Yesterday we were guests of IHR Bristol, and once again the event was a huge success.

We met some amazing people, the speakers were all immensely inspiring (plus our stand was right in front of the main stage!) and we once again had a full day of chatting shop with some of the South West’s biggest and most established employers about the future of recruitment, the post-pandemic environment of hiring, digital transformation and, of course, the ongoing candidate-dominated recruitment market.

So here are the top 3 things we learned from IHR Bristol:

Onboard everything.

Obviously a part of our patter with recruiters is discussing how our intelligent vendor platform specifies and highlights certain ATS and recruitment CRM needs through our unique comparison service – and how the benefits of using an objective shortlisting tool to find the right software to use positively affect both your service and your culture of recruitment.

But each event we do, and the more conversations we have with front line in-house recruiters, builds a wider discussion about what sort of specific, targeted functionality is needed to meet the changes to our whole industry, and the rapidly shifting expectations of employers and candidates across every sector.

Although we agree that there is no one universal applicant tracking system “need” of all recruiters (each sector has their specific needs and requirements after all), there are few top line functionalities and technical tools that come up again and again as both effective, efficient and genuinely game changing in the recruitment and wider HR workplace. We are always at pains to say there is no one best recruitment CRM or ATS – there is only the best ATS for your company.

At IHR Bristol our guests spoke a lot about onboarding and onboarding tools from ATS providers as central to better recruitment now and in future.

Having recruitment software functionality that prioritised (or, at minimum, assisted in providing clear lines of communication to the candidate throughout their first week/month/quarter/year) onboarding was a hot topic, and for good reason – many of the conversations we had with resourcers and hiring managers focused on the candidate experience, how the right applicant tracking system can augment and improve the experience, but not just through efficiencies and speed of service. It was software that provided culture context; nurturing; integration with performance management and HR management, and (interestingly) exit interviews and exit reviews too.

More and more, our guests were honing in on how the candidate experience feels, how connected the candidate is to the business, and how onboarding takes recruiter fluidity, hard work, and consistency of brand messaging…plus relevant, centralised data that recruiters can use to make their service better, hense the

Long-term recruitment and nurturing

By long term recruitment, we mean the long-term under- and post-graduate nurturing channels certain industries need to curate to inspire and develop the right skills and talent pools for their specific sector.

This is vitally important for industries like Tech and Engineering, who are not only suffering from skills shortages now, but are facing a near-future skills gulf to meet a tech-heavy future where edge computing, AI, and the IoT will be implemented across work, home, leisure and more.

Many of the tech-recruitment professionals we spoke to discussed the professional and expectational gulf between what industries need in terms of talent and human capital investment, and how attractive, or inspirational, the messaging and recruitment funnels are in those specific tech businesses to younger people.

What was mentioned was connectivity between employers and next gen professionals still in education, and how vital it is for recruiters, but also board-level management and senior stakeholders, to personally take ownership of those skills pools.

Those employers and managers need to provide more engaging and inspirational internships and work experience, and focus on employer branding to highlight the incredibly competitive, challenging and exciting nature of the work they do. Applicant tracking systems, recruitment CRM, and the tools recruiters use to engage those younger generational soon-to-be-workers plays a huge role in keeping these channels open.

Rectec grows!

Each event is a great opportunity for us to get our new, unique product in front of people, and being only 7 months young means there is enormous amounts of scope to grow.

But one of the most satisfying things we heard was that some enterprise teams had used Rectec in their journey to find the right ATS for their company through our ATS and recruitment CRM comparison service Rectec Compare, and we got to talk directly with service users who had benefited from our WorkTech vendor comparison platform in real time.

This positive reaction is music to our ears, and being able to get some real-time feedback on our tool and how it’s making the process of finding, implementing and integrating new ATS easier and much clearer was a wonderful surprise, and all we need to know we’re doing the right thing.

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 complimentary tech 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.

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