The Recruitment Process and the Big Role of Technology

The recruitment process is one of the essential and crucial moments in building a successful company, team, or business. Although people have been recruiting employees for ages, the process continues to upgrade, improve, and change.

Recruitment has become a more targeted and “scientific” process.

Advances in technology in just the past decade have drastically altered how recruiters and employment managers seek and find the talent they need for their position openings.

Just consider the following changes:

• Internet-based job boards allow both employers and candidates to search for their best matches.

• LinkedIn and other niche-related social media platforms now serve as “matching” venues for employers/recruiters and candidates.

• General social media platforms have also gotten into the recruitment and employment business. The major ones now have groups related to specific business sectors and niches, and recruiters and candidates find one another through these.

73 percent of millennials, the largest group of job seekers today, state they found their last position via a social media site.

As Marie Fincher, Employment Manager for Supreme Dissertations, states: “We are always looking for qualified researchers and writers.

Once we established a presence on Facebook and Instagram, our pool of candidates skyrocketed. These continue to be our best sources for talent.”

• Digital scanners now comb through submitted resumes looking for keywords/phrases, to screen out the most promising candidates for further review.

• Resumes and CVs are submitted digitally – no more hard copy, snail-mail submissions.

• A mandatory recruitment tool is an organization’s presence on major social media platforms where it can showcase its brand. Today’s job seeker, both active and passive, will check out a company on social media.

Some things have not changed in the recruitment process

What has not changed is the need to create exceptional job postings. Employers and recruiters, especially in highly competitive areas, must craft postings that are engaging, compelling, and will motivate talented and qualified candidates to take a second look.

Writing such a job posting is not easy. Not only do you have to provide plenty of detail about the position opening, but you also have to present your organization as an amazing place to work.

This can be a tall order if the right individual(s) are not on staff. For this reason, many organizations outsource this part of the recruitment process. 

Fortunately, there are lots of freelancers (found at sites such as Upwork or Freelancer who have plenty of successful experience writing a job posting. Many professional writing services have developed business writing departments that include creative employment posting writers.

At the same time, these writers can craft social media profiles and website content that will promote a company in ways that attract the types of candidates it seeks.

State-of-the-art candidate-sourcing providers

Anyone in the HR field is well aware of recruitment agencies and has most likely used them at some point.

The traditional model of such an agency has been to receive job needs from a company and then comb through their files for likely candidates and/or create job postings for publication in a variety of places. Often, these agencies will conduct initial screening interviews as well. Ultimately the top candidates will be presented to the company.

While recruitment agencies have long been a mainstay in the HR world, their methods are evolving to keep pace with the dynamic job market.

In the past, companies would approach a traditional agency with a job description, and the agency would set about searching their internal database and external job boards. This process, while effective to a point, often resulted in a limited pool of candidates. Resumes might sit in files for months, and job postings might only attract those actively searching.

Today, recruitment has become a data-driven game. Cutting-edge technology allows agencies to leverage sophisticated algorithms that scour a wider digital landscape, including social media platforms and professional networking sites. These tools can identify passive candidates – talented individuals who aren’t actively seeking new positions but might be receptive to the right opportunity.

The rise of specialized candidate-sourcing providers has added another layer of expertise to the recruitment process.

These firms are laser-focused on specific industries or niches, possessing an in-depth understanding of the talent pool and the unique skills required for those roles. They can employ targeted sourcing strategies, like attending industry events or engaging with online communities, to connect with the most qualified individuals.

Technology as a disrupter of traditional hiring methods

But just as in every other sector of the economy, technology has disrupted the recruitment industry too, and now sourcing providers are offering technology to make the entire process far more “scientific.”

Consider just the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). It has now taken over many of the mundane tasks that recruitment professionals formerly performed. Candidates can be categorized by any number of factors, and machines will churn through these categories to deliver lists of those who meet all criteria of a position opening. 

Suppose, for example, that a company is looking to increase the diversity of its staff, perhaps by gender, age, or ethnicity.

