But the recruitment world is in flux and has seen almost every traditional marker of “success” change in the last few years, especially in regards to what unique balance of characteristics, skills and passion makes a top performer and a high-performing team. 

Indeed, there are quite literally thousands of thought leadership pieces on what now constitutes top performance, or what bosses need to do to guarantee top performance – from the rise of soft skills to revamping agile workflows, from unlimited leave policies to de-hierarchies within work.  

But, as any storied HR pro knows, every new workplace policy, tool or metric needs a willing team to make it a reality. And in the realm of performance, being able to identify, engage and hire willing, flexible and ultimately top-performing people becomes central to success. 

So how can modern recruiters – connected more than ever to potential candidates but overwhelmed with the increasingly high-pressure demands of hiring talent – make sure they’re continuing to identify and hire the best-in-class people? 

The trick lies in leveraging what we already know works, and simply using it better.  

What are the markers of contemporary top-performing workplaces? 

In our digitally dominant new normal of hybridity, high turnover, and upward pressure on wages (not to mention stagnant growth and productivity inefficiency) the measure of effective workplace performance has to be more than simple KPI recording, value-added or profit made.

The markers of top performance within workplaces in 2023 are now well established: psychologically safe workplaces, open communication cultures, diverse workplaces, clear feedback and goal setting, and clarity of business purpose.  

These markers have developed in the wake of the pandemic, digital innovation, and the rise of Gen Z into positions of considerable influence. 

But as the markers of business success and sustainability change, so too do the requirements of and pressure on, recruiters to deliver results. Those results are the hiring of the best people for a role, and those people have to be high performers.

What are the markers of a top performer? 

A quick dive into contemporary thought leadership tells you everything you need to know about top performance in 2023.   

According to those paragons of talent identification Indeed, the traits of a top performer are: 

• Positivity
• Goal focus
• Accepts constructive criticism
• Growth-oriented
• Leadership focused
• And, can find a healthy work-life balance.

In HBR’s piece on “How to Spot — and Develop — High-Potential Talent in Your Organization”, they focus on 3 key behavioural metrics to identify top performance: 

• Cognitive quotient (CQ): how they leverage their intellect.
• Drive quotient (DQ): what motivates them and how they apply their energy.
• Emotional quotient (EQ): how they interact with those around them. 

The piece goes on to describe that while “intellect, motivations, and interpersonal style” are key markers of top performance, it’s measuring “how people use these qualities on the job…to gauge…potential, regardless of candidates’ depth of experience” that makes all the difference.  

The mechanics of an ATS, and how it tracks candidates.  

We love an ATS at Rectec. One of the reasons we do so is we intimately understand how critical an ATS is to modern hiring effectiveness, and central to that lies in an ATS’ ability to track candidates in increasingly more effective, streamlined and predictive ways.  

A basic ATS will do the grunt work of automating and highlighting specific talent within a talent network based on scanning and sorting job applications based on specific criteria such as keywords, skills, and experience. Simple.  

But more advanced Applicant Tracking Systems now deploy a range of tools to help identify top performers, and we advise any recruiting team or HR leader to consider the following elite ATS solutions as a must-have in a recruiting toolbelt: 

• Ultra-define your job requirements, criteria and keywords: the first stage to truly maximising your ATS output is by not expecting your ATS to do all the heavy lifting for you. The most effective way to do this is by utilising customisable ATS platforms that let you prioritise or rank applicant potential by giving different keywords or criteria certain values. This creates a more fluid, more personal system of talent identification based on a unique prioritisation of skills. 

• A CV isn’t perfect: by this, we mean setting up your ATS to not immediately disqualify a candidate because of a missed word, a spelling error or quirky formatting. As any effective modern recruiter knows, CVs are simple vectors for talent identification – they are not the ultimate arbiter of talent appropriateness, skill or potential. Creating processes of inclusive, rather than exclusionary, keyword vetting will help identify more quality candidates.  

