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

Learn more about TR Intelligence

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

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!)

The post 7 Things to Consider When Selecting an ATS for Your Staffing Agency appeared first on TargetRecruit.

Years ago, while working for a previous employer, I started using a sales automation tool called Outreach.io. I was part of the team who evaluated this tool along with SalesLoft and Yesware. I really liked Outreach because it structured my prospecting efforts and automated various tasks.

However, a major issue I found was the less-than-desirable integration with Salesforce. The integration was bi-directional, and I never knew what to put in either system or why. As a result, data always ended up in the wrong place.

Fast forward a few years and here I am at TargetRecruit, selling a Salesforce-based ATS. I’m also back to using Salesforce as my internal CRM.

When I joined the team, my main goal was to find a sales automation solution. A previous customer recommended Groove to me. During my first evaluation of Groove, I immediately noticed a considerable difference.

It had all the same functionality as Outreach, but it also had a native integration with Salesforce. I didn’t have to worry about the data transferring between Groove and Salesforce whenever I made a change. It was seamless and instantaneous.

This situation has led me to think, “How many others out there aren’t familiar with native integrations and their benefits?” Over the next few years, this level of integration is only going to gain demand. Therefore, it’s important to break down the difference between API integrations (which is the current state for most) and native integrations.

API Integrations

Today, most of us use integrations created through an API, or Application Programming Interface. This was the next generation of integrations before native integrations came along. The major issues with API integrations include:

• Security – API Integrations can be vulnerable to malicious attacks and are often targeted by hackers. Once compromised, this potentially leaves the door open to other apps/systems.
• Latency – The system needs to transfer data changes in order for them to be reflected immediately. API calls are usually set to be made intermittently
• Duplicate Data – The age-old question is, if I’m using both systems, which system do I put the information in? Is it one-way or bi-directional? This can wreak havoc on your data if you don’t have solid processes and people who abide by them
• Heavy Tax – API calls can burden a system and be expensive for vendors. They may charge more for extra calls or limit the number of calls, resulting in less data syncing
• Additional Overhead – Maintaining an API is time-consuming. For example, if something in the API changes, these updates must be carefully coordinated with the consumers of the API. Any communication breakdown can cause integrations to break
• Slow iFrames – Since every time a page that requires an API call opens it must call to a server elsewhere, it will slow your page load times. Also, the graphic and functionality within the iFrame will slow page load times as well
• iFrames Look Bad – iFrames generally don’t flow with the aesthetic of a page. They might have different color buttons, different fonts, and a less-than-desirable scrolling functionality

I don’t think API integrations are all bad. More than 75% of the partners in our ecosystem use them. It’s important to know the advantages and disadvantages of native integrations to understand their power. With that said, I also think it’s important we cover the different types of native integrations that are out there.

Types of Native Integrations

Before we dive in, we need to identify what a true platform solution is. It’s a software solution with developer tools that can be expanded and built upon. If you want more information, read the article exploring what a “platform” is vs. a “point solution”.

So, there are two kinds of native integrations. One is built directly on a platform, so we call it “platform”. The other is built on a native connector, which some call a “native integration”.

1. Platform

TargetRecruit is an example of this. To call us an integration with Salesforce would be slightly misleading because in essence, we are Salesforce. We use their objects (like the Account and Contact), their reporting, their workflow automation, all their admin tools, etc. Other examples of tools built on the platform in our partner marketplace are Isimio (scheduling), Accounting Seed (General Ledger), BiznusSoft (HR/Payroll), CloudComp (Commissions), DataTrim (Duplicate Checking), Mogli (SMS), 3B Onboarding (Document Generation and Onboarding/Credentialing) and KonaSearch (Deep Search).

Here are the characteristics of a platform solution:

• Allows for a more seamless user experience since you don’t have to manage a separate login and all your data lives in one place.
• Easier for end users since they only need to interact with a single user interface vs. learning multiple.
• The common object model allows the merging of objects. This makes for smoother information sharing between native apps because the common data is not replicated. For example, TargetRecruit (ATS) and Salesforce Sales Cloud (CRM) both share the Account and Contact objects. Thus, any data entered on an Account record in Sales Cloud will be seen by a TargetRecruit user because both solutions share that common object. With an API integration there would have to be a mirrored object or data set sitting on the other side to pass the information to.
• A lower cost because if you’re using an integration through an API you have to double up on licenses since there are no common objects. Users would have to have a license for each solution. On the flip side, an organization using Salesforce Sales Cloud for their sales team could just buy TargetRecruit licenses for their recruiting team because both will still be able to see what’s happening on the Account and Contact/Candidate objects.
• Security. Simply put, the fewer places your data is housed, the less susceptible you are to a security threat. Having it centralized in Salesforce, which has clients like the US Navy and Department of Defense, makes it pretty secure!

2. Native Integration

A native integration is the most intriguing integration solution to me. This is also a topic I rarely find that tech folks are familiar with. This will gain popularity because it doesn’t inexorably tie your technology to that platform (like building on platform) but it’s a much better user experience than a regular API integration.

As a 3rd party vendor integrating with a platform solution (like Salesforce), you can use developer components and toolkits to embed your solution within that platform. In other words, the 3rd party vendor’s software now takes on the look and feel of that platform solution, and the functionality is essentially built-in so your end users can live on the platform solution. Some examples of applications with native connectors are the aforementioned Groove (Sales Automation), Able (Onboarding), and Essium Xenqu (Onboarding).

