In today’s dynamic job market, recruiting professionals are increasingly reliant on Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to upgrade recruitment performance. However, the implementation of these systems can be complex and challenging without proper guidance.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll delve into the best practices for implementing a new ATS/CRM system, tailored specifically for organizations seeking to optimize their recruitment software to answer to the growing needs of their business.

1. Define Your Objectives

Before diving into the implementation process, it’s crucial to clearly define your objectives and expectations from your new ATS/CRM system. Determine the specific pain points you aim to address in your current system, whether it’s improving candidate sourcing, enhancing candidate engagement, or streamlining recruiter workflows and communication with clients.

By establishing clear goals upfront, you can align your implementation strategy accordingly and properly assess if a new system can meet your business needs.

2. Conduct Thorough Research

Not all ATS/CRM systems are created equal, and finding the right fit for your organization requires diligent research. Engage thoroughly with demos to gain hands-on experience of the technology. Evaluate multiple options, considering factors such as user-experience, scalability, customization capabilities, integration with existing tools, and access to customer support.

Ensure the chosen solution aligns with the growth trajectory of your business. Don’t just consider what you need now, but be sure to prioritize future business goals as well.

3. Involve The Team

Successful implementation of an ATS/CRM system requires buy-in and collaboration from key users and account managers across your organization. Involve your recruiters, IT professionals, and management in the decision-making process to ensure their needs and concerns are addressed upfront.

Solicit feedback from end-users to understand potential challenges or roadblocks, fostering a sense of ownership and enthusiasm in anticipation for the new system’s adoption.

4. Customize and Configure

One size does not fit all when it comes to recruitment technology. The ability to leverage customization and configuration capabilities offered by your ATS/CRM system is critical to tailor the platform to your organization’s industry, specific workflows and preferences. Define custom fields, workflows, and automation rules that align with your recruitment operations, ensuring seamless integration with existing systems and maximizing efficiency.

Embrace the flexibility and agility of a configurable ATS/CRM system so your organization can optimize recruitment and adapt more effectively to the dynamic needs of your industry.

5. Provide Comprehensive Training

Effective training is essential to ensure smooth adoption, utilization and engagement with the new ATS/CRM system by your team. Offer comprehensive training sessions tailored to different user roles and skill levels, covering basic functionalities as well as advanced features can further enhance understanding and retention. Provide hands-on practice and resources such as user manuals, video tutorials, and help documentation to support ongoing learning and mastery of the software.

By investing in robust training initiatives, empower your team to harness the full power of the ATS/CRM system and all of it’s tools, ultimately driving efficiency, productivity, and recruitment success.

6. Implement Data Migration Strategies

Transitioning data from legacy systems to a new ATS/CRM platform requires careful planning and execution to prevent data loss or corruption. Develop a robust data migration strategy,
identifying the types of data to be transferred, data mapping requirements, and data cleansing processes. By meticulously planning and executing a comprehensive data migration strategy, organizations can seamlessly transition from legacy systems to a new ATS/CRM platform while safeguarding the integrity and completeness of their valuable data assets.

Collaborate closely with your IT team or external vendors and partners to ensure a smooth and accurate migration, maintaining data integrity and continuity of business operations without disruption.

Conclusion:

Implementing a new ATS/CRM system is a significant undertaking that can yield substantial benefits for your recruitment business when executed effectively. By following these best practices, from defining objectives and conducting thorough research to providing comprehensive training and implementing data migration strategies, you can maximize the success of your software implementation and empower your team to achieve superior results in talent acquisition and client management.

Ready to embark on a journey towards upgrading your recruitment tech? Learn more about driving success in recruitment with TargetRecruit!

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Innovation is pivotal in the recruitment technology landscape. Today’s recruiters understand the significance of leveraging state-of-the-art solutions to keep ahead of the curve. One of the standout innovations in recent times has been the integration of Advanced AI frameworks into staffing and recruiting software. Such integrations have the potential to redefine the recruitment approach, enabling an amalgamation of human intelligence and machine capability set to transform the way we approach recruitment through advanced AI Integration.

