Tipping Point for recruitment software

Are small and medium size companies beginning to realise the need for effective recruitment software?

Despite recent economic events i.e. Trump & Brexit, global markets continue to show no sign of slowing down. As such the war for talent rages on and despite this many organisations continue to use the wrong tools and look to the wrong channels in their attempt to attract talent.

This is a business critical issue!

If you can’t attract the right talent you may face operational issues as a result.

I spoke with a customer recently whose primary concern was not relating to their spiraling recruitment costs or the amount of time they spent on manual processes. It was actually the amount of open positions they had and the situation was so bad that if they didn’t fill the roles there was a number of contracts they would not be able to follow through with. This obviously would have major implications for them as a business.

Think about that for a second…….

Imagine your organisation was in a situation where you’ve won a contract but you couldn’t get the right people to work for you and as a result you couldn’t fulfill the contract.

Now you see why this is a business critical issue!

Efficient and effective hiring not only impacts your business’s growth and success but could ultimately determine its very existence.

If that isn’t enough to get your attention then here are 3 more signs you may need to re think your recruitment process:

Cost of hire

The cost of hire shouldn’t surprise me as my brother works in recruitment and has told me that some companies pay between 20-30% of an annual salary depending on the role they are sourcing. Fact is, it isn’t cheap to find the right staff. If my memory serves me correctly, I read recently that the average cost of hiring a new employee can be as much as ￡30,000…...….￡30K before even paying their salary!? This cost includes sourcing, screening, admin duties, interviews and on boarding your new hire. The longer a position is left unfilled the greater the cost. Recruitment software improves your candidate experience, takes care of screening time, sifting through CVs based on your preferred criteria and fast tracking referred applicants into your recruitment funnel to help increase your rate of direct hires. The cost of interviews can also be reduced by automated video or text interviewing which allow for a more objective candidate selection process.

CV Overload

In my old role I was a sales manager and a hiring manager due to the business model of the company. For 1 sales position we could receive over 100 applicants! This example is for a small company, some larger organisations can receive thousands of applications. Processing those candidates without HR software made my life a nightmare. It distracted me from other essential elements of my role and also made the company look bad from a candidate’s perspective. While I was under pressure to achieve monthly sales targets I was also expected to run the recruitment process from start to finish without any help. Rapid processing and screening of job applications through applicant tracking software helps to create a positive candidate experience and eliminates time consuming and unnecessary paperwork for your recruiters/hiring managers. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Wasting time on hiring

Most companies track how long it takes to hire people, but completely ignore it as a cost. According to Recruitment Grapevine 86% of small and medium-sized enterprises are wasting an additional ten hours a week on recruitment. 10 hours per week @ 52 weeks per year is 520 hours per year. That is a lot of wasted time. The core of the problem stems from trying to spot the right candidate from a large amount of applicants (the words needle and haystack come to mind). Throw into the mix the manual processes behind tasks like creating requisitions, posting adverts, interviewing and on boarding and the time quickly starts to add up. What a relief it must be to finally find the right candidate. But what if they reject the offer?? Again from my brother I know that this happens more often than you would expect. So you go back to square one and repeat the process. You get my point.

Ultimately there is not a 100% fool proof way to solve your recruitment issues but it’s about minimizing the associated costs and maximising the chance that people will end up working for you over your competitors for talent.

If you would like to hear how I can help you overcome your recruitment challenges contact me at [email protected] or if you want to learn more about the market leading Recruitment software click here.

Thanks for reading :)