• Contact keyword evolution: an ATS should never be a fixed asset, nor should the criteria you judge candidates by stay stuck for months on end. Creating a simple keyword analysis drumbeat – and fixing dates of keyword evolution into your process planning – should make sure your candidate vetting is up-to-date, fair, and ultimately competitive.  

• A self-contained employer brand ecosystem: some ATS providers can create a seamless employer brand and hiring ecosystem, bringing together sometimes disparate employing tools to create a market-leading hiring environment. This means creating career pages that include pre-vetting questionnaires, employer brand videos, glassdoor reviews, FAQs and employee testimonials, with easy-to-access application calls-to-action. 

• Don’t forget internal communication and the power of advocacy: it’s easy to think an ATS is an outward-facing talent magnet. But an ATS can also target company employees, automating new opportunity emails, and sending them directly to specific employees in an effort to leverage their contact network. Top performers tend to know top performers, so forget your internal network at your peril.  

The sheer variety and customisability of Applicant Tracking Systems means not only can applicants be contacted faster, and with more personalisation, but they are more accurately shortlisted and prioritised. In effect, the cream rises to the top. 

The bottom line. 

The true effectiveness of an ATS lies in any given company’s ability to identify their own needs, and critically analyse where maximum new hire impact can be made. 

But hiring the wrong person for a role is more often than not worse for company health than hiring no one at all, so accurate vetting is more important than ever.  

If you’re looking to identify the Best Applicant Tracking System for your business, then be sure to check out our comprehensive guide to the Best Applicant Tracking Systems (2024).

In the war for talent, an ATS is the perfect weapon – not only can the nuts and bolts of candidate contact and talent maturation be managed, but they can be leveraged to truly source, engage and pre-vet top performers.  

 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. 

The post Can an ATS help identify top performers? appeared first on Rectec.

Let’s set the scene – you’re an agency head on the hunt for a new Recruitment CRM. 

What makes a CRM platform good? Is there a formula for creating, or sourcing, a communicative platform, tool or app that strikes the right balance of savvy UX and novel UI, modern design and simple usability?  

What bizarre alchemy of tech, design and content makes a digital tool impossible to ignore? And crucially, how do you know if the platform meets your needs, within your budget? 

A quick Google and you’ll find a lot of advice about what makes a digital platform, or ecosystem of platforms, simply work better than others. Some examples include: 

• Locality, big data and competitive awareness as the winning formula – MIT Sloan. 
• Flexibility and independence are key to platform success – McKinsey. 
• Interoperability with other platforms and partnerships will win the tech day – Bain. 

All good advice, of course. But each point above speaks to hiring success in the face of modern technical challenges – challenges that, if not addressed, can hamper platform adoption, and in our neck of the woods ultimately candidate attraction and hiring feasibility. 

So let’s hyperfixate on how challenges to successful Recruitment CRM implementation can manifest, and how eagle-eyed Recruitment business leaders can pre-empt those challenges to create a culture of seamless platform adoption and integration. 

What are the primary challenges when it comes to implementing a Recruitment CRM? 

We believe that recruitment agency heads should be aware of 5 primary challenges to successful Recruitment CRM adoption.  

They are: 

• Forget the end-user at your peril.  
• Integration without preparation = failure. 
• Assess the vendor roadmap and constantly strive to improve platform performance. 
• Data is your friend, not your foe. 
• Platform customisation and segmentation will elevate performance. 

Integration without preparation = failure. 

• Many, if not all, CRM vendors will take the lead when it comes to platform integration with your existing stack (more on vendor feature roadmaps and platform evolution below). 

• Successful integration takes time and user buy-in, feedback and step-by-step learning, all of which needs to be prepared for, with time set aside to commit to it.  

• Effective Recruitment CRM integration is both a technical process as much as it is a human one, so responsibility should always be taken to prioritise pre-existing user understanding, training and development pathways for all stakeholders. This will guarantee seamless platform use, better candidate communication and ultimately better hiring outcomes. 

Assess the vendor roadmap and constantly strive to improve platform and user performance. 

• Watch the roadmap! 