Understanding AI in recruitment software

AI-based features in recruitment platforms can significantly elevate user experiences by providing real-time text generation based on provided context and inputs. In essence, recruiters can utilize AI to assist in drafting precise job descriptions, formulating emails, and even auto-generating interview questions. Such an AI “assistant” can craft content specifically suited to recruitment needs, expediting processes and ensuring relevancy.

The true essence of these AI features lies in their adaptability. With an overarching framework, these systems can integrate multiple AI models, ensuring they remain updated and attuned to the ever-evolving landscape of AI technology. Such a model ensures that the recruitment software remains progressive, always harnessing the latest in AI capabilities.

Bespoke customization for recruiters

In recruitment, customization is paramount. Each recruiter or firm has unique requirements, and AI tools embedded in recruiting software offer the advantage of customizability. With user-friendly configuration settings, these tools can be adjusted to match specific contexts or job roles, ensuring that the software aligns seamlessly with diverse recruitment strategies.

Moreover, the ease of integration ensures that recruiters can have the AI tools accessible effortlessly, complete with templates and fields that auto-populate with relevant information.

Driving innovation: AI-generated text suggestions

Central to the appeal of AI in recruitment platforms is the AI-driven text suggestions. As users engage with the software, AI tools proactively generate recommendations based on the provided context. The versatility of these suggestions ensures that they can be promptly applied, be it for job descriptions, emails, or any text-based tasks, effectively making recruitment communication more efficient.

Harnessing the AI integration framework

The bedrock of such advanced AI tools is the AI Integration Framework. Designed to smoothly integrate with various Generative AI APIs, this framework can accommodate different types of models with minimal developmental inputs. The future-ready design ensures that as AI models and providers evolve, the framework remains robust and versatile, ready to integrate newer advancements.

The inherent potential of this framework is its universality – not being tethered to specific AI providers. This adaptability means recruitment software can remain at the forefront of AI advancements, always harnessing the latest innovations.

Looking ahead: The evolution of recruitment software

In summation, the integration of AI frameworks into recruitment platforms marks a monumental evolution in the domain of recruitment technology. By harnessing the power of AI, recruiters can streamline operations, make more astute decisions, and optimize their recruitment strategies.

The future of recruitment beckons a greater integration of AI, and as technology continues to progress, so too will the tools at the disposal of recruiters. In this era of rapid technological advancements, recruitment stands poised for a transformative journey, underpinned by the symbiosis of human expertise and artificial intelligence.

Explore our Powerful AI Suite, TR Intelligence

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The post The Role of AI Frameworks in Enhancing Staffing and Recruiting Software appeared first on TargetRecruit.

The staffing and recruitment industry has undergone significant changes, primarily driven by incredible technological advancements. Today, recruiters are no longer bound by manual processes, paperwork, and phone calls, but instead are able to leverage comprehensive software solutions that wholly upgrade business operations. Although significant strides have been made with applicant tracking systems (ATS) and recruitment technology, there is always room for improvement and advancement as business needs continue to shift and change over time. Because of this, TargetRecruit prioritizes educating companies on the current gaps and pitfalls of common ATS solutions on the market today.

During our initial software evaluation process, we always ask potential clients to identify their biggest pain points with their current Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Our primary focus is to assist our clients in overcoming any gaps in their existing ATS solutions. Through our experience working closely with clients and through these conversations, we have gained invaluable insights into the recurring challenges faced by our industry over the past several years. 

Uncovered, one of the biggest challenges faced today is working with applicant tracking systems (ATS) that are incapable of being tailored to specific business needs. As a result, we compiled a list of the top seven pain points across the board and quickly discovered they are some of the most significant challenges shared by many staffing and recruiting firms worldwide.