Here are some characteristics of a native integration:

• The integration’s architecture is built on a managed package which allows your data to exist in real-time in the platform environment so there is no data latency
• This also eliminates the need for a bi-directional sync
• It allows you to use the specific platform developer tools to build within that platform’s confines in your instance. For example, Salesforce has its own developer tools and languages they’ve created to allow customizations to live more in harmony within a data set, or ‘Org’ as we say in Salesforce-land.
• Prevents API surges that push you over your Salesforce limits
• Lowers compliance risk for GDPR, CCPA, and other global privacy laws

So What?

Today, out of the 3,900 apps in the Salesforce AppExchange, there are 417 that are natively integrated with Salesforce. If you click on that link, you can click the checkbox for “Native” on the left-hand side to see what they are. 

Although Salesforce is known to have by far the largest partner ecosystem, it’s not the only one of its kind. For example, Microsoft is known to have a platform solution and has invited some to build technology on top of their stack. I’ve even heard of one or two applicant tracking systems being built on top of Dynamics CRM.

In conclusion, when building a tech stack, consider how to reduce logins and make the experience for your end users as seamless as possible. Avoid unnecessary, multiple logins. What’s the best way to do this? Strongly consider a true platform technology.

The post What is a Native Software Integration and Why Does it Matter? appeared first on TargetRecruit.

The Problem

When talking to staffing organizations, the most common pain is that their technology stack is not able to deliver real-time insights into critical aspects of their business. The results of this are obvious: executives can’t make fully informed decisions about their business. When staffing leaders still struggle to find true activity metrics for what their recruiters are up to in a given time period, actuals for gross margin on a deal, profitability for a certain time period, or strong forecasting insights, business growth is continually stunted.

Some of the main reasons why this issue is so pervasive are as follows:

Data Silos

Many companies their CRM/ATS, onboarding, scheduling, time capture, invoicing, core accounting and financial systems, and payroll/HRIS basically all living in silos. This requires them to either integrate all these systems into a BI (Business Intelligence) tool to aggregate their data into one place but this is very difficult because in most cases, the majority of these systems won’t have a pre-existing integration with a BI tool. If this is your reality though, I would recommend trying to find a tool like Power BI or Tableau for data and insights.

Lack of Integration

Building on the previous point, if you have a true “System of Record” with strong reporting capabilities, then your best bet would be to tightly integrate the systems around it. Bi-directional integrations with ERP solutions like Peoplesoft, Netsuite, Oracle, Dynamics, or even Quickbooks, are not common or easy to build. When evaluating solutions, make sure to ask vendors if they have references from customers using a bi-directional integration with your current or future general ledger/core accounting solution.

‘Out-of-the-Box’ Reporting

Most systems have reports that come standard with their offering, and some can even be tweaked on some level. These reports tend to be quite generic and limiting though. Even if the reporting suits your needs from a recruiting standpoint, you will also most likely need to be reporting on information from your GL, onboarding, timekeeping and invoicing solutions for true metrics. Don’t settle for a tool that cannot report on all facets of your business without having a BI tool as a backup solution or you will be in Excel hell.

The Solution

Begin with the End in Mind – When constructing a technology stack, staffing organizations often take a reactive approach instead of a proactive approach. It is most common to try to solve the problem directly in front of you rather than looking at the bigger picture. This creates something we call ’technical debt,’ and with too much debt, one can get themself in a lot of trouble. You need a big picture plan. Whether it is having a really powerful ‘system’ or ‘platform’ of record, like Salesforce, that has strong ad hoc reporting capabilities as a standard feature, or landing on a BI tool or data warehouse that you plan on being the final resting place for all your data, make sure you pick one or the other. Just recognize that you will always need new reports, dashboards, and ways to look at data, so having a strategy around how to do that will be critical in being able to make agile decisions in your business, and not driving your team insane with trying to figure out how to get 10 excel reports into one that makes sense.

Buy an Ecosystem

People get so caught up in the minutiae when evaluating systems that they easily lose sight of the bigger picture. If an ATS or system of record has all the gadgets you’d ever want and a solid API to integrate with, none of this will matter if there’s not a solid ecosystem of options for you to take advantage of. It will be near impossible to get that data on your own from those systems into a centralized place. If you’re interested in seeing what some of the categories are that a system of record should integrate with, then take a look at the categories drop-down on our partners page. It should give a strong idea as to what categories your vendor should be offering options for so you can keep your systems integrated and your data centralized.

The post How to Improve Business Insights 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.

The post Don’t Open that Closet! appeared first on TargetRecruit.

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.

As a follow-up to a previous article called How to Evaluate Enterprise Staffing & Recruiting Technology, I wanted to discuss something that I feel can be the remedy for this problem: third-party consulting firms. Hiring a consultant to help sort out and evaluate recruiting technology can be a very smart way to eliminate a lot of the risks I presented in the above article.

Know your Consulting Firm

There are many types of consulting firms and while most offer various ranges of services, know what the firm you are looking at does well.  Some will say they are a systems integrator or ‘SI,’ some might say they are a management consulting firm, others might focus on staff augmentation and many provide some or all of these services.  What you are looking for is a firm that has depth of experience in your industry, has worked with the technologies important to you and has a methodology to evaluate the system in scope and clearly help you understand not only the pros and cons of the systems under consideration but also the fit to your organization.