• This is something we could not champion more – a vital requirement for any technical lead on any implementation project is to work closely with the CRM provider, monitor their product roadmap, watch for new features, and take the time to assess the value they can add to your business. 

• In short, keep your vendor close. Try to understand the product roadmap to see how your recruitment organisation can benefit in the future.  

• This is also essential for CRM auditing purposes, as every vendor partnership should be judged on its merits and effectiveness, and if the roadmap is heading in a direction that may not be right you can spot this ahead of time and either work with your CRM provider on platform development, or consider a new path forward. 

Data is your friend, not your foe. 

• Your new Recruitment CRM is where recruiting data and hiring strategy collide.  

• To get the most out of any digital tool, especially one that is linked to your candidate base and talent pools so intimately, you need to know both how the tool works, and what successful use of that tool looks like.  

• Without a totalising, visualised idea of what success means in the context of your new Recruitment CRM, you’re working blindfolded. You need to create clear lines of performance expectation, based around how the platform works, and what it’s able to do. 

• Data analysis + strategy = the best utilisation of your new platform. 

Platform customisation and segmentation will elevate performance. 

• This is one for the project and implementation managers – approaching Recruitment CRM implementation with a one-size-fits-all mindset will simply not work.   

• You must have a critical understanding of the breadth of services and tools available from your CRM. What a particular platform offers – those USPs that differentiate it from the competition –  are the key to understanding success and are the reason why you chose a provider. 

• Success in this regard looks like this – remain as open-minded as possible to learning new ways of working. Use your new Recruitment CRM platform’s segmenting tools to build task management that elevates performance. Reduce the possibility of creating a generalist culture of surface-level platform usage and limited recruitment impact by utilising every asset available. 

Forget the end-user at your peril – training, upskilling and the push for continual improvement, 

• The simplest way to put this is that users need to understand all of a platform’s functions to really get the best out of it…but they need to do so through the lens of continual learning.  

• Upskilling isn’t a plug-and-play asset to give to staff. It requires time and effort to learn, iterate, and perfect platform performance.  

Successful Recruitment CRM adoption starts with strategy. 

As a final thought, we want to briefly open the door a little more to how recruitment business leaders should position their team to make the most of any new Recruitment CRM platform. 

A not insignificant element of any recruitment strategy lies in understanding typical recruitment or HR platform user challenges – the user pain points, the integration issues, and the recruiting dead zones – that make for rough going.

But, when these pain points are mastered, an entire operation is elevated.  

Behind every click of every screen, every candidate screening and every automated email sent to cold leads lies a clearly defined user/candidate strategy – a singular plan to engage, enthuse and drive a user/candidate into a meaningful experience with a company.  

This connection – this strategy – sits at the soul of UX.

So we especially urge users of Rectec Compare to clearly delineate their strategic needs and reasonings for buying a new Recruitment CRM before diving into our Comparison service, or engaging any vendor in a demo. Learn where those user pain points are, and plan where improvements can be made across the adoption matrix, and you’ll find the whole procurement and impletementation process runs quicker, smoother and often under budget.

The bottom line. 

If implemented well, a new Recruitment CRM can revolutionise recruiting.  

If implemented badly, without strategy, forethought, expertise and leadership, the wheels fall off. 

Within the storied halls of recruiting firms and staff agencies worldwide, the adoption of a new Recruitment CRM platform should be cause for optimism – and, to a large degree, being ahead of the challenges of new platform adoption and understanding key implentation challenges is the absolute key to success.

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs.   

From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business!  

The post What are the main challenges when it comes to Recruitment CRM implementation? appeared first on Rectec.

But how do humble tech platforms, most importantly an Applicant Tracking System, really help in the modern War for Talent? 

An ATS provides a scalable, customisable “eye in the sky” view of your entire applicant base, and offers a granular look at individual applicant progress, providing both recruiter, employer and employee with ample data to adjust and perfect a job or applicant search. 

The end result, if well-manicured and maintained, is a hiring process of immense personality and leadership, built on efficient use of data and applicant visibility via a one-tech solution. 

