When business is plain sailing, why rock the boat? And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…right?
The best leaders are as proactive as they are reactive, and if the last 3 years of recruitment operations has taught us anything, it’s that fixed workforce and HR assets, even if they’re well established, don’t always remain so.
HR leaders today need to be crisis-proof – this means they need to be analytical, trend-obsessed, candid, non-judgemental, and flexible.
What they cannot be is stuck in a leadership rut, either unwilling or stubbornly refusing to meet the demands of the modern recruitment market.
The best leaders among us have to be able to proactively realise certain strategies, business decisions and even tech will become obsolete, or will negatively impact operations going forward. They need to be able to rapidly adapt, or dispose of, legacy strategies, tech and assets to remain ahead of the fast-changing recruitment curve.
It’s hard yet necessary work. It takes a bit of soul searching and a lot of bravery to make those sorts of change management.
But what happens when critical issues aren’t that obvious? What happens when a few small things happen that independently cause little fuss, but compound to cause a big one?
When it’s become apparent that, for example, your Applicant Tracking System or Recruitment CRM simply isn’t up to the task of helping your clients or candidates anymore, how quickly should you implement change? Isn’t data migration a massive hassle? How do you know when to pull the trigger on connecting with a new provider?
How to navigate changing your recruitment tech provider.
As the pandemic recedes in our operational rear view mirror, the future holds no less risk – soaring inflation, rising bills, the threat of recession, interest rate rises – and this disruption means recruitment operations need to continue to be proactive to fend off the worst of the damage caused by a cheaper pound, and less employer and employee positivity.
Again, we return to crisis management, and how you mitigate these eroding elements from your operations.
Your ATS is your candidate comms, client data and recruitment operations HQ. Knowing it works when the sun shines is one thing, but when the proverbial storm hits, it needs to be resilient enough to withstand the changing mores of recruitment.
The right way to self-analyse if you’re looking to change ATS.
So, when it comes to recruitment tech, analysis, training, company buy-in, budgeting and migration are of paramount concern and should be your primary pre-purchasing factors.
Analysis
- What do you need? When do you need it? Why do you need it?
- Does your current ATS, or a future ATS, meet the demands of your candidate base? Does it help make communication and application organisation efficient? Does it help, or hinder, your ability to communicate your company purpose and mission? Does it have the plug-in tools needed to handle remote and in-person interviews? Is it secure?
Company buy-in.
- Do your consultants and HR team actually like the ATS they’re working on? Do you provide training and guidance on how to maximise performance on the platform?
- If you’re not involving your people, you’re operating with one hand tied behind all of your backs. Your consultants are your ATS front line and they should feel confident they understand the platform back to front.
Budgeting.
- Is your money paying for great UX and poor performance? Is the technical support and training worth the fee?
- Be frank with your ATS provider, and be frank with any new ATS provider you want to work with. Now is not the time to hide behind nicety – build a relationship with your training team that focuses on tangible ROI, value and performance.
Migration ease.
- Migration isn’t easy, but the best-in-class ATS providers make it seem so. Don’t let migration be a crutch that works against improving ATS performance.
- Think of it this way – if all of the above points are wrapped up and you know changing your ATS provider is the best thing to do, migration is just the small, final step on the path to recruitment improvement.
The bottom line.
ATS analysis can be convoluted without a strategy, and without knowing your own needs and that of your consultant team it’s virtually impossible to make a move for a better ATS if your current one isn’t performing.
Our advice is to do a little soul searching, involve your teams and, if in doubt, lean on a professional ATS and recruitment CRM comparison site to do the heavy lifting for you!
A quick, responsive process is what you need to attract and engage the best talent.
At Rectec we help organisations to find the best Applicant Tracking System or best Recruitment CRM to suit your needs, accompanied by our unique complementary technology marketplace, to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business.
You can click here to register for Rectec Compare – and best of all, it’s completely free of charge.