Or suppose you are looking to convert passive candidates to active ones? Where are they? With the right algorithms in place, AI can churn data from anywhere and present the best matches for further review.

AI can be and is used in almost every segment of the recruitment process, including:

• candidate sourcing

• candidate matching

• finding and hiring remote workers

• receiving referrals

• expanding the talent pool

• reducing or removing bias

AI has seriously changed the way recruiters do their jobs, and it does most of the “dirty work” for them.

Once the technology finishes its selection process, the recruiters are left with only the best candidates to interview and potentially hire. 

The role of recruitment sourcing platforms

Recruitment sourcing platforms are specialized tools and services designed to help recruiters find and connect with qualified candidates. They move beyond the limitations of traditional methods like job boards and agency databases by leveraging technology and expertise.

Recruitment sourcing platforms can be broadly categorized into a few different groups:

1. Social Recruiting Platforms: These platforms, like LinkedIn and its premium recruiting arm LinkedIn Recruiter, allow recruiters to search for candidates based on specific skills, experience, and other criteria.

2. Niche Job Boards: These platforms cater to a more targeted talent pool, allowing recruiters to find candidates with specialized skills and experience relevant to their needs.

3. Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: These applicant tracking systems (ATS) often come with built-in sourcing functionalities. They allow recruiters to store candidate information, track interactions, and manage the entire recruitment pipeline in one place.

4. AI-powered Sourcing Tools: This rapidly growing area of recruitment tech uses artificial intelligence algorithms to scour vast amounts of data from various online sources, including social media, professional networks, and even resumes publicly available online.

5. Contact Information Finders: These platforms specialize in helping recruiters uncover contact details (like email addresses) of potential candidates found online.

Using this, along with other time-saving technology, recruitment sourcing platforms are giving recruiters the ability to tap into all that data science has to offer. 

Suppose, for example, that a company wishes to know and understand the level of resentment rejected candidates have after the recruitment and interview process is over, and how to reduce that level. The research and analytics that AI can offer will point employers in the right direction for follow-up with those candidates so that they see their experience as a positive one.

Resentful candidates talk, and do so on social media – your brand’s reputation can suffer in future recruitment. According to a 2019 Talent Boards research study, candidate resentment has increased by 40 percent over the past three years. Organizations must take steps to reduce this.

Recruitment sourcing platforms offer a suite of cloud-based software solutions for companies that want to:

• Reduce the cost and save hours in recruitment efforts

• Identify and sort candidates by specific skills and talents, through scientifically-based technology

• Strengthen and streamline the candidate review process

• Reduce rejected candidates’ resentment

• Integrate with a company’s current systems

• Receive lists of qualified candidates regularly, based on the organization’s historical and current needs.

Boosting employer branding during the recruitment process

Another amazing benefit that your company can get from using technology in its recruitment process is to improve its reputation.

The best candidates in your talent pool are looking for a company that will provide:

• great working conditions

• technology in the workplace

• chance to grow and improve

You can show them just how technically equipped, modern, and professional you are by using these latest methods we’ve covered above.

So, if a chatbot handles the very first phase of the recruitment process, the candidates will be more interested in continuing their collaboration with you and potentially becoming your employees.

Technology can show them your company is the right place for them to be, and there’s no reason for them to hesitate about becoming your team member.

The future of recruitment is now

Any organization that wants to save money and time in the recruitment and hiring function, as well as enhance its processes, would do well to make use of available technology and sourcing providers.

They offer the most scientific approach to finding top talent and put control of the process where it should be – in the hands of the company’s internal HR function.

As seen in the examples above, technology and hiring platforms improve the recruitment process for everyone involved.

In conclusion, the future of recruitment isn’t some theoretical concept – it’s a practical way of harnessing the power of technology in the recruitment process. By partnering with specialized recruitment sourcing platforms, organizations can transform their hiring practices, secure top talent, and gain a significant competitive edge in the war for the best and brightest.