The top seven pain points for staffing and recruiting firms when it comes to their Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS):

• Reporting
• CRM | Sales & Business Development
• Integrations
• Automation
• Customization
• Configuration
• Middle Office

At TargetRecruit, we specialize in providing enterprise software solutions for staffing and recruitment firms so we understand the unique challenges and opportunities that come with implementing new technology. By recognizing and addressing these common pain across reporting, CRM, sales and business development, integration, automation, scalability, and customization, we aim to help companies maximize their potential and achieve success in our ever-evolving industry.

We offer direct solutions to these pain points so that any staffing, and recruiting firms can utilize them to improve business operations, streamline and automate workflows, upgrade productivity, drive new revenue growth, and more. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have been game changers, but with advancements in business come new challenges ahead. As we explore these challenges in detail, break down their pain points, and provide solutions that address each pain point, companies looking to upgrade their ATS, and modernize business operations can make informed decisions when searching for the right software solutions to match their business needs. 

In our new eBook, “From Frustration to Success: Tackling the Top 7 ATS Pain Points,” gain critical insights into the biggest challenges faced by our industry today alongside the actionable solutions that can overcome them. So, whether you’re looking to upgrade your current ATS or explore a completely new software solution for staffing and recruiting, this eBook is a must-read for any enterprise organization looking to stay ahead across the competitive landscape of staffing and recruiting. 

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Choosing an applicant tracking system (ATS) for your staffing agency is an important decision to make. An ATS is crucial for your hiring process; it may be the most important tech investment for your organization.
Due to the significance of the ATS, it is crucial not to make a hasty decision. Picking the wrong solution for your team can waste months as you reassess and repeat the evaluation process.

Taking too long to make a decision isn’t optimal, either. If the decision-making process continues for a long time without ending, it’s more likely that you won’t make a decision. Instead, you will keep doing things the same way as before.

How can you compromise and find a solution? What are the best practices for selecting an ATS for your staffing agency? Let’s look at the things you should consider as you begin your ATS evaluation process:

Check Your Bias

This isn’t the time to play favorites. When you’re choosing an ATS, it’s important that you put any personal feelings or previous experience aside.

Even if you have previously employed a specific solution with a different company, that same solution may not be suitable for your present organization. Even if you possess extensive knowledge about that platform, it may not align with the operational needs of your organization and team. Functionality and adoptability should be the key contributing factors to your decision — not how much you like it.
If you have a strong preference during the assessment phase, you may try to influence others towards your preference. You will focus on the flaws in other solutions and ignore any potential issues with the platform you prefer.

Keep in mind that what may be optimal for you may not necessarily be optimal for your organization. Look at each potential software solution with fresh eyes and an open mind.

Fight the Urge to Overanalyze

Occasionally, the burden of a choice – or the anxiety of selecting the incorrect one – can halt the process of decision-making completely.

Think of it this way: Your kids ask you to pick up a box of cereal on your way home. You stop by the grocery store, walk to the cereal aisle, and you’re hit with the sudden realization that sometime between your childhood and theirs, 300 extra varieties of cereal were created, and it’s up to you to pick the right one.

Do you panic? Do you run screaming from the store?

Do you stand there in the aisle for thirty minutes looking at ingredient lists and cartoon mascots? Picking one ATS from all the options out there isn’t all that different. (Though we do think it would be easier if cartoon mascots were involved.)

Most people don’t realize that a software company’s biggest competitor isn’t another software company. Forrester found that almost half of lost sales opportunities in the internet technology industry were due to “no decision.” The company in question simply chose not to choose anything and remained with the status quo.

Realizing that your solution can greatly improve a business can be scary. The process of deciding and making changes may still feel overwhelming. Some companies find it easier to stick to their old ways, even if those ways are not effective.

The enemy of progress is not regression — it’s stagnation. Do not allow information overload or an intimidating number of options overwhelm you. Remember that there was a reason you started shopping for other options. Don’t go back to the status quo just because the decision grew more difficult than you expected.

(Read about the other 5 things to consider when selecting an ATS for your staffing agency by downloading our eBook!)

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As we look beyond pandemic pain and begin to see better days ahead, TargetRecruit President Andy Widgerson takes a look back at staffing industry triumphs and turmoil in “Lessons Learned from Pandemic Pain,” just published on Staffing Industry Analysts’ Staffing Stream.

