In these uncertain times, most organisations are tightening their belts and all decisions are coming under scrutiny. When it comes to hiring staff, and most companies are, whilst you try to save money you should be very conscious of managing your “employer” brand within in the candidate market. Good people will only choose “good employers”, so what does that mean?
All too often, we hear stories of candidates who complain of faceless organisations who appear to have a “black hole” when it comes to finding out where their CV submission has gone and where they are in a process with no definition or shape. As a candidate, even if you are not suitable, you would rather have some feedback to allow you to understand where to steer yourself next, and not just get a “sorry you are not through to the next round”, or even worse no response at all.
Organisations should forget this at their peril.
Whenever I talk to Employers, they all want excellent hard working staff that are going to proactively support the growth and drive of their business to a prosperous future. So why is it, they often present themselves as hard to deal with, not interested, “I’m too busy for you” type organisations.
The truth is most would be horrified if they found out that is how they are perceived. The usual culprit is due to the high intensity of activity being managed by a reducing HR staff count. There is always the drive to do more with less. Unfortunately, the product of this in recruitment is that when you receive 10,000 applications in a year for 300 positions, you really don’t have the time to manually personalise every response. Result, unhappy candidates who send out bad messages about your company, accelerated by the use of social media platforms and rating systems.
This is where online eRecruitment application software kicks in. The systems, originally known as applicant tracking systems, allow you to implement your employer brand strategy and present a common yet professional interface to the candidate community. Being responsible for the recruitment in your organisation is a big and complex task and many organisations do not understand how to create a proper recruitment process, let alone implement personable rules based processes.
Agencies often complain about poorly implemented tracking systems, where the amusing adage of “computer say nah” seems to becoming the norm. If your organisation has this reputation, then not only will you suffer from poor applicants – rumours will flood the market without you being aware and when times are good, you will suffer even more. I know of many companies in the region to where I live that are perceived as “last resort” employers – for very unjust reasons.
A eRecruitment system implemented properly can offer a streamlined process for the recruiters and line managers, whilst providing an intelligent and personable experience. This includes managing the workflow of creating the vacancy right through to offering the position to the applicant with management information to help you improve processes.
Paul Finch is the recently appointed MD of Konetic, an eRecruitment specialist. Paul has a strong background in recruitment and technology. If you would like a no obligations chat, please make contact, sales@konetic.com
