Recruitment and HR Software in 2007

What are companies looking for in 2007 - and what will be the developments for the coming year?

What do people want from their recruitment and HR software in 2007? We asked providers what their customers were asking for and what new products would be available in the New Year.

Chris Phillips, Senior Director, International Marketing at Taleo says that there is no doubt that war for talent is getting more ferocious by the day. He says that: Fundamentally, customers are asking us to help them beat their competitors in recruiting and retaining the best people in their industries, and to achieve this whilst continuously reducing cost per hire.

Most large organizations in the UK have established a career section on their website (94% in a recent Taleo Research survey of the FTSE 100) so there remains little competitive advantage in a web presence alone. Phillips believes the main battlefields in the competition to recruit the best for least are as below:

Recruitment Process - Many companies have not focused on the competitiveness of the recruiting process that sits behind their website. Technology enabled best practices like automated pre-screening of applicants, and proactive talent pool management can eliminate mundane tasks like wading through CVs and make recruiters dramatically more efficient and effective.

Management Information - If you are going to compete, you need to know what is working and what could be better in your recruitment. Analytic reporting capabilities provide the ability to measure what is going on in your recruitment function, and see where you could improve. As the old saying goes, ’You can’t improve what you can’t measure’.

Global/International Recruitment - Recruitment is an increasing international business as companies relocate to lower cost regions and cast the net further a field for the best talent. They need tools that can handle a wide range of languages, for both recruiters and candidates, in places like Eastern Europe and Asia. Their e-recruitment platform needs to cater for different international regulations and be able to scale to high candidate volumes. Most importantly many companies are recognizing the need for a single consolidated e-recruitment platform across the whole business, allowing the company to build and exploit one global talent pool.

Flexibility and Control - As recruitment becomes more sophisticated, the most effective approaches are going to vary depending on the type of role, the business or department the role is in, and geographical location of the role. Competitive recruitment comes from fine tuning the approach depending on the combination of all three of these factors. A company recruitment system needs to have the flexibility to vary approaches in these different ways, rather than a constraint that forces standardize on inappropriate styles of recruitment. However, compliance and equal opportunities regulations mean that you have to have total control over the process and be able to report on every decision made.

Other key players highlight similar issues. Patrice Barbedette, Founder of Jobpartners also believes in the increasing importance of the international market, saying: Companies which aren’t thinking global, and which don’t have an online recruitment process in place to encourage applications from outside of the UK, risk losing out on hot talent and the opportunity to create a more diverse workplace. Recruitment technology can also help companies which operate globally, or which have subsidiary brands, as central recruitment systems can be customised for each region or subsidiary. He also sees compliance issues as another factor in choosing online recruitment tools: With a growing amount of legislation affecting recruitment, from the recent Age Discrimination Act to the Disability Discrimination Act, compliance will be a key issue in 2007. Employers need to be increasingly diligent during the hiring process in order to avoid any form of discrimination. Online recruitment tools can play a key role here in helping organisations to stay on the right side of the law.

For Paula Smith, from networx, control, efficiency and quality are key. She says: ìOf particular importance to many clients is the need to achieve greater control over recruitment activity. This can be separated into strategy as well as workflow, affecting different people within the organisation in different ways. For some, the most important benefit is the ability to support strategic decision-making and report on volume, costs and supplier performance. For other more operational users, the ability to access vacancy/candidate information and work effectively with Line Managers is essential.î

ìAnother important goal is that clients want to improve efficiency. The apoint technology reduces administration time throughout the recruitment cycle, progressing candidates to interview becomes a more streamlined process whilst declining the unsuccessful applicants no longer takes the time and resource. Also, within the remit of efficiency, apoint ensures our clients maximise their relationship with Recruitment Agencies via automatic vacancy notifications and online candidate submissions.î

ìAbove all, the shift towards a more service driven economy has resulted in most clients acknowledging the importance of people within their organisations. A key factor when implementing recruitment software is to ensure quality candidates can be accessed quickly. The use of scoring and filtering technology helps to identify the best available candidates much quicker than before, however clients want to look beyond their current vacancies and plan for future requirements. Registering candidates and building a pool of available talent adds enormous value to that recruitment process.

Chris Phillips also suggests where the next battlefields may be in the war for talent in the future. He says that two new areas of innovation that Taleo will be focusing on over the next year are ’Next Generation Candidate Experience’ and ’Full suite Talent Management’. He says for the former: Candidates are increasingly familiar with the slick consumer style of websites such as Google and Amazon. Expect to see these new (Web 2.0) technologies applied to career sections soon. Regarding the latter, he adds: No technology company has yet delivered a tightly integrated solution for assessing, acquiring, developing and aligning the whole workforce. Integrating recruitment with areas like workforce planning, performance management, and succession planning will raise HR to a new level of significance within the company. It will do so because it will allow HR to directly execute a key element of any business strategy; optimizing the workforce to execute that strategy.