The Staffing Stream post shines a light on the ingenuity of staffing teams in addressing some of the pandemic challenges their businesses faced. In addition to the accelerated pace of digital transformation, the post focuses on some of the actions taken to emerge stronger, more agile and better prepared to seize opportunities in the post-pandemic world.

What were the biggest pandemic peaks and valleys for your business? Share your success stories with us.

The post Lessons Learned from Pandemic Pain appeared first on TargetRecruit.

A recruiter’s success depends largely on candidate and client satisfaction, which is why staffing technology prioritizes improving candidate experience and client services. In fact, there are thousands of tech tools available today that do just that.

Unfortunately, back-office processes and operational systems critical to the smooth functioning of recruitment enterprises too often get pushed to the back burner in favor of the “cool” tools that excite recruiters and help account managers win more business.

As with utilities like plumbing and electricity, when something goes wrong with staffing business basics like payment and billing, cool front-office tools can’t help you. When payroll is late or riddled with errors, the firm’s reputation can take a nasty hit. When customers question billing accuracy, their satisfaction and brand loyalty are in jeopardy.

Adding a new software solution dedicated to one or even a few back-office functions may offer a short-term fix, but it won’t address long-term needs. To ensure a sustainable difference in your ability to operate more effectively and scale for growth, it’s time to consider a fully integrated enterprise solution.

Battling for Tech Dollars and Focus

Staffing firms spend millions of dollars every year on competing technology applications that promise to deliver a better candidate experience or a better match of candidate to corporate culture. Lots of talent acquisition technology options vie for the attention of staffing firms and their limited technology investment dollars.

Staffing leaders face difficult decisions when figuring out where to put their focus. Recruiters tend to vote for automation in candidate engagement, video interviewing, and the ability to communicate more effectively to nurture relationships. Operational specialists in other areas of the business lobby for better marketing automation, timekeeping systems, or digital onboarding capabilities. These are all good strategies for leveraging technology to increase competitiveness. The problem is that the strategies are often short-sighted and the technologies not necessarily compatible.

Taking an Enterprise View

Most people tend to stay in their own lane, looking for opportunities to improve the way they do their jobs and achieve their specific goals. They do not necessarily think about how the actions and priorities of others can impact their jobs nor how their agendas affect others or the enterprise as a whole. Consider these scenarios from the recruiter’s point of view:

• You invest in a great mobile technology that makes it easy for applicants to engage with you on the go, but the tech directs them back to your website to complete a traditional application or a lengthy assessment
• You deliver a fast and frictionless candidate experience that culminates in a complicated onboarding process
• You introduce a sleek new timekeeping application without upgrading legacy back-office processes that may struggle with data transfer and lead to mistakes or delays in payroll

What happens to candidate experience in these scenarios? Your employer brand will definitely take a hit. In each of these cases, the decision-makers were short-sighted. From a practical standpoint, they may have overlooked how a single application interacts with every other application it touches. Beyond the impact on candidate and employee experience, this kind of siloed thinking can lead to maintenance headaches and integration nightmares. That may be why more companies are now looking to consolidate all their resources on a single platform.

Why a Single Platform?

The main component of your staffing technology stack may evolve from a homegrown solution to a cloud-based front office. Along the way, however, most firms hang on to the legacy systems and point solutions they added over the years to enhance client and candidate experience, digitize the business, and improve operational efficiency. Such a technology roadmap shows a somewhat haphazard journey, with more stops based on the capacity of the gas tank than on any structured plan.
Aside from minimizing the burden of maintaining multiple legacy solutions alongside a host of newer cloud applications, a single comprehensive system can provide enterprise visibility and that elusive single source of truth from front office to back. What else can it provide?

1. When you build your solution on a powerful platform, you can quickly and easily configure it to match your specific needs rather than rethinking your needs to match what the solution offers.
2. You can leverage data coming from different applications.
3. You can maximize efficiency.
4. You can count on top-notch security.
5. Perhaps most importantly, a secure, established platform provides opportunities to grow and adapt as your business needs change.