Now, this all goes to plan in a stable recruiting environment.  

But we live in an era beset by a constant battle for talent, fighting for EVP visibility and hiring sustainability in a fast-changing world.  

We live in an era of aggressive, no-holds-barred recruitment competition, and we’d make a healthy wager any HR leader reading this has seen the frequency of talent gazumping explode over the last couple of years. It truly is a War for Talent. 

So how does an ATS help you stand above the competition when talent is in high demand and short supply, and the hiring landscape is more competitive than ever? 

The definition of “The War for Talent”. 

The beauty of living and working in a pluralist, innovative, ideas-centric culture is that there are multiple ways to build a career and myriad ways to connect with and develop talent both internally and externally.  

But these systems and networks are fragile.  

Since the pandemic, we’ve played witness to the effects of one of the biggest market shocks to this system in a generation, and the results, for some, have been catastrophic – the near collapse of talent pools across the world, mass walk-outs in others, and a considerable lack of skills and training in emerging niche sectors have all caused what can only be described as the perfect candidate storm.  

So where are we now?  

Ask any HR leader to define our current recruitment present and they’d say the market is “candidate-led”. 

• “A candidate-led market is, in short, when the number of vacancies is outweighing the number of people searching for employment and as a result, the market is highly competitive, with companies battling to attract and recruit the best candidates out there”. 

Candidates in most sectors understand their skills are in high demand, and as such “control” how and where they apply themselves.  

This has set a new precedent in a new War for Talent, and this new normal has come to define modern hiring.  

In areas of high talent demand – such as Tech, Education, Healthcare and Logistics – shortages of talent, the rise of remote work and upward pressure on wages have upended years of recruiting norms, and ushered in a hyper-competitive era of recruitment and retention. 

How an Applicant Tracking System can help in the War for Talent? 

So how does the humble ATS help in this war?  

Are the tools contained within applicant management systems the arsenal to defeat the immortal enemy of hiring managers everywhere? 

We believe there are 5 key features of an ATS that can improve hiring outcomes and help in the War for Talent: 

• Hiring Costs Reduced – ATSs are hiring efficiencies made real. As they centralise applicant details, provide accurate, real-time reports and provide the basis for establishing hiring metrics, not to mention the fact they systematically improve communication and applicant transparency, they massively impact the overall costs of hiring. They also reduce the need for relying on external companies or agencies to do the legwork of sourcing, vetting and hiring staff by providing talent management structure.
• Time To Hire Improved – ATS platforms simplify the recruitment process. They make staff more efficient, they improve applicant management, they improve talent pool management and they improve consultant behaviours and organisation. The end result is faster hiring through automated services, centralised data gathering and cloud-based accessibility.
• Quality of Hire Improved – the value of an ATS lies in the work it does behind the scenes – CV parsing; data gathering; shortlisting; automated communications. The sum result of a consultant utilising these tools is, simply, better quality hiring outcomes. By effectively screening and shortlisting the best applicants from an applicant pool, a consultant can spend more time establishing rapport and relationships with the best in class, without worrying about whether any candidates have fallen through the gaps. 
• CX improvements – in a candidate-led market, the candidate experience is often a significant career choice differentiator. Tech should not and, at this stage, cannot take the lead on establishing good CX, but it can most certainly help bolster it. An ATS can subtly (and sometimes overtly) improve the things that make CX great – open communication, application transparency and the digital foundation for real, consultant-driven emotional connection between worker and employer.
• EB Improvements – all of the above points impact the overall impact of an employer brand – the DNA of a company, the brand power and placement within a market and the overall attractiveness of a place to work. ATS’ do incredible work – they streamline applications, make communication easier and quicker, and improve shortlisting and reporting of applications. The cumulative result of these small improvements is a seamless candidate application process and a brand that screams “We hire well”.

The ATS bottom line.  

In our view, your Applicant Tracking System is your biggest weapon in the War for Talent, allowing you to engage, protect and nurture talent more efficiently, and more importantly, better than your competitors.  

