How do you define “recruitment software”? It’s an interesting exercise.
Is it a “database” – a more robust way of keeping information organised than a spreadsheet?
An “applicant tracking system”, or ATS, to help keep tabs on candidate submissions?
Or a “customer relationship management” tool (CRM), designed to give some structure to business development efforts?
In reality, a complete recruitment platform should be all of these things, but it should also be a lot more.
True recruitment software isn’t just a passive technology resource – a sort of glorified filing system to help managers and business owners look over their team’s shoulders and keep their data nicely organised.
The best tech platforms are pro-active contributors to business success, with a clear impact on recruiter performance, decision-making and productivity.
And, while functionality is an obvious and critical part of any effective software system, there’s another aspect that’s often overlooked – design.
Tech-powered super-recruiters
The design of recruitment software often slides down the list of priorities when agencies are selecting a new supplier.
Armed with a wish-list of functionality, business owners tend to shop on a feature-first basis, imagining how they and their recruiters will ‘use the software’.
An interesting new angle to think about is how the design of the software will impact the way you work.
By designing recruitment tools to shape the way recruiters operate – encouraging best-practices through intuitive layouts, or layering on valuable additional client and candidate data through social media integration – technology ceases to be a tool that is ‘only as good as its user’, and becomes an active asset in the business – positively impacting the way recruiters carry out their work, and raising results across the board.
Better tech really can help your team win more clients, send better candidates and close more deals, and design is key.
It pays to look good
On top of the impact that the right design can have on productivity, looks and user experience are also important in driving adoption and use of new technology by recruiters.
Cleaner, friendlier-looking applications get used more by teams – plain and simple.
More use equals more data and better data, which in turn improves the quality and impact the system can have on future recruitment processes.
Very quickly, the value the tech platform is providing starts to snowball.
Sales teams have better information to structure and carry out their customer outreach campaigns, while account managers provide better, more attentive service to key clients.
Recruitment and delivery teams connect better candidates more quickly with client vacancies, which feeds back into sales and account management work.
The ROI of initial tech investment skyrockets.
The key?
A user interface that encourages teams to engage with the software, use it regularly (and painlessly!), and quickly start to see and believe in its value as a performance-booster, not an admin nightmare.
Automation is the ‘new normal’
Underpinning the impact of recruitment software is one of tech’s biggest buzzwords: automation.
A few years ago, automation was a specialist field of software applications, ingeniously linking workflow steps together to accelerate the pace at which users could carry out key tasks.
Today, the ability to automate the time-consuming manual steps of sales and recruitment isn’t a luxury add-on – it’s a requirement.
Teams who are still accumulating backlogs of admin tasks to ‘clear’ or ‘catch up on’ as they work are at a huge disadvantage to those whose technology does it for them as they work.
It’s a disadvantage which not only grows as users get more and more behind with their system maintenance, it also grows as competitors with slicker technology pull further ahead.
If the right software design gets users on board – and features help them work better, faster – then automation allows them to maintain that competitive advantage and stay ahead of the pack.
Voyager Infinity and Voyager Mid-Office are software solutions that make Recruiters’ lives easier. Voyager Infinity is a CRM used by thousands of recruiters globally to source, nurture and maintain the relationships with their clients and candidates, and Mid-Office manages the entire Pay and Bill process (IR35 ready).
