System providers - wake up to the real world

Rumour has it that systems providers are having a tough time of it. No matter how hard they play the return on investment card (Iíve read of some who are even giving the system away and taking a percentage of cost savings) many clients remain unconvinced. A sad, but not altogether surprising, state of affairs.

Itís a time of flux in the UK online recruitment market. A bit like a print cartridge that isnít properly aligned, all the various parties with a vested interest in online recruitment - systems providers, companies and candidates - arenít quite in sync.

We have candidates champing at the bit to do their jobseeking online ñ but frustrated by less than rewarding experiences. We have systems providers touting their all singing, all dancing recruitment systems, but apparently met with profoundly deaf ears. And then we have employers, whose initial enthusiasm for online recruitment seems to have been replaced by disillusionment.

I do, however, think that this paralysis is a temporary blip. Online recruitment is the future and systems do have an important role to play in underpinning the hiring process ñ but systems are not a panacea. In fact technology seems to be causing more headaches than curing them at the moment.

Initial employer euphoria at the prospect of regaining control of recruitment has worn a little thin with the realisation that thereís a lot more to successful online recruitment than a pretty website and an automated response mechanism. Many are now weighing up the pros and cons of taking on extra in-house resource to handle high volumes of response and/or investing in costly technology and reaching the conclusion that outsourcing may be a better and more cost-effective solution.

The fact is that while technology is an increasingly important recruitment aid, it has its limitations ñ even when used effectively. It is still the case that people buy people and people look to work with people. Technology can never be a substitute for the human element of recruitment. Ultimately itís a subjective process and subjectivity isnít one of technologyís strong points.

Certainly on paper the case for technology is alluring. HR recruitment systems promise the Utopia of cost savings, reduced dependency on agencies, and elimination of great chunks of manual labour involved in filtering candidates, responding to candidates and creating talent pools.

The reality is not quite so compelling. Systems need people to operate and maintain them. HR personnel are not IT specialists and, letís face it; the very word ësystemsí probably engenders a frisson of fear for their jobs. Systems need to be integrated to optimise functionality. And while systems might be great for the multi-national blue chip corporate that is continuously recruiting, they are an unnecessary expense for companies with fluctuating or low volume recruitment needs.

These are the issues that the corporate recruiter is currently wrestling with, but the whole ethos of the UK recruitment market comes into play too.

Unlike the US, where corporates have always done their own hiring, internal resourcing is still in its infancy in the UK. Systems may be a godsend to the US corporate recruiter, but here in the UK we have been, and continue to be, dependent on agencies to do most of the hiring for us. Companies that have dipped their toes in the DIY recruitment pool are beginning to recognise the level of recruitment savvy, not to mention resource, needed to do the job professionally. And the consequence? They still need their hands held by agencies!

For all these reasons, systems providers should not be too surprised by the apparent apathy towards their whizzy gizmos. Thereís a high price attached to systems investment ñ and an equally high price attached to failure.

There is an alternative, however, where all parties win. Look for a strong independent partner who has the expertise, understanding and impartiality, to make sure that you have the right system for your business and that it works to its full potential. That way, HR can remain at the cutting edge of recruitment and retain tight control of the process, but without any of the time-consuming manual input. And systems providers benefit because their systems can actually fulfil the role for which they were intended and really live up to expectations.

Robert Leggett is Managing Director of independent resource management specialist Omni IT and sister company Omni RMS. Contact him at robert.leggett@omnirms.com.