At the end of the day an ATS will never supersede the very human nature of talent acquisition – what it should do, however, is provide a platform that elevates expectations and performance. 

A good ATS is the landscape on which you do the hiring fighting, to mangle the metaphor even further – it sets the context and creates an indomitable culture of hiring that’s impossible to ignore, due to its efficiency, speed, personality and ease of use. 

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs.  

From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business! 

The post How to use an ATS to stay ahead of the competition in the war for talent.  appeared first on Rectec.

But most recruiters are strapped for time, battling a flood of demand and rising talent requirements. They often don’t get the time or space to fully understand how ATS providers and platforms can still help at the non-digital end of the hiring funnel – at interview stage. 

Well, we’re here to drop some easy-reading facts and stats on why, how and where ATS platforms can help not only improve interview processes and outcomes but address issues in remote interview cultures and improve wholesale recruiting outcomes, both analogue and digital.

Remote Interview Statistics for 2023.

With the pandemic falling away in the rearview mirror, just how long-term have the changes been to workplace interview processes? 

Is remote interviewing now seen, or expected, as standard fair from employers, and how are candidates reacting to remote interview requirements?

• “Per a recent Indeed survey, 82% of employers surveyed use virtual interviews, and 93% of employers plan to continue using them”.
• “There has been a 57% increase in the use of video interviews from 2019 – 2023”.
• “Pre-pandemic 79% of employers conducted first-stage interviews via telephone or face-to-face meeting. As of January 2021, video interviews are the most popular method of conducting first-stage interviews with 86% of employers favouring it”.
• “Nearly 50% of job seekers prefer video interviews over face-to-face interviews”.
• “60% of recruiters use video technology to interview candidates, regardless of whether the job is remote”.

The chief takeaways from the above stats are fairly clear – video interviewing is not only expected from candidates but critical for recruitment success. Video interviews are now expected as standard irrespective of whether the role is remote or not. 

In short – remote interview dominates. If you’re not utilising it at some point in your candidate journey, you’re failing potential hires and future stars.

ATS innovations in interview technique, strategy and platform use.

The humble Applicant Tracking System is more than an agile platform for candidate communications and organisation – they are often packaged as an all-in-one, end-to-end digital solution for every recruitment step and every possible recruitment need, including hosting remote interviews. 

Innovations in the ATS recruitment space have been legion. From AI-led candidate sourcing to CRM-esque application organisation and administration and more, applicant tracking systems and their affiliate plug-and-play recruiting tools and hiring products are now essential hubs of recruitment information. They are central to successful hiring, and consistently improving data dumps for recruitment metrics and analysis.

Naturally, digital dominance offers new techniques and strategies for recruiting, most importantly around data accessibility and analysis, and how data is understood to drive more favourable recruiting outcomes across the candidate journey. 

In our view, Applicant Tracking Systems do one thing more effectively than any other software in a recruiter’s stack, especially when it comes to candidate handling at the interview stage – they sit at the juncture between data, people, and meaningful interview cultures and provide maximum visibility across the entire hiring spectrum.

The trick is using each element to improve hiring outcomes, deliverables and, of course, company reputation.

Applicant Tracking Systems sit at the juncture between data, people, and meaningful Interviews.

So how does the humble ATS organise and administer data and people, and improve remote hiring outcomes?

Data. 

• Consider one of the primary features of an ATS – communication automation. 
• ATS platforms can automate candidate communications and rapidly move applicants through a sourcing, vetting and pre-interview stage without you having to lift a finger. 
• This not only utilises data to highlight and prioritise the best hires but hones that data for applicant upkeep and retains applicant momentum during a critical part of the hiring process – that of screening and vetting candidates for interview.

People.

• A well-placed ATS aligns people across the interview fold, from candidate to interview panel. It can reduce barriers between different departments and provide a sole interview HQ for all applicant information. 
• Some ATSs take it a step further, allowing for seamless, multi-site interview panels, or AI-led analysis of applications and resumes to improve interview questions and direction.
• In short, an ATS can improve the connection between every interview party, and even provide niche analysis of specific skills to improve interview effectiveness.