Breadth of Knowledge and Experience

The first major advantage the right technology consultant has is that they bring to the table their experience helping companies like yours evaluate technology every day. Your company might only review the available technology once every few years or, in many cases, less often than that, so through pure repetition alone the consultant has a major advantage. In addition, their backgrounds are in mapping business processes and finding realistic solutions to solve problems. These are not skills that every organization has readily available!

Bias

Assuming we’re all aware of the inherent biases we all carry around, we know that in matters such as these decisions we tend to err on the side of making decisions that benefit ourselves and can subconsciously concoct clever ways to bring people to our side. Even consultants can tend to bring their biases to an evaluation but their goals are generally aligned with the best decision for the company because it will help them be more successful in the future since happy clients tend to be the best references. To put it simply, the better job they do, the more success they will have in the future. Internal employees all have their own biases and it can be extremely difficult to not let those biases get in the way of making the right decision. 

I have seen this happen due to a relationship an employee previously had with a vendor, a personal agenda they are trying to make successful, a desire to learn a particular technology for their own career progression, and many other reasons. With decisions of this magnitude, it is best to eliminate biases and preconceived notions as much as possible. It may even be worth considering someone with no prior experience in the staffing industry to further eliminate bias and challenge the status quo. 

On the other hand, someone that already understands your business and the staffing technology landscape can be invaluable as well so both options are worth strong consideration.  

Another important consideration when using third party consultants is that they can often expand the project (and therefore the budget) either during the implementation or afterwards to retain their consultants and fees for longer.  This can often be with beneficial consequences overall (the additions are usually worthwhile) but this factor needs to be considered and managed throughout to avoid scope creep and ensure financial forecasting is realistic.

Global Perspective

When I refer to “global perspective,” I mean within an organization. CEOs, COOs and heads of technology in most cases make it their business to know what’s going on in each corner of their organization so they can identify current or future roadblocks and find ways around them. 

Unfortunately, these people are rarely going to be heavily involved in the criteria creation for a systems evaluation or the day-to-day meetings that are required to get a full picture of what system is best. This usually means that they are relying on a manager or director level operations, technology or recruiting leader to be their eyes and ears and run the day-to-day evaluation. Unfortunately, employees in these roles don’t always operate with the same level of information about the company or cache to get that information or command people’s time when needed. 

Good consultants with the right access can help you bridge these gaps and they should use that access to each part of the organization as they build out requirements, building a global viewpoint of current needs. If they are good at what they do, they should also start to understand potential future needs and blind spots as well so you’re not outgrowing a system too quickly, using their industry and outside perspectives. Their experiences should help you make sure the decision is best for the entire organization, not just one portion that has a louder voice.  They should also be able to seamlessly blend corporate objectives with operational realities, and find solutions that benefit these often-conflicting drivers.

Process and Scoring

Professional consultants tend to be very process-oriented and one of these processes that can really take the bias out of a decision is creating an evaluation criteria document and scoring each criteria item based on level of importance and when evaluating solutions against one another a score for fit. That way you can determine a weighted score of which system is better, where level of importance score * fit score = weighted score.  Consultancies should have a method for doing this comparison, so ask and understand what they use and why they use it.

A mistake that is often made here though is what that score range is since that has to carry the actual importance of difference from the least important item to the most important.  As an example, 1-5 might not work because you might have items on the matrix that are 20x more important than the least important item. The best way to create the weight range (1-5, 1-10, 1-100, etc.) is to take the least important item (i.e. can I choose the color of the buttons here or can I slightly change this layout) and compare them with something that might be the most important criteria (i.e. what is the company’s reputation or what type of downtime does the system experience) and ask yourself how much more important is the latter than the former. If it is 5x more important than use the 1-5 scale. If it is 20x more important then use the 1-20 scale, and so on and so on. 

If you don’t do it this way, things will disproportionately impact the weight up or down and skew your results. This exercise in itself takes a lot of time and energy to execute and may be difficult for someone to do so without injecting their agenda or bias.

Conclusion

Enterprise software evaluations are much more involved than people expect and coming to a pragmatic, unbiased answer for the right technology solution to run your business with can be an extremely daunting process that can really knock an organization off its axis and take their eye off what is most important, continued growth and profitability. External technology consultants may seem costly, but when you look at the cost of getting your decision wrong, especially more than once in a short period, it can make justifying the cost seem like an easy decision.

Thanks for reading and if you’d like to read some of my other articles, view here. If you have any questions or comments, connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message.

The post Should I Use a Consultant When Evaluating My ATS appeared first on TargetRecruit.

In my time working with small, mid-sized, and enterprise level staffing and recruiting organizations, I’ve seen many different flavors of evaluations. Evaluating enterprise front, middle and back office recruiting technology that will essentially run your organization is very difficult and often fails. I recently read that organizations switch ATS systems (recruiting technology) every two and a half years on average. Who knows, could be a made up stat but it had me thinking about why the cycle is so short.

Considering the quantifiable costs (implementation, double paying for licenses, man hours it takes to find a new system, etc.) and the un-quantifiable costs (dip in employee morale, time to productivity on a new tool, loss of confidence in leadership, etc.), you would think there would be a heavier emphasis on getting it right. That’s not to say that the intent is not usually in the right place but the execution is often lacking and it’s usually because there is not an expert on staff that has deep knowledge and experience with conducting an evaluation like this that touches so many aspects of an organization. In this article I will explore some ways I have seen firms increase their chances of success in selecting the correct solution.

