or similar CMS, then you probably should be first in the queue for a technology review from an expert.
Today, I understand the possibilities of custom recruitment software and the value of the right technology stack implemented in exactly the right way. Off-the-shelf recruitment software has its place. But, if you are running ragged on admin tasks, collating timesheets, or trying to process and respond to too many candidate applications then you are sacrificing time that could be spent keeping your clients and candidates happy and developing new ones.
So, I’d recommend getting in contact with Shaun Sheppard of Recruitment Software Solutions. Why? Because I know he would spend time with you assessing the issues you face and your budget for technology improvements. He’ll find you a cost-effective recruitment solution that will help you focus more human time on growing your business.
Melanie, ex-Branch/Ops Manager.