Meaningful Interviews.

• Lastly, an ATS is on-demand information in the palm of your hand. Critically, if one was to centralise an interview process within an ATS or adjacent to an ATS, candidates can rest assured they’ll have immediate feedback on their application and interview.
• An ATS almost acts like a backstop against dropped applicants post-interview and provides immediate context and clarity to interview next steps.

The bottom line.

In theory and practice, ATS systems are a one-stop-show for interview prep, follow-up, and organisation. But above all else they centralise and simplify complex recruitment processes, thereby streamlining those processes and getting talent in front of employers quicker.In

In the digital age, when ATS providers are leaned on more than ever to guarantee hiring success at every stage of an application, ATS platforms can find new and novel ways of engaging candidates and improving interview processes, even when those interviews are remote!

If you’re looking to identify the Best Applicant Tracking System for your business, then be sure to check out our comprehensive guide to the Best Applicant Tracking Systems (2024).

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs. 
From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business!

The post How does an ATS streamline your remote interviewing process? appeared first on Rectec.

But the rapid digital transformation of many organisations’ HR functions has brought hyper-personalisation into the light, and HR tech is leading the way.

HR tech foundations.

HR tech is providing the foundation for making sure workers are better looked after, and employers have better, more personal, and more attractive perks to offer staff and potential staff in the war for talent. 

But how exactly is HR tech doing this, and are HR and recruitment software platforms really the difference between limp work perk pick-up, and a genuinely competitive benefits culture of appreciation, reward and recognition?

For this piece, we took inspiration from a detailed article from The HR Director EMPLOYERS STRUGGLING TO ADAPT BENEFITS TO CHANGING DEMANDS. 

In it, author Matt Macri-Waller, the founder and CEO of Benefex, highlights key attitudes and workplace opinions regarding modern workplace benefits, how they are changing in light of our more recent cost of living financial rollercoaster, and what employers can expect in the future from candidate work perk expectations.

“Only 13% of employees in the UK feel that their employer’s benefits provision closely aligns with their needs”.

This should be a red flag for every employer across the country.

Benefits are a multi-purpose HR weapon: some employers roll out a system of transparent reward and recognition, whilst others provide a foundation of perks to draw in talent. 

Most employers do a mix of both and most have had to change their perks culture in light of the Great Resignation and talent shortages. For those that haven’t changed, it should be a high priority to retcon benefits packages to meet the needs of today’s workers. 

How can HR tech help?

• This is where data and flexible HR software use come into play. 

• If you’re not yet weaponizing your HR data to improve workplace culture you’re working with one hand tied. But to gather the sort of game-changing, workplace-revolutionising data needed to perfect a benefit offer you need software platforms that provide granular detail on everything from employee contentment, performance management, interview feedback, exit interview feedback, peer reviews and more.

• This sort of granular performance and opinion detail provides a birds-eye view of in-work attitudes to benefits and their effectiveness as tools for hiring and retaining talent. 

“96% of HR and reward professionals report a significant shift in employee attitudes and behaviours towards benefits over the past 12 months. In particular, employees are seeking greater flexibility and personalisation in their benefits provision”.

Here we combine benefit context with rollout speed. 

The last 12 months have seen a sea-change in behaviours regarding workplace flexibility and how important it is for workers to have the option of flexible working. 

How can HR tech help?

• The rapid proliferation of remote workplace tools like Zoom, Slack, Asana and the rest was a direct result of the pandemic – but the long-term effects of digital efficiencies are only now being seen. 

• HR tech covers a massive and varied technical field, from AI-augmented talent searching and vetting to video interviewing to performance management tools. The effectiveness of flexible work – indeed, the most important aspect of ANY hiring and retention strategy going forward – must be how HR tech helps remote work, and how well embedded, usable, and relevant HR tech platforms are at pulling together remote teams.

“Employees are increasingly favouring benefits that help with their financial wellbeing and provide protection against the impact of illness and injury. Amongst the top 10 most valued are life insurance, health screenings, critical illness insurance, dental insurance, pension, private medical insurance, childcare vouchers and income protection”.