Patrice Barbedette is also thinking holistically: In 2007, organisations will increasingly look for holistic recruitment solutions which manage the complete recruitment process, including website job postings, qualifications screening, collecting and reviewing CVs, skill matching, candidate communication, application progress, interviews, feedback and storing candidate details for future vacancies. The use of such solutions helps organisations to hire the best people quickly and cost effectively. They also help to improve candidate relationship management by creating a one-to-one relationship with each candidate, and so helping to enhance employer brand. In addition, these solutions can help organisations communicate vacancies to current employees thus encouraging internal mobility, as well as staff loyalty and retention. He also sees the instant communication now possible will be important: 2007 will also see an increase in solutions which use the latest marketing techniques for keeping in touch with candidates. Mobile phones are now used on a daily basis and so texting will become an important method of instant communication. Sophisticated recruitment tools now provide SMS templates as well as email templates to allow recruiters and managers to keep candidates up-to-date on the progress of their application.

Currys Digital - Lesley Nash, Co-founder and Director of Changeworknow, explains how a new process helped with the shift from centralised recruitment in head office to local branches. Recruitment has frequently been perceived as the domain of the HR Manager, sometimes making recruitment a centralised process in a large organisation. However, the awakening of companies to the potential of embracing the power of their online corporate presence has allowed for a shift in power to be made, from head office to local branches.î

ìAs Co-founder of Changeworknow, I find one of the common demands from clients is to shift the onus of recruitment from a centralised power-base to a point closer to the shop floor without creating extra work. For example, we implemented a successful revitalisation of the recruitment process at Currys Digital. Our assessment of the existing screening process revealed it was too workload intensive for the busy branch managers.î

ìTo tackle this challenge, we simplified the online application system as much as possible, making it easier for branch managers to identify suitable candidates. It incorporated job specific screening criteria and applicant feedback, along with an innovative web-based system to allow managers to post vacancies and interact with the applicant tracking system via the use of emails. New and improved selection tools also helped managers make quality hiring decisions.î

ìThe aim of this was to create a seamless, easy to use recruitment experience for both candidates and managers alike, and the result was a response time from application to acceptance being slashed to as little as three days and an overwhelmingly positive response from branch managers.

Tim Richards, from Bond International, provides some comments from their clients, illustrating some of the requirements and issues important to them when sourcing Talent Management solutions:

easyJet - easyJet currently has operating bases throughout the UK and mainland Europe and chose Adapt Workforce Management to manage their recruitment process. easyJet Recruitment Manager James Miller said: The new system dovetails beautifully with our existing website, simplifying and streamlining the application process and significantly reducing administration costs.

Matalan - Matalan chose Bond’s web-based system, Adapt Workforce Management, to streamline its recruitment process, which involves taking on large numbers of staff.

Matalan retail Resourcing Manager, Kate Good said: As an evolving and innovative organisation our needs are constantly changing and we needed software that could reflect and support this easily and cost effectively.

Rachel Wilson, Director of Digitec Systems points out the requirements of smaller and newer businesses. She says: Recruiters in independent businesses expect a lot from their recruitment software - they demand the facilities available to their corporate competitors - and why not? - With today’s low cost sophisticated packages this is well within their reach. These smaller businesses need streamlined efficient processes to keep manpower resources to a minimum - but that will enable them to compete, as many of them do very well, with their often much larger competitors.î She also says that their new free start-up database has been hugely popular, with many new companies soon finding business buoyant and moving to the full package.

ìRecruiters continue to need a package with a low cost entry, but the option that will grow with them. This is the philosophy of Digitec 1stSelect Range. Many recruiters remain as just one or two users by choice - but they need to know that their software will not restrict them if they decide to branch out. She quotes Michelle Ser Hobbs of Volante Hobbs Ltd: We setup our company in April 2002, working out of a tiny office with just 2 PCs....4 years later, we have 9 users and are looking to continue growing - the exciting thing for us is that as we are evolving so to is 1stSelectPro, and as our expectations on the system are getting more demanding, we find that 1stSelectPro is meeting, and in some cases, surpassing those expectations.

Summary - Paula Smith believes people are still important: The use of technology can offer enormous benefits to candidates and employers throughout the recruitment process. However, we must remember the importance of maintaining a balance between personal contact and technology. Use technology to improve and support your processes but don’t expect it to do everything for you. She says that 2007 is another exciting year for networx as they will be launching a new system that is specific for ad-hoc users and the company that has a smaller recruitment requirement.

Patrice Barbedette predicts: In 2007, online recruitment will no longer be a ’nice to have’, it will become a necessity. The growing competition for talent is showing no sign of slowing down, which means organisations need to do all that they can to attract the best people. An effective online recruitment tool can be the deciding factor for a prospective employee when they apply for a job - a candidate is much more likely to be attracted to a company which has a slick recruitment process compared to one which has an incoherent system in place. Online recruitment will also become essential with cost cutting staying high on the agenda - on average, our customers have experienced 50% savings on their recruitment costs, some even managed to save 80% of their previous budget.

Written by Lauren Mackelden, (Lauren@onrec.com) ñ Features editor, Online recruitment magazine.

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