Prioritizing the Coolness Factor

If you were to rate the coolness factor of your technology priorities, getting all your applications to work together is likely not as exciting as introducing the latest chatbot or client portal. Prioritizing the platform on which you build your technology, however, can ensure every clever tool and smart application you deploy in the future is more likely to function optimally. That’s because integrating lots of different solutions into a highly flexible and powerful enterprise system gives you far more options and greater agility to adapt and grow in the future. How cool is that?

The post Beyond the Coolness Factor: Why Staffing Firms Should Reconsider Their Technology Priorities appeared first on TargetRecruit.

If you’re like most people, there is at least one spot in your home that isn’t company-ready. It could be an overcrowded closet or a catch-all drawer or the cords and cabling behind your entertainment center. In a staffing business, it’s often the duct-taped and jerry-rigged systems that connect the staffing front office to the back. When multiple applications and systems are cobbled together over time, you eventually reach a point where what was once cool or expedient is now costly and inefficient. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are now highly flexible solutions built on powerful platforms that allow you to transform your business with a fully integrated, single-source enterprise solution.

How Companies Outgrow Their Technology

When a staffing business starts, everyone wears multiple hats and performs lots of different jobs, creating unique processes to streamline the work. That could mean a simple accounting solution, a timekeeping application or a payroll and billing system. As the business grows, we add an ATS, then a CRM solution. We fill in with email marketing and content management apps. Some may be created in-house; others we buy. As the speed of technology accelerates, we may switch from do-it-yourself to off-the-shelf. As the business grows, we become more sophisticated and specialized, and we get more tools to help us do our jobs.

What happens to the business processes and tools that fall into disuse? Some may disappear, others get pushed into the corners of our offices, our computers and our closets. They are forgotten until that moment when they unintentionally disrupt process flow or complicate operations or decelerate growth.

Staffing Companies Focused on Growth Need Technology Designed for Growth

We may plan for measured expansion and incremental growth, but we all take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Building your technology stack is a similar exercise. We plan for future needs, but immediate opportunities may require unplanned decisions. Sometimes we buy new technology outright; sometimes we inherit it via mergers and acquisitions. No matter how it is accumulated, the result is usually a somewhat chaotic collection of overlapping and duplicative applications that are difficult to manage and eventually impossible to support and sustain.

Growing Pains

When you outgrow all the different applications and point solutions that helped you build your business and hone your capabilities, it’s time to make a significant shift to a solution that is big enough and flexible enough to grow with you. You need a trusted enterprise platform with out-of-the-box security, performance, reliability and scalability. No matter how great the features and functionality of the latest software, if it cannot support your end-to-end requirements, it will only delay the inevitable discussion of how to get past the plateau growth state. You can no longer rely on fill-in solutions that are only as good as the workarounds created to connect one to another.

Take Advantage of Enterprise Technology Designed to Grow with You

Anything on your technology wish list is attainable, given enough time, money and development skill to create it, but why would you want to do that? Why expend resources on technology that could be better invested in recruiting and staffing capabilities? When you choose a powerful and flexible enterprise technology platform, you multiply your capabilities at any scale. You can configure features and functionality to meet your specific needs without the expense or time commitments that always accompany heavy customization. For example:

• Automate workflows through clicks rather than code. Build complex workflows with visual elements and reusable building blocks. Cut down on unnecessary extra effort, reduce human error and deliver a better service to your candidates and clients.
• Integrate everything faster. Connect disparate systems with API-led services or access a large, established library of proven apps, components, templates and more, without the need for customization.
• Keep it simple. No matter how many different countries you operate in or how many business units or brands you have, an integrated enterprise solution allows you to run everything on a single platform. System users only see what they need to see, despite the many different requirements users may have.

It’s Time to Open that Closet and Clean It Out!

