When comparing the hundreds of recruiting software systems out there, small businesses often prioritize things like ease of use, cost and vendor support. Those are important factors. But there’s another major factor here that can easily be overlooked:
Which system is going to be the best fit for your hiring needs?
Medical practices have vastly different hiring needs than restaurants, after all. The same can be said for long-established businesses compared to fresh new startups.
And because each platform can’t do everything in the recruiting process perfectly, it’s important to prioritize certain software systems and features over others depending on what your hiring needs look like.
With help from the Gartner report, “Technology Insight for Talent Acquisition Applications” (content available to Gartner clients), let’s look at different types of hiring needs and the recruiting software features these types should prioritize in their search.
Here are the types of recruiters we’ll look at:
1. The High Volume Recruiter
2. The Startup Recruiter
3. The Red Tape Recruiter
4. The Internal Recruiter
5. The General Recruiter
1. The High Volume Recruiter
Who: Retailers, restaurants, media/entertainment businesses or those in hospitality and tourism.
The hiring need: Due to seasonal hiring and above-average employee churn, high volume recruiters often need to hire a lot of people quickly. The biggest obstacle to this need is going through a massive amount of job applications (due to lower skills/experience requirements) to find the right people for the role.
Recruiting software features to prioritize: High volume recruiters need to prioritize recruiting software features that can automatically find promising candidates and remove obvious stinkers from a large list of applicants.
Resume parsing—which surfaces certain applicants or disavows others based on keywords found (or not found) in their resume—is key. So is any functionality that can automatically assess candidates.
The ability to easily schedule interviews and quickly generate offer letters is also going to be critical to this group to speed through a large number of hires in a small amount of time.
2. The Startup Recruiter
Who: Tech startups are the obvious members of this group, but any new business experiencing accelerated growth that needs to hire for multiple specialized roles would qualify.
The hiring need: These businesses are growing rapidly, but unfortunately a lot of roles they need to hire for have greater demand than supply in the market (e.g., web designers, project managers etc.). Compounding the problem is the fact that no one knows who many of these startups are! Talented applicants would prefer to work for a company they’ve heard of then some new kid on the block.
Recruiting software features to prioritize: Startup recruiters need to make a name for themselves in a crowded hiring arena. Because of this, any software features that can support employer branding and recruitment marketing efforts are going to be very important for this group.
That includes functionality to create an enticing careers page along with features like hiring workflow insights that can improve the online candidate experience and make a good impression on highly coveted applicants.
Sourcing analytics functionality is also important to startup recruiters, in order to identify passive candidates with hard-to-find skill sets.
3. The Red Tape Recruiter
Who: Hospitals, universities and public sector organizations.
The hiring need: As if finding the right candidate for a position wasn’t hard enough, red tape recruiters also have to deal with a ton of strict regulations and compliance requirements with every job requisition. Since hiring budgets are often tied to special grants or projects and there is a large number of stakeholders involved in every hire, tight tracking and approval processes are extremely important.
Recruiting software features to prioritize: Customizable hiring workflows are going to be a must for this group, so that the right people can stay in-the-know on certain hiring activities and be able to sign off on candidates quickly. Having a system that automates tracking and reporting needs related to EEOC and OFCCP compliance should also be a priority.
Lastly, red tape recruiters should focus on recruiting systems that can integrate tightly with any core accounting systems or budgeting tools they have to accurately track hiring costs.
4. The Internal Recruiter
Who: Well-established businesses with low attrition and hiring rates relative to their size.
The hiring need: The internal recruiter doesn’t need to fill roles all that often, and when they do, they want to promote from within. The challenge here is aligning recruiting, performance management and succession planning processes to identify, develop and promote the best person.
Recruiting software features to prioritize: Tight integration with a talent management system is a must for internal recruiters in order to keep tabs on current employees that may be better suited for roles than external applicants. Leadership can create set career paths for certain roles, and as employees get assessed by their managers during performance reviews or take online courses to further their development, recruiters can check in to monitor their progress.
If a current employee can’t fill a higher role, a referral from one of your current workers will be the next best thing. Look for systems that allow employees to leave referrals for open positions with ease.
5. The General Recruiter
Who: Everyone else, pretty much.
The hiring need: For the general recruiter, flexibility is key. Periods of intense hiring activity will be followed by long droughts. Skills requirements for positions will vary wildly; as will hiring budgets and candidate pools. The important thing for this group is making continuous improvement: to employer branding efforts, hiring processes and everything in-between to raise key recruiting metrics.
Recruiting software features to prioritize: Priorities are going to differ from recruiter to recruiter more in this group than any other. That being said, when we look at the features recruiting software buyers request the most, they prioritize the ability to post openings on job boards, perform resume management and score and rank applicants:
Next Steps
Having your hiring needs in mind when evaluating different recruiting platforms is a great way to align your software purchase with what your business ultimately wants to achieve. Once you’ve identified the features you want to prioritize in your search, here are some next steps to land on the right system:
- Check out our FrontRunners for Applicant Tracking Systems. Using real user reviews along with other evaluative criteria, we’ve identified the top ATS products out there based on capability and value.
- Call (855) 998-8505. Our recruiting software advisors will help you narrow down your selection to a few systems that best meet your needs. This is a free, no-obligation consultation that can be done in minutes.