The Data and Measurables

After doing research into this topic, I found data showing failure rates of IT projects ranging between 25% and 90%. Part of understanding the data here is defining failure. In this Couchbase study that had failure at 90%, failure was defined as projects that had “fallen below planning expectations, delivered only minor improvements or altogether failed.” In the Forbes article that showed a study that used 25%, failure was defined as “outright failure,” or not even completing the project. The links to the articles are referenced below if you’d like to see some of the data yourself. One way or another, the data suggests that if your implementation does fully succeed, it will be in the minority.

Coming to Terms

When selecting a committee to help with an evaluation, one must come to terms with an important fact early on… people are self serving in nature. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it is what has helped us survive and thrive! But we didn’t evolve to evaluate technology, we evolved to survive in the wilderness, and those two things that can be in evident conflict when organizations evaluate technology solutions because people (almost) always put their interests above the greater good of the company’s. I cannot tell you how many times that someone evaluating recruiting technology will get hung up on a piece of functionality that will save them from five minutes of agony a day so they choose that solution vs the one that will save their company hundreds of hours a week. We are wired for our own survival, and often it’s difficult for people that especially sit within one function of an organization to see the forest for the trees. Select people who are global thinkers and prep them to think of things rationally, not emotionally, when making their decision.

Selecting the Right Lead

Now that we know what to look for, we need to decide who is going to be on the committee. Should it be just a few people? Should we let the entire organization take part? Ideally, a CEO, CTO or COO would run point for any technology evaluation because those people usually see the organization in a more global manner than anyone else. Unfortunately, execs rarely want to devote their time to the minutiae of looking at technology. Because of this, there is usually someone chosen to run point on an evaluation below the exec level and the reason they are chosen can vary greatly. Some reasons might be: they are a vocal agent for change, they are viewed as being tech savvy, the executives trust them, or maybe it’s just because they happened to be there when the conversation was brought up. None of the above are the best reasons in my opinion. The person running point should be someone who is a pure operations type that has nothing to gain by making one particular part of the organization happy over another. If you don’t have anyone like this in your business, do yourself a favor and hire a consultant from the outside. Maybe even consider someone without a considerable background in the recruiting technology space for the initial evaluation. I find that people in those types of positions bring less baggage to the table that would harmfully impact their decision.

Selecting the Right Committee

This to me can be the trickiest part that staffing leaders struggle with. Especially within organizations under $100MM in revenue. They still often are hyper-concerned with preserving culture (as they should be) and are often of the mentality that if they all choose it, they will have to live with it without complaining. Nonsense! For starters, you will never have a unanimous decision where everyone sings kumbaya and harmoniously selects the one perfect tool for your business to grow on. In fact, this may actually cause a division where two camps viciously fight over which tool to select. Also, end users and even managers and directors, are usually going to choose the tool that fits their agenda best, not the one that makes it so the entirety of the company can accommodate its needs today and 5 years from now. Recruiters will have mostly their needs in mind, as will salespeople, accounting, payroll, IT, marketing, etc. It would go almost completely against our fundamental nature to think otherwise.

My recommendation is to have your point person survey each team and maybe even some of its members to see what their needs are up front, document them, and make sure they all make their way into the evaluation criteria. From there, identify the best people from each part of the organization to represent their team, while also understanding the bigger picture, and encourage the most data-driven and pragmatic approach possible. It can help to ask the top 3 things someone would want in a new recruiting technology to make their life easier and the top 3 things that would help the company grow. Their answers may be telling as to whether or not they should be on your committee. Also encourage the committee to not only think of today, but consider the problems that might come up down the road, and how the recruiting technology they are evaluating could solve those problems.

Creating a Criteria & Scoring

Often times we will look at 5 demos from 3 vendors over a 2-3 months evaluation period and at the end just throw our hands in the air and say screw it, I’m just going to choose X vendor because I like them. Or, I like these one or two things Y vendor does so I’ll choose them. Evaluation fatigue is real and it happens to everyone. How can one single person ingest so much data in a drawn out period and remember everything about it? Not to mention they may not revisit the conversation for another 5-10 years, or ever again for that matter! Having a rock solid evaluation criteria documented can make you feel 100% more confident in your decision.

You can create one on your own from scratch, or the easier road is ask your friend who works at another staffing company if they have anything hanging around that you could base yours off of. Also, you can weight each feature by level of importance and then rate the features vendor by vendor 1-5 or 1-10. From there you can determine the final score of each vendor. You can also break functionality out by group so they can rate the features that are important to them while they are watching the demos, rather than having to look at the entirety of the document that is largely irrelevant to their life. This way they don’t have to rely on their foggy memory later and it keeps people engaged in the demos. They aren’t going to want to turn in a blank score sheet or have scores on there that can’t be justified because they had no idea why they put them there. Just be careful that if you do decide to score and rank solutions, that you choose line items to score that are clear cut and definable, not confusing and ambiguous. For example: say “Rate the ease of creating reports from scratch” instead of “Rate their reporting from 1-10”. One asks a specific question. The other leaves it completely open to interpretation. They could be rating how visibly appealing the reports are, how many reports there are, how well the reports fit their needs, or even if the reporting tool allows them to create their own report in the first place. In the end, find out what’s important to each team, and give them a manageable list to help them organize their thoughts and help you make a solid decision.