Get ready for a new beginning. Clean out the proverbial mess in your technology closet. Prepare to accelerate growth for your business with a fully integrated, single-source enterprise solution that will give you the flexibility to expand when possible, pivot when needed and take advantage of opportunity whenever and wherever it is presented. Explore the possibilities for your staffing business by scheduling a demo or reach out to learn more.

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For staffing firms, the 2 most valuable software tools have traditionally been an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. An ATS will help manage information about candidates and job-seekers, track notes, search and match jobs, schedule interviews, and ultimately record details of placements. A CRM, on the other hand, will allow you to keep track of your contacts, accounts, opportunities, notes, and every related activity. Whether your agency operates full (360) desk or split desk, combining both sets of functions of CRM and ATS solutions within your organization will drive team collaboration like never before.

This blog focuses on the most important features you should look for in a cloud recruitment CRM for your staffing firm. Here are the must-have features of a Staffing CRM:

1. Built for the Staffing Sales Model

 As a staffing firm, your sales and recruiting activities need close coordination and cannot operate in silos. If you choose a generic recruitment CRM software, you will spend months customizing the solution to suit your business processes. Hence, the most important feature for a staffing CRM is that it should be custom-built for staffing. If you have a solution with fully integrated CRM and ATS functions, that obviously has clear benefits.  Your recruiters and sales team can access and share data and intelligence between both platforms, without the need to switch back and forth between different systems in their daily routine.

 2. Automation

Your sales team shouldn’t be doing manual data entry or telling the CRM what they have done. They should be spending time on what they do best; like building relationships and chasing targets. A Staffing CRM should enable the sales team to drive more success with automation. You can rapidly design and automate any business process with a staffing CRM. Automatically send alerts, assign leads, update data, and schedule outbound messages – all is possible from your fingertips.

3. Collaboration

You would expect a staffing CRM to give you a complete view of your leads, opportunities, key contacts, and communications. But internal account discussions are equally important. That is when a collaboration feature within the staffing CRM comes into play. With the collaboration feature embedded inside your CRM, your team can have internal discussions about an account or an opportunity to share knowledge, get updates, and take action accordingly, and keep all that information accessible to all users rather than hidden in private email messages.

4. Great Visualizations

 Standard tables and spreadsheets are difficult to work with and are rarely intuitive. They can make the entire process of reviewing and tracking very monotonous. With a Staffing CRM, you can empower your sales team with great visualizations so they can see the information they need at a glance, or deep dive for more detail. TargetRecruit has a Kanban view that replaces clunky tables with one-page summaries of opportunities or leads or any other object. It also allows users to select records and quickly move them from one column/stage to another, dynamically updating status, running workflows where appropriate and getting an instant update.

5. Analytics

A suite of standard reports for lead and opportunity management is a critical requirement for a Staffing CRM. It should allow you to easily track which deals your sales reps are spending their time on, calculate the conversion rate, and more. A staffing CRM should also have dashboards and the ability to customize reports and dashboards.

__________

TargetRecruit recruitment CRM software provides you with a “360 degree” view of your customer and candidate relationships. Our CRM will help you measure the success of your sales and marketing efforts end-to-end (from leads to opportunities to placements).

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I hear the word platform thrown around a lot today in our space. It seems that every software company, especially in the CRM/applicant tracking software space, seems to call themselves a platform. I think it is misleading and cheapens solutions that are ACTUALLY a platform. A great article on Forbes titled “What’s The Difference Between A Software Product And A Platform?” by Adrian Bridgewater did a great job of getting to the bottom of the topic if you’re interested in going more into the technical and historical aspects of the topic. I will try to break this down more in terms of the staffing industry’s software solutions.

What is a Software Platform and What is a Point Solution?

According to dictionary.com, a software platform is a noun that is a major piece of software, as an operating system, an operating environment, or a database, under which various smaller application programs can be designed to run. A software product is any delivered software solution that can be used to solve a problem. For example, the Salesforce platform, which TargetRecruit is built on, has a whole developer toolkit and language that allows developers to use tools like JavaScript, Apex, Visualforce Pages & Components, Lightning Components, and other tools to build functionality on top of what Salesforce and TargetRecruit have already built. Also, the code that you build on the platform is hosted on the same multitenant server that your TargetRecruit instance sits on. For all of our competitors that are fortunate enough to have a serviceable API, you could integrate functionality from another software product into their product, maybe even use an iframe to make it appear that the 3rd party vendor’s software product has integrated functionality, but ultimately that code will be hosted elsewhere.