If this statistic shows us anything it’s that financial, physical and mental health are intertwined, that employers are expected to understand the intersection of money and health, and that employers are expected to help employees across both aspects. 

“65% of workers see benefits as very important for financial wellbeing – up from 53% in 2022” is the key stat here – benefits are not considered just a perk or a bonus add-on but central to financial wellbeing as a fixed salary.

How can HR tech help?

• This is where real-time data – in the form of contemporary salary guidelines, communication with workers seeking promotion, and communication of pay structures to existing and future hires – can make the most impact. 

• Hyper-personalisation plays a role here too (if organisations can manage it, of course). Hyper-personalisation of benefits means creating bespoke benefits packages that befit an employee based on their specific needs. This can be expensive and sometimes not relevant but can work wonders at teams with varying demographic, accessibility, disability and cultural requirements.

• Clearly the need is there, and employers are increasingly expected to take the lead on providing a further financial foundation for workers. 

“HR and reward professionals overwhelmingly believe that benefits…(can) help align employee values with organisational purpose (84%). Encouragingly, the research also reveals that investment in all aspects of employee experience – including benefits and wellbeing – to increase over the next 12 months”.

The benefits of well-curated benefits are clear – not only are staff better looked after and the entire employee experience is improved, alignment with organisational purpose overwhelmingly increases too. 

Benefits in this regard connect people and labour with company meaning and community placement. Workplace benefits become a vector for meaningful labour, and as any right-thinking HR leader knows the alignment of labour to purpose is hiring and talent retention gold standard.

How can HR tech help?

• HR tech can provide the digital space for this alignment to occur. This is where internal social networks, peer reviewing and remote workflows augment ideas sharing and cultural exploration online.

• But relying entirely on tech will work against HR leaders who want to raise company purpose and meaning – tech provides the means to bring people together, to align behaviours and digitise connections, and should be well-invested in. But not at the cost of in-person, tangible, real-life connection.

• To rely on HR tech to do the heavy lifting of ideating and creating community is not and should never be the intention.

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs. 

From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business!

The post How HR tech can help improve workplace benefit perceptions and staff welfare. appeared first on Rectec.

Quick Access is an innovative new feature within our Recruitment Comparison tool, Rectec Compare, that will revolutionise how new users access our service.

Here at Rectec we’re passionate about never sitting on our hands – indeed, if our vendor partners are anything to go by tech never rests, and we always want to be able to provide the most efficient and effective service we can to our users. 

So, word to the wise for new users of Rectec Compare – if you’re in the market for a new ATS or Recruitment CRM solution, then you’ll be thrilled to know that you can now benefit from near-instant access to Rectec Compare, our award-winning recruitment tech comparison service! 

So how does Quick Access work? 

Quick Access significantly improves the speed at which agencies and employers can access Rectec Compare.  

Why is this important? Because access to Rectec Compare, which previously had taken as much as up to a week to grant, can now be provided in as little as 5 minutes, any time, any day of the year. 

It works via an enhanced Rectec Compare registration process, which takes advantage of our brand-new asynchronous video solution that’s available to any new user. 

This rapid registration process (which now also benefits from LinkedIn integration), can be completed at any time that fits your schedule, without worrying about qualification delays. 

After registering for Rectec Compare via Quick Access and following rapid review by the Rectec team, you’ll promptly receive a warm welcome to Rectec Compare, where you’ll benefit from the power of our unique comparison technology! 

Then the real fun stuff happens – following the entry of your requirements, you’ll instantly be provided with a shortlist of the best-matched solutions that the industry has to offer, each ranked in order of a precise match score. 

And it doesn’t stop there, as Rectec Compare presents a showcase for each shortlisted vendor and a powerful evaluation tool to capture and score your feedback. 

Plus, our vendor showcase provides access to company information, a company video, demo videos, clients, features, reviews, and integrations, as well as our marketplace of complementary tech solutions – helping you to build the perfect tech stack for your business. 

