What recruitment/ATS tools are available to recruiters?

A multitude of recruitment tools exist to help recruiters in their missions. From defining recruitment needs to sourcing and selecting candidates, … these HR tools facilitate the management of recruitment processes. How to find the right tools? On what criteria define those that will be most adapted to the needs of the company?

Synopsis

• What is a recruitment tool?
• What are the new recruitment modes?
• How to ensure good recruitment?

The recruitment tool optimises the search and identification of candidates for a given position, with a view to saving time, resources, and costs:

• Posting of the ad, through a network of previously selected sites and platforms (job boards, meta-search engines etc.).
• Programmatic advertising with transformation of job ads into banners and advertisements, and bidding across a variety of channels to attract passive and active candidates (use of social networks, display, and performance-based campaign optimisation) .
• Screening and selection of candidates through recruitment software
• Organisation of the recruitment process from A to Z.
• Ecosystem of this information so that the data can navigate between the HR teams and the other departments of the company (managers and decision makers)

The recruitment sector is changing extremely quickly. There is a growing automation of recruitment for low added value assignments. This enables companies to focus more on high-potentials ones. This trend has accelerated with the digitalization of recruitment processes. Companies now have a multitude of HR tools at their disposal to facilitate their work: job websites, social networks, etc.

The aim of these new recruitment methods is to diversify the sources to attract a maximum of different profiles in a tense job market and to find the best talents as quickly as possible in the face of competition.

From the definition of a recruitment need to the selection of candidates, including sourcing, programmatic and application management, these tools are designed to simplify the recruitment process. What are the main recruitment channels used? For what needs and when to use them? What are the techniques to find a good candidate in a minimum of time?

The job description is prepared by the HR department. It accurately describes the position but also the qualities expected of the candidate:

• Job Title,
• Responsibilities,
• Technical and managerial skills,
• Soft-skills or know-how,
• Localisation
• Contract Type
• Compensation
• Number of hours worked per week

When recruiting, this HR document helps to identify the need and target the right profile. The job ad is based on the job description. It indicates the requirements related to the position (diplomas, years of experience, salary, etc.) and thus allows to get a maximum of potential candidates in perfect adequation with the job description..

The job description has also other purposes:

• Discussion support during a professional interview
• Better knowledge of the role
• Repository for developing a training plan
• Management of careers and compensation policies based on job characteristics

HR sourcing is a strategic step that takes place at the beginning of the recruitment process. From direct approach to attract passive candidates to multiposting ads, not to mention co-optation, professional events, etc., HR sourcing is multifaceted. Hence the need to put in place a recruitment strategy adapted to each recruitment need.

As the possibilities of sourcing are diverse, recruiters must make judicious choices based on the urgency of their recruitment needs and allocated budgets. Creating multi-channel campaigns increases the chances of reaching a candidate:

• Advertising on free and/or paid career sites and job boards
• Programmatic advertising to reach passive candidates and build real recruitment scenarios
• Using referrals by involving employees in the recruitment (They are the first ambassadors of the brand)
• Internal mobility
• Establishing partnerships with schools and universities
• Exploitating CV database
• Using social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
• Joining groups or forums
• Head hunting
• Attending professional events

The CV database centralises all the information concerning the candidates. Built over time, it is the company’s first internal resource. Its facilitation is essential for meeting current and future recruitment needs:

• Adding CVs automatically to the database from recruitment sites
• Building a pipeline of talent in a secure space
• Detecting qualified and relevant profiles with semantic search
• Classifying applications based on recruitment needs
• Commenting on the candidate form
• Tracking record history with digital data archiving

Acquiring an application management tool offers the possibility of receiving all candidates’ CVs through a single recruitment platform. This tool also accelerates contacts with the candidates selected for the current recruitments and gives an overview of the progress of the validation workflow.

The average time for a recruitment process is 32 days in France (Meteojob 2020 research barometer). For applicants, this duration is considered too long when it exceeds more than one month. Moreover, many of them have already been disappointed by a recruitment experience whose main cause is the lack of reply to their application or if it was refused without an explanation.

Current HR practices no longer meet the expectations of candidates, while companies are struggling to recruit. They are faced with both the need to optimise their recruitment process and the need to keep interesting profiles waiting. To meet these two challenges, the automation of time-consuming tasks helps speed up the recruitment process. Thus, recruiters have more time to meet the candidates selected through the recruitment interview (telephone, physical or visio). To save time, interviews can be carried out initially in visio to make a pre-selection list.

Beyond the “classic” interview, recruiters can enrich their recruitment process to make the candidates’experience more interactive by using selection tests (aptitude, personality, etc.). They identify better the personality traits of the candidates. Although these tests are only part of the assessment, they provide additional insight to validate a new recruit.

Internally, facilitating the recruitment process involves simplifying exchanges between departments. That is, to propose a collaborative tool through which exchanges between recruiters and managers accelerate the steps of validation of the workflow.

The messages addressed to candidates also have an impact in the monitoring of the recruitment process. To make candidates want to continue, or even accept a job offer, how they communicate influences their decision to work with one company or another. Therefore, indicating the progress of the various steps of recruitment in the company and to potential candidates allows to maintain a clear and transparent communication.