Why Does This Matter?

Fair question. You might be saying right now, “Who cares? All I want is to be able to see the information from the 3rd party product in my CRM/ATS system. Where it lives does not matter to me.” If you’re thinking this, it is likely you are incorrect. Here’s why: In a perfect world you will buy an off the shelf CRM/ATS product that covers 100% of your business’s technology needs to the end of time and your recruiters will spend 100% of their time building relationships and making money. Since the world is quite imperfect, it is more realistic that your firm will need a flexible solution that sometimes needs some special sauce or a piece of functionality that is very low on your vendor’s list of priorities to build. If you buy a platform instead of a product, when you build, or “code,” the new functionality into the tool, and it is built in a consistent language and hosted on the same servers, you will be giving yourself a much better chance that when an update is pushed by your vendor in the future, your customizations will not break. For example, since Salesforce developers use the Salesforce platform’s robust developer toolkit and the code is hosted on Salesforce servers, everything is essentially kept “in-house.”

On the flipside, if you or your CRM/ATS vendor are to build a one-off customization, this would need to be hosted on a separate server elsewhere (i.e. Amazon, Azure, IBM Cloud, etc.) which will mean someone is paying those hosting fees, and it is most likely going to be you in one way or another. Also, since the new code is not going to be built in a consistent language and the tool is not a platform, when the CRM/ATS vendor pushes out a new update, it is far more likely to break your custom one-off code. This reality is pretty much unavoidable.

Coding Yourself Into a Corner

This is a saying in the technology space for when you over-customize. Consider this scenario: Your staffing firm has a large percentage of engagements that need to be tracked under a specific purchase order (PO). The middle office portion of the CRM/ATS solution your firm uses does not track hours against a PO. This causes immense additional manual work for your team and often creates mistakes which cause your most important clients to get very upset which puts people’s jobs at risk. Your firm pays the CRM/ATS vendor or a consulting partner $200/hr to create a custom one-off to create functionality to handle PO tracking. Six months and $25,000 later, your precious new functionality is done and you now have a streamlined way to track hours against a PO. Hurray, problem solved, at least temporarily. Three months later, your CRM/ATS vendor pushes out an update without your knowledge that breaks your precious customization. Ouch! What do you do now? You’re not going to throw all that hard work and money away and risk the poor optics, right? Plus, there’s nothing too crucial that you need in this update, or at least you convince yourself of that, so you have your vendor pull the update back, which costs you $3,000. You can bury that easily in your budget though. You’ve officially coded yourself into a corner! I’ve seen this happen many times with cloud and on-premise solutions alike. The updates keep coming and you can’t possibly consider throwing your entire back office team off by going back to manually handling POs or they will all revolt. This is not a dramatization, this is a common scenario due to the lack of platform capabilities in our space.

Native Integrations vs API Integrations

This should probably be an article in its own right but native integrations are a hallmark of a true platform product like TargetRecruit. Most solutions today allow for 3rd party vendors to pass information through an API, which is a fine way to build an integration. This is actually how many of our partner’s integrate with TargetRecruit. Our platform also allows to connect in natively built software solutions, such as Accounting Seed (GL) DataTrim (Dupe Check), and Sirenum (Scheduling) directly into the the customer’s existing org since those solutions are also built natively on Salesforce like TargetRecruit is. We also have partners like Groove.co (sales enablement) and Essium (onboarding) that have built native integrations so their data can actually sit live in our platform. There is no one or two way data sync necessary because the integration is native so the data is real-time. Also, their functionality is undetectable within TargetRecruit in the sense that you are not looking at a different user interface within our tool when you see their functionality.

Should I Choose a Platform or a Point Solution?

