Over the last decade that has been a drastic change in the fundamentals of recruitment. The scenario is such that 43% of the workforce between the ages of 22–34 is freelancers and the major cultural and economic shock that we are trying to deal with is machines and AI taking over more and more human jobs. In the middle of all of this, as contradictory as it sounds, hiring has never been harder. The equation of recruitment has changed and the process has now become entirely candidate-centric. This change though had been gradual but it is now irrefutable. Hence, the candidates the recruiters need to go after are passive. Even though 80% of them, (according to LinkedIn) are open to talking about new opportunities, they aren’t looking for new opportunities. That means, they aren’t coming to you, you have to get to them. To put this in perspective, the world’s leading inbound marketing SaaS Company HubSpot announced that 70% of their hires were passive candidates! This is an enormous challenge for recruitment. Therefore as recruiter one has to has challenges like
- Consistently deliver the brand message and employer value proposition to differentiate and attract the best talent
- Plan and execute a strategy to engage with talent and nurture relationships with them
- Get a grip over candidate’s journey to provide a refreshingly unique and amazing experience
- Explore more innovative and unconventional channels of generating leads of better candidates
ATS vs. CRM: Know the Difference First
Interestingly, many people believe they don’t need a CRM since they already have an ATS. The reality is that you need both. And here’s why: both serve distinct functions in each section of the talent funnel. An ATS automates the application process and provides a repository for applicants, but it doesn’t allow you to market to your candidates. A CRM is a sourcing engine that allows you to create a private talent pool and automate the nurturing of job candidates. The two tools serve different, but interconnected purposes and they complement each other. In a nutshell, an ATS stores data but relies heavily on you having to dig through your candidate records to join the dots. An ATS tells you nothing about the candidate apart from the information you have manually inputted yourself. So how do you know if your recruitment database is an ATS or a CRM? Here are some tell-tale signs that your ATS or database is not a CRM:
- You have lots of status fields that your recruiters manually update.
- You’re still coding your candidates on the type of work they currently do rather than the type of work they want to move towards.
- You have no way of quickly working out how active or engaged your clients and candidates are, meaning you have no tangible measure of the relationships apart from in one of your recruiter’s heads!
- Your recruiters see the database as boring admin work with no returns.
Why Having Just An ATS For Recruitment Is Not Enough?
Using an ATS to attract largely passive candidates is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. ATS, while critical to your hiring success, are not designed for engagement and relationship management. A system of engagement focuses on enabling you to engage with your candidates (or customers) and records all of those touch points. It gives you better control over the journey and minimizes the effort and time required to create engagement at scale. To give it a name, CRM system for recruitment.
What Is CRM Is And How It Helps In Recruitment?
‘CRM’ is an acronym of ‘Customer Relationship Management,’ so a CRM system should enable you to have a better relationship with your customers. Recruiters have one customer; however, that one customer has a potential dual role of both as a candidate and client. Therefore, we require two different types of relationship with the client by day, and potential candidate by night. The information, data, communication methods, and channels recruiters use to interact with that one person on two levels could be completely different. In a time where companies are struggling to hire quality applicants, and many qualified potential candidates are not actively seeking work. Finding the right person for a role will require more robust sourcing tools, and Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) solutions will provide recruiters with stronger talent pools ahead of demand. CRM solutions will ultimately change the recruiting function from reactive to proactive, enhancing talent pipelines before companies post their open jobs.
A CRM system hence assists recruiters to do their job better, provide an instant understanding of what’s happening with every customer and prompt you with actions for that person. These could be as simple as:
- Understanding whether they are currently engaged with your recruiters as a client, candidate or both
- Working out if that person is actively looking, and better still what jobs interest them
- The hiring patterns of your clients and what skills float their boat
- Understanding which skills are high in demand, and those which are not.
An ATS Combined With CRM Can Help In Acquiring the Best Talents
The competition for top talent is fierce. To attract the best candidates you need to market your employer brand and communicate a compelling narrative about your company. If your sourcing strategy is focused only on your ATS, then you’re missing out on an opportunity to engage with and nurture all your prospective candidates. Think of it this way: If your ATS is the “party,” then your CRM is the “invitation” to entice people to come there. Here are three ways that an ATS combined with CRM can help on acquiring the best talents.
Recruiting Efficiency with Automation
A comprehensive Applicant Tracking System integrated with CRM is likely the simplest solution to many of your problems. If your firm is stuck using spreadsheets and multiple programs to track your pipeline, contacts, open job requisitions, candidates, and more, then there’s a good chance you’re losing out on tens (if not hundreds) of hours of productivity a week. Finding an ATS/CRM solution that eliminates many of the tedious tasks between your sales and recruiting functions could end up saving you a ton of time and money.
An Amazing Candidate Experience
An ATS solution with a dedicated Career Portal can greatly increase your recruiters’ productivity and positively improve your ROI. A staffing firm needs an ATS solution that automatically places these candidates into your system. If your recruiters are wasting their time on data entry, then you can be certain they’re not connecting with as many potential candidates as they should be.
Scalable According To Your Needs
Most importantly, you need to choose an Applicant Tracking System and CRM that is going to scale with you as you continue to grow into a staffing powerhouse. When evaluating an ATS or CRM solution for your agency, be sure to understand its ability to evolve as your organization does. You don’t want to be stuck in a situation where you’ll have to begin the search for another ATS/CRM platform in a few years just because the one you chose isn’t able to keep up with the demands of your recruitment.
