The amount of recruitment technology available today is staggering–and if you haven’t kept up in recent years, you might be way behind.
On the plus side, technology can help you find better talent, faster than before. On the minus side? It can be hard to keep pace with the constant developments in sourcing and recruiting technology. Nobody can keep up with every change, but if you want to make sure you’re using more current methods, read on.
New Uses for Older Technology
Two things that are really taking off in the industry right now are audio and video. You may have heard of “jobcasting,” which entails creating simple audio files that people can listen to online or download to a computer or iPod. Many companies are now podcasting their job openings and marketing their brand through carefully crafted jobcasts.
Video can help you cut costs and time. Employers and recruiters can do video interviews, enabling them to get a feel for remote candidates in a way that phone conversations and emails just can’t deliver. Video is also being used as a way to educate candidates about jobs. Job previews show real workers on the job talking about their responsibilities. One HR consulting group offers what it calls Virtual Job Tryout, which puts candidates in simulated job situations. Watching the candidate “on the job,” even in a virtual scenario, allows managers to make a pretty thorough assessment of the candidate’s potential.
New Ways of Social Recruiting
Social recruiting has already come a long way since the recruiting industry realized the value of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Not only have the big two upped the ante by adding new recruiting services (Talent Finder on LinkedIn; BeKnown and BranchOut on Facebook), but there are sites like Tweetajob.com that simplify Twitter for recruiters and job seekers. Tweetajob distributes job tweets that match job seeker location and career preferences, and job seekers get relevant opportunities in real time–via Twitter or mobile phone.
Other social recruiting resources include sites like JobMagic.com and Jobs2Web, which both try to simplify the multiple processes of bringing companies and candidates together. JobMagic markets itself as an all-in-one platform that includes referral hiring, talent network management, automated job publishing and crowd sourcing. Jobs2Web uses interactive marketing technology to help find and engage candidates, and to develop and harvest multiple recruiting channels for their clients.
Private talent communities are also popping up all over the Internet. If your target audience has not yet formed an online community or affinity group, they will soon. Most of us have a segment of the labor market that includes the talent we’re interested in, and that talent has migrated online. The growth in social networking sites has been accompanied by a growth in all sorts of online groups and communities. These affinity-driven communities segment themselves naturally into ideal groups in which to build relationships.
New Additions to Old Systems
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have been around for quite awhile, but what they can do now is far beyond their earliest incarnations. The newest ATS software serves multiple purposes, including housing information and résumés from applicants and potential candidates, and scheduling interviews and performing follow-up. Hiring information is tracked to comply with Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs regulations or similar rules in other countries. Interactions of any sort are tracked, including topics covered in conversation. Responses to inquiries are immediate and automatic. Applicant Tracking Systems can now be used for employee management and performance appraisals. They can also import résumés from a candidate’s social media site.
Is your company’s technology stuck back in 2007? Are you still using old methods to find new candidates–or to not find them, as the case may be? 2012 might be the year to make a change.