There’s a time and place for every software product I’ve seen on the market, and I do not consider TargetRecruit to be the right fit for everyone. Sometimes an out-of-the-box product works and the longer you can fit your firm into that box the better. Trying to make a “product” work like a “platform” can and has gotten many business leaders in our space into a lot of trouble though so it is something to have your antennae up about when choosing your next staffing technology solution. Am I looking at a software platform or a product and even though the product fits me today, will it fit me a year or two from now? Also, how disruptive will that change to a new CRM/ATS solution be should I need to make it again sooner rather than later? These are all important questions to consider.

The post What is a Software Platform vs a Point Solution? appeared first on TargetRecruit.

A Recruiting Dashboard makes analyzing all of your staffing activities easy and crystal clear. Reports have their uses and can help you make informed decisions, but dashboards deliver immediately actionable business intelligence.

A recruiting dashboard software platform provides a summary of what is happening in all areas of your business and specifically those areas that matter most to you. So if you are a recruiter, it can help you analyze the status of your job orders, average time-to-fill, candidate engagement and more – all in one screen to help keep tabs on your performance. This can not only help you take appropriate actions but it can help you predict what will happen in certain scenarios.

Overall, recruiting dashboard software:

• Provides a graphical representation of your data and makes it easy to see highlights and identify trends or issues
• Removes the data clutter and gives you the intelligence you need to take decisive action
• Reduces decision-making time

Now the question is what is a perfect recruiting dashboard? Here is what we think:

1. It should answer the most important questions about your business.

The reason why recruiting dashboards are in place is to answer the difficult questions for your business. To put this in operational language, it refers to measuring the key metrics of your business.

For a staffing and recruiting firm, these key metrics can be time-to-hire, quality of hire, cost-per-hire, applicants per job, channel efficiency, candidate engagement, etc. Most of these can be operational reporting visualized in a dashboard for more immediate impact. If your business has an analytical maturity to consume predictive and statistical information as well, it would make the dashboard even more meaningful.

2. It should use the right representation of the data.

Most of us have experienced that an inappropriate chart used to represent data can lead to incorrect interpretation and flawed decision making.  This is why choosing the right representation is the key to creating a perfect dashboard.

For example:

• To analyze your revenue month on month, you will use a basic column chart
• To understand the ethnic or gender ratio of applicants for a job order, you would use a pie chart
• To identify how your candidates, move through the recruitment process, you will use a funnel chart

…and so on.

3. It should follow the right order of metrics.

A perfect recruitment dashboard should serve data in the format that users can interpret simply and quickly. This means that the most critical piece of information should be shown first. For a typical staffing firm, a recruiting dashboard will start with recruiter activity showing applicants and placed candidates by every recruiter. This can be followed by job applicants by stage, or job orders by stage, and so on. This again would depend on your role at the organization. A dashboard for a recruiter would differ drastically from that used by the CEO of a staffing firm.

4. It should be accurate.

Last but not the least, this is an obvious but really important element of creating a perfect dashboard. Inaccurate data can be highly misleading and can lead to losses. So, if your data is in spreadsheets and you are creating a dashboard from there, it is high time you moved away from this to a real time reporting/dashboard solution. If you are feeding data from your ATS to another reporting tool, it is also not advisable because you have to constantly monitor that the data fed into the reporting and dashboards solution is accurate, and often legacy reports are not updated to reflect changes that may be applied to the business operations from time to time.

The best practice would be to use an ATS that offers the flexible reporting capability that your business will require time and again. An ATS should be able to support the creation of dashboards to help you analyze all of your recruiting activities on the go easily and quickly.

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Creating a dashboard using staff recruitment software may sound difficult but with the right technology, it can be simple and can change the way your recruiters work, as they can retrieve and display the information they need without needing IT involvement.  The easier it is for users to create and modify their own reports and dashboards, the more they will be encouraged to use the system fully to help manage their own time and resources more effectively, and to make sound data-driven decisions. 

Did you see TargetRecruit Reports and Dashboards?

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