All this, in a matter of minutes – so what are you waiting for?  

Learn how Rectec Compare works and register now for Quick Access today! 

The post Introducing Rectec Compare “Quick Access”. appeared first on Rectec.

Indeed, when “mobile devices take up 63% of organic search visits (and) 58.16% of global web traffic originated from mobile devices” it would be negligent of website developers to ignore the rising ride of mobile-first interactions. 

But how does this impact recruitment, HR communications, candidate attraction and employer brand building?

Efficiency rules.

“50% of people say they won’t consider purchasing from a brand that has a poorly designed mobile site”. So it’s imperative company owners take mobile search and mobile purchasing very seriously.

Common marketing advice dictates that websites prioritise unfussy, uncomplex and straight-to-the-point webpages to maximise mobile dwell time.

But recruitment best practice stresses patience, trust-building and brand-focused attraction to draw in a potential candidate – so, in theory, the opposite of taking a mobile-first approach.

So can recruiters thread the needle of optimising content for mobile whilst retaining the nuance, brand weight and tactile relationship building of traditional recruitment practice?

The answer is yes, if you can guarantee your website and careers align strategically, but segment where maximum employer brand impact can be felt. 

In short, you need to make sure your careers page has its own mobile-first strategy, as the laws of mobile dominance work a little differently in the recruitment world.

Differentiate your website from your careers page.

According to app development pioneers Adjust, mobile-first strategies are good for business because of the following – they:

• Increase your customer reach.
• Build strong relationships with your users.
• Create new revenue channels for your business.
• Gain critical data insights.
• Provide a superior customer experience.

But we want to refer to the point raised above – due to the screen size and general functionality of a mobile device, certain mobile-first web page elements are designed to cut down or compromise on detail to optimise the mobile experience. 

This is known as a form of “graceful degradation”, which can be defined as “the need to have a site function across a variety of device types and screen sizes…(or) a fancy term for removing certain functionality, design elements, and content as the screen size becomes smaller”.

In essence, mobile-first sites can and often do compromise on some form of detail to make the page easy to navigate on a small screen.

But should a careers page ever compromise, and is corner-cutting right when you’re trying to competitively present your brand as somewhere amazing to work?

Careers pages and mobile-first development.

Web page designers have multiple design variables to play with, including the option to significantly change web design, flow and UX for mobile, tablet or desktop on the same site. 

However, it’s wise to understand why these elements hold up on certain devices, and why recruitment website theory dictates finding a suitable middle ground between all three.

When it comes to career sites and career pages, creating a more mobile-friendly experience should be more than simplifying page navigation or speedy downloads. 

Whilst it’s important your website loads quickly and is easy to navigate, we urge recruiters to remember that details matter and skipping a brand or employment touch point in the search for efficiency will only put off potential candidates.

We think effective, mobile-inclusive career page development is about building a culture of seamless connection between candidate and employer on a mobile device, utilising mobile-first features where speed and efficiency are of the essence, but refusing to compromise on brand presence or employment storytelling for the sake of screen space (to a degree!).

To this end, we believe there are 3 key career page factors which have to be allowed to breathe on any screen, no matter its size – employer brand, the candidate experience, and speed of hiring. Mobile-first design can help each element, but only if it’s targeted to the right parts of the site.

Employer branding and extended reach.

• Career pages cannot and should not tell a cut-price story of what it’s like to work at your company – pushing a career page too far into mobile territory runs the risk of doing this.

• However, mobile-oriented designs can help extend brand reach purely by rote of it being the most popular way to search the internet. 
• Career pages still need to communicate your brand purpose, your mission, your history, and your job vacancies with as much detail as a fully-fledged desktop careers site, so bear this in mind.
• By all means capture your candidate on jobs boards, social media or even the front page of your website with mobile-first assets and design, but when it comes to the real meat of your company you owe it to your candidates to be as instructive, and as detailed, as possible.

Candidate Experience.

• Above all else, your career page or site has to prioritise the candidate experience