Process – Evaluating a Recruiting Technology

Similar to implementations, too often sales processes face unnecessary delays or get put on the back burner. Even worse, sometimes people reach out to vendors too late, putting them both in a precarious situation because the vendor of course won’t turn down the opportunity despite knowing the implementation is already in jeopardy. Allot at a minimum of 3 to 3.5 months for a smaller organization. If you are larger, there is usually a sliding scale upwards from there. Be wary of any company that is offering to do an implementation in a shorter time frame. They are most likely not spending much time making sure your data migrates properly and/or their system barely has any functionality so there’s just not much to do in an implementation!

Another detriment to an evaluation process is when it gets delayed or put on the back burner. I can confidently say that you will need additional meetings to discuss the same things over again because you and your team will forget these details as time elapses. To prevent this, work with your vendor to create a timeline from the beginning to move the evaluation forward. A timeline should outline the expected meetings needed for a company of your size within your vertical. A timeline document will rarely be adhered to perfectly, but it sets expectations that you are a serious buyer. Your time is extremely valuable, as is theirs, so why not make sure you are both not wasting it.

One other major time-waster is being unprepared for meetings. This falls on both the vendor and the staffing company but not having clear agendas and prepped teams on both sides, inevitably more meetings will need to take place in follow-up. To quantify this, let’s say an average demo is attended by 7 people. If those people are making on average $100k/year fully burdened then that’s roughly $350 down the drain if another hour needs to be tacked on that could have been avoided. Effort up front can save far more effort on the back end. Having a clearly defined process from beginning to end is time well spent.

Get Behind Your Decision

This may sound simple but it can easily get botched. As an executive or a decision maker, your team needs to know that you are 100% behind your decision. If they feel you are not, some will exploit this fact. It’s basically giving them carte blanche to say if since our CEO doesn’t fully believe in this, why should I? Then they might poison the well for others, really throwing a wrench in your investment. BUT, if they know you are unwavering, they will fall in line. You and your carefully selected team know what is best for the business, and they have to have faith that your goals are aligned. Their success is your success, so you’re obviously not going to purposely impede them. They have to know if it’s not in the system, it didn’t happen. Joe the recruiter spoke to that Jan the candidate but the call’s not logged? Sorry, Jan’s going back into the pool for someone else to take a stab at. Your team is conversing via email about candidates rather than using the internal social collaboration tool like Chatter, they lose out on kicker bonuses for the month because visibility in the system is key for your organization. There has to be value in using the system and everyone needs to know you strongly believe that value.

Closing Thoughts – Recruiting Technology Stack

I’ve seen companies run evaluations that are totally haywire and others that are nearly spotless, and in my experience they are far more often the former than the latter. As people in the staffing industry know, there are no shortcuts in success. Doing the hard thing the right way is not for everyone and it ultimately can determine who thrives and who fades away. Outside of the people at your company, your recruiting technology stack is your biggest opportunity for differentiation. Decisions of a large magnitude like this should be considered accordingly.

References

Forbes article on 7 reasons why tech projects fail

ZDNet article on why 68% of IT projects fail

Couchbase article on the data dilemma holding back digital innovation

Digital Journal article called “9 out of 10 digital transformation projects will fail

ERPFocus article called “Ten ERP failure statistics that highlight the importance of getting it right first time round”

The post How to Evaluate Enterprise Staffing & Recruiting Technology appeared first on TargetRecruit.

Blog by Bobby Bartlett on Payroll Solution within the ATS

I often speak to temp staffing companies that are frustrated with their current system because their technology is seemingly lagging behind the rest of the industry and it makes it difficult for them to progress their business in certain ways. Strong front office (sales, marketing, and recruiting) features often seem like an afterthought in these systems, and they really struggle with scalability due to the lack of API integrations, reporting functionality, and overall configurability. I believe that this is due to many vendors striving to be a jack of all trades instead of mastering one. Payroll is such a beast of a product for software companies to manage with all of the functionalities involved and ever-changing compliance, rates, etc. It becomes all-consuming and does not allow for the rest of the technology to progress. I simply do not believe that as it stands today, companies can have their cake and eat it, too. In other words, they can’t have payroll solution included with their staffing technology suite and still enjoy the most cutting edge technology features elsewhere within their tool.

An example of where the technology often suffers is with search technology and applicant workflow management. If your firm does 100% light industrial staffing and/or administrative staffing, you might only need to pre-board candidates, check availability, and send your employees to the next assignment. This is not usually the case though, as most temp staffing firms do a percentage of higher-margin contract engagements or permanent placements. Often I see these types of companies splitting this work into two different ATS tools—one meant for their lower-margin temp staffing and another meant for their higher margin staffing. Or they try to make their higher margin work fit into their ATS they use for temp staffing, and it becomes a problem because the system is not designed to handle both. With a highly flexible system and an integration to a 3rd-party payroll solution, you should be able to handle both! Below are the general strengths and weaknesses of some of these staffing software tools that specialize in high volume temporary staffing (i.e., systems that include payroll as part of their solution):

Weaknesses

Sales & Marketing

It is tough to grow revenue without strong sales and marketing functionality. Most temp staffing software provides the bare minimum of contact and task management with little else in mind for sales people. Having the ability to manage inbound leads, or forecast off of a sales pipeline is important for many firms. Also, marketing automation tools (like Hubspot or Marketo) can help create customized outreach campaigns to sales contacts and candidates alike, while using custom landing pages to help track where every lead is sourced from. What really sets TargetRecruit apart here is you can automate the majority of the heavy lifting salespeople do with tools like computer telephony integrations (CTI), integrations with data providers (like ZoomInfo), SMS messaging, or sales drip campaigns (Groove.co, Outreach.io).

Recruiting

Candidate search is important for all types of staffing companies. The stronger your search capabilities, the faster you will be able to find quality candidates, the happier clients will be, and the more revenue you will make. Companies outside of the temp software space tend to spend much more time enhancing search capabilities on their roadmap. Also, candidate workflow management tends to be much stronger in the non-payroll ATS space. This process tends to vary greatly from company to company so flexibility is really important here.

Reporting

In fairness, this tends to be a widespread weakness of other systems. Short of bolting on an expensive and hard to understand business intelligence (BI) tool, it is nearly impossible to get the information you need to run your business in one place. Having the ability to create reports from scratch as well as tweaking existing reports is one of the crucial pieces I see missing from systems in our space. Finding a tool with ad hoc reporting that can pull data from any table in your database is crucial. I talk to people every day that take information from 3-7 systems, export it to excel, doctor it, and try to make sense of the data that way, which can take hours, if not days, of time. Staffing technology should save time and provide a deeper level of insight for your business, not the opposite.

Configurability/Flexibility

By far the hardest to explain in one paragraph, but rigidity is the biggest drawback of systems in this space. The inability to make changes without having to pay professional services for customization kills the agility and speed of staffing organizations. Moreover, customizations break and disallow new system updates because they are not “backwards compatible.” Some examples are things we already covered, like changing candidate workflow or building ad hoc reports. Some other examples are:

1. Building custom objects (creating your own data tables to intermingle with existing data tables, like accounts, job orders, or candidates). A use case for this is one of our customers built their own custom assessments object that integrated with their candidate portal and other objects in TargetRecruit.
2. Limitations of record types, such as job types. For example, some companies want to have many different job types so they don’t have to pack too many fields into one record type (for ex. Temp-to-Hire or Perm), thus making the screens too busy and confusing.
3. Some staffing companies want to change the entire look and feel from one screen to another to fit their vision. Most staffing software providers have very little you can change about the layouts.

There are many more examples I could mention here but I just wanted to highlight a few common ones.

Partner Ecosystem/API Capabilities

Many tools in the temp staffing software space have very weak API capabilities, if any, and very few partners to choose from. I often see somewhere between 20-40 partner integrations, and without a robust API, it is very difficult to integrate with new partners because it requires expensive development resources from both sides. Not to self-promote, but to provide a frame of reference, the TargetRecruit and Salesforce platforms provide for over 5,000 plug and play integrations. For us as well, plug and play literally means one click installation, just like when you download an app on your smartphone. 

Weak (or no) API capabilities also means you can’t take another technology provider you really like that isn’t already integrated and do so without expensive development.

Strengths

Payroll Solution

The main strength of temp staffing tools is their payroll solution. They are generally going to get the most attention from a research & development dollars standpoint, because compliance is not an option for temp staffing, it is a must. If you can’t effectively search, or you have to take the long road to get a report you want, the cost to your business is for the most part hidden and difficult to quantify. If you are not in compliance with payroll, Uncle Sam WILL find you and make you pay. Thus, a payroll solution needs to be airtight, and with most temp staffing software providers, this is the case. I’ve found the payroll technologies here to be for the most part impressive.

Payroll Agility

If you control your payroll and your payroll is not outsourced, you can cut a check on the spot if a mistake is made, which they will be.

Cost (Managed vs. In-House)

General consensus is that managed providers (ADP & Paychex) are more costly than handling payroll in house, and it’s hard to argue this sentiment. For example: ABC Staffing has 25 internal employees (sales, recruiters, operations, management, etc.) and pays 500 temp employees per week and 650 employees per month (PEPM) due to 30% turnover. Let’s assume in an equal world that an ATS for all three scenarios will be a wash from a cost standpoint.

Scenario 1 – Handing Payroll In-House with an ATS that Includes Payroll: First there is the human capital cost. Let’s say ABC staffing has 2 FTEs that cost roughly $45,000/year full burdened. Those two employees spend Monday and Tuesday of every week just handling payroll, so ⅖ of their job, or $18,000/year each. This totals about $36,000 of cost in human capital. Plus there are other costs like paying for Greenshades, managing ACA compliance and worker’s comp that come into consideration as well.

Scenario 2 – Paying for Managed Payroll: Let’s guesstimate that the full service payroll provider charges $6 PEPM. That comes out to $46,800 per year. Pretty simple math!

Scenario 3 – The Hybrid “Best in Breed” Approach: In this scenario, you would buy a front to back system (sales, recruiting, onboarding, timekeeping, invoicing, etc.) and integrate it with a payroll software solution. This software solution manages your ACA compliance, worker’s comp, and all of your tax tables for you. You run your own payroll, but they charge $1/check. If you’re paying on average 500 employees per week at $1/check, that will come out to $26,000/year. You will still need to pay at least one to two people to run payroll each week for 2 days, costing $18,000-$36,000 year. In theory, there should be less work here.

Conclusion

In the end, there are pros and cons for using an ATS with or without a payroll solution. Scenario 1, the scenario your firm is probably using today, is the cheapest and seemingly cleanest, but there could be consequences to your firm’s growth by going this route. Scenario 2 largely depends on the PEPM price you negotiate, but if that rate is low, it can make a lot of sense for staffing firms to just outsource payroll altogether. Scenario 3 is the scenario I predict will become more popular in the future, because staffing companies realize how much that maintaining a payroll product weighs the rest of their staffing solution down, yet they still prefer to handle payroll in-house for multiple reasons.

Decisions are often made based on the bottom line, just be careful not to prioritize cheapest over best value. Your system should never dictate what your business can do. It should help mold to whatever your future needs or opportunities might be. It should also have a strong focus on front office features, since they are what drives revenue, especially in sales and marketing.

If you’d like to connect to discuss, send me an invite here.

The post Should My Staffing ATS Include a Payroll Solution or Not? appeared first on TargetRecruit.

In part two of this series, I will dive deeper into what some common technologies are that other companies are utilizing that have not caught as tool staffing companies have relied on, due to the issues discussed in part 1, (i.e. why the staffing industry lags behind the technology curve). What I am trying to point towards is taking cues from the entire technology world, not just your competitors in the world of staffing and recruiting. In this article I am going to cover: sales enablement, marketing automation, CTI, financial/accounting software and scheduling tools.

[In case you missed it here is part one of the series, Why Has the Staffing Industry Been Behind the Technology Curve?]

Some examples of other technologies that have largely gone unused in the staffing industry from an adoption standpoint that I will not cover are: data management and cleanup, database enhancement (for contact and company info), business intelligence tools, customer service/case management tools, document creation (candidate packets, proposals, etc.), HR/performance management tools (for recruiters and consultants), project management tools, gamification, account management and retention platforms, and last but not least, artificial intelligence. Maybe in a future installment!

Sales Enablement

These solutions are mainly for sales productivity but there is often times crossover with how recruiters can use them. I’ve personally been using this technology for two years now, with two different technologies, and it has made a major impact on my productivity.

How does this impact productivity?

These tools originally started by creating email cadences to send for prospecting, lead follow-up, etc. They have now taken on a life of their own with other bonus features like calendar scheduling, automatic email logging, email reminders and scheduling, tracking open rates, email templates, VoIP integrations, and so on. I actually had a TR client come up to me at a conference recently and tell me since they implemented one of these tools, their meetings have increased by 50%!

Sales reps can put someone in a “cadence” and they can be auto-emailed, auto-“inmailed” or put in a queue for you to call during a scheduled call block. These tools save time for sales reps but maybe more importantly, add structure to their prospecting efforts which can be difficult to achieve otherwise.

Why is there a missed opportunity?

Most staffing firms I’ve spoken with over the years haven’t come around to pipeline management and forecasting in a traditional sense, which I think is an important function for running a financially healthy company. More so than this, not using sales productivity tools is a bigger missed opportunity because you are losing out on major productivity gains and the ability to streamline some of the most difficult sales items. The good news is, few companies in the space are utilizing these types of tools so it could be a major advantage today. I speculate that in 5 years, the majority of staffing and recruiting firms will be utilizing these types of tools as sales continues to become more of a focus. Especially as the economy scales back and the war for talent eases up and the war for jobs ramps up.

Examples of companies in this space: Outreach.io, Groove.co, Yesware, ToutApp and over 100 more in the Salesforce AppExchange.

Marketing Automation

Not completely dissimilar from the sales prospecting cadences I just covered, marketing automation software gives you the ability to create rules-based drip campaigns or “journeys.” These tools are meant for marketing experts though, not salespeople. They allow you to engage with prospects/customers and/or candidates/consultants at different stages of their life cycle, providing very targeted messaging at each stage. In a perfect technological ecosystem, marketing would have their clients and candidates that would be interacted with at a higher level and salespeople and recruiters would have theirs that they would use more targeted campaigns with.

How does this impact productivity?

Highly targeted messaging is crucial for differentiation and gaining real estate in the brains of those who matter. We have been trained to tune out generic marketing approaches and to expect a tailored approach if someone wants our business. It is also important that the quality of the returned results from these campaigns is high. You want your salespeople and recruiters being handed leads at the perfect time to maximize their time and effort. This makes adoption of marketing automation tools much higher.

Why is there a missed opportunity?

Most staffing firms could greatly benefit from bolstering their marketing teams and the technology they have access to. Being on a platform that gives access to those technologies is step one. For small to mid-sized firms, it is very rare to see companies utilizing marketing automation technology. Across the board, it is rare to see companies utilizing it to its full potential, especially in the candidate engagement arena because it is usually not integrated with their ATS…unless it is built on Salesforce (shameless plug).

Examples of companies in this space: Marketo, Hubspot, Marketing Cloud, Pardot, Eloqua, Silver Pop, and over 100 more in the AppExchange

Scheduling Tools

Appointment scheduling automation allows for recruiters to reduce the back and forth emails and calls usually required to schedule phone screens, interviews, etc. They allow you to book meetings with individuals or entire teams as well.

How does this impact productivity?

I would assume every recruiter spends at least 3 hours each week with the back and forth of scheduling. This is easy time returned for productivity. Not taking advantage of this is a mistake in my eyes but you need scheduling tools to directly integrate with your calendar (Google, Outlook, etc.) and your CRM/ATS. Some tools are even leveraging automation to schedule bots to reach out to candidates once they surpass a certain score or threshold and setting up screening calls. Automation at its finest!

Examples of companies in this space: Calendly, TimeTrade (built on Salesforce), Groove.co (built on Salesforce), SUMO Scheduler, Appointiv, and  80+ others on the AppExchange.

CTI (Computer Telephony Integration)

This is often referred to as click-to-dial or VoIP Integration but what it mainly does is allow for your recruiters and salespeople to set up lists of people and power through these lists at warp speed.

How does this impact productivity?

Rather than dial, you can click. Rather than leaving a voicemail, you can voicemail drop. Rather than adding a note, you can have the system auto-add a note or activity for every person you called. Rather than scrambling to find notes on a record of a candidate who is calling you, they just automatically pop up when they call. I’d say this allows you to call at least 3x the amount of people you normally would in an hour block.

Why is there a missed opportunity?

Some of these companies already exist in our space but here’s the issue: usually they’re not compatible with your phone system. For example, if you are using Cisco for your phone systems (as many are), and you want to utilize an integration to your CRM/ATS, you will need to build that. Salesforce already has a ready integration with Cisco called Cisco CTI Cloud Connectors. Some vendors may make you choose from 1, 2 or maybe 3 options here. Salesforce has hundreds of options.

Examples of companies in this space: CloudCall, 8×8, NewVoiceMedia, Aircall CTI, Natterbox, PowerDialer, Dialpad, and over 100 others in the AppExchange.

Financial/ Accounting/ GL Software

The software that “holds all of the information needed to prepare financial statements and includes assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses.” Sounds incredibly important to me.

How does this impact productivity?

Dual data entry and worse, input mistakes. You should not be keying information from your ATS, time-tracking system, invoicing or payroll system into your general ledger. I don’t think I need to explain why this data needs be pristine.

Why is there a missed opportunity?

I can’t tell you how often I talk to mid-to-large sized staffing companies and they are manually keying data into these systems or at best, exporting and importing. There’s no need for this. Even if you are using Great Plains, Netsuite, Peoplesoft, or any other heavy-duty financial software, you should be using a middleware provider that can normalize the data and make sure it can seamlessly travel from your recruiting software to your back office, and from there, back into your recruiting software (your central hub of data). This will reduce the need to pull the data from each of your systems into excel pivot tables or worse, into SRSS (SQL reports), as those can be tough for anyone to understand. Here’s another novel concept: rather than using any of the aforementioned systems, you can use a tool like FinancialForce or Accounting Seed that built a GL on Salesforce so your data never has to leave your system! That will also allow you to easily report on it with Salesforce’s robust ad hoc reporting tool.

Examples of companies in this space: Quickbooks (for smaller shops), Great Plains, FinancialForce, Accounting Seed, Sage Salesforce, Zumzum Financials and over 100 other integrations on the AppExchange.

SMS/Messaging Applications

By now, we all know we can send SMS messages from our Applicant Tracking System (ATS), so why am I bringing this up? Keep reading.

How does this impact productivity?

I can’t say this is a productivity concern. More of a recruiter-effectiveness opportunity.

Why is there a missed opportunity?

Without utilizing SMS integrations, you’re missing out on the major opportunity to greatly increase your response rates from your candidates and consultants. How this relates to having a robust marketplace like the AppExchange is options. You will have a handful of options for SMS capabilities with any ATS provider at this point. Within the AppExchange, you will have well over 100, and competition is the consumer’s friend. Especially with some of the lower cost options that provide free trials as well.

Examples of companies in this space: Cloudcall, ValueText SMS, TextUs, SMS Magic, 360 SMS App for Salesforce, plus over 100 other options on the AppExchange.

Conclusion- Tools Staffing Companies Should Use

Newsflash, if you look at staffing companies’ LinkedIn pages and mission statements on their websites, they’re VERY similar! “We want to help our customers realize their goals by helping them improve the thing that matters most, their human capital,” or, “We want to help you meet your full potential in your career with our white glove recruiting experience.” I’m not being critical, I’m just pointing out that staffing companies all strive for the same things and it is tough to stand out.

So how do you differentiate your company from the crowd? Technology. Every day I see companies that are growing like a weed and companies that are stagnating or even worse in this economy, in decline. The main thing that differentiates the fast growing and the stagnating is how they use technology. Your tech stack and strategy around it is your single biggest opportunity to differentiate your company. It is a very difficult thing to conceptualize as a whole with all of the moving parts, and that’s why the most effective strategy is finding the brain, the center of the universe, also known as your CRM/ATS, making sure it can plug and play with other enterprise technologies, and building around that. If you do it that way, you can easily make adjustments as you grow by pulling parts out and plugging other parts in. This only works, however, if they are already pre-integrated. That’s why 3,000+ options are better than 30.

It’s time for the staffing industry to catch up with and start to even outpace other industries with technology adoption. But they need solutions that can allow them to outpace competition through technology in a way that makes sense for the end user and that aligns with the goals of the company.

Feel free to reach out to me via email or send me a message on LinkedIn if you have any questions or would like to discuss some of my points. I’m always happy to talk shop. Thanks for reading.

The post Tools Recruiting Companies Can Use to Reach or Pass the Technology Status Quo appeared first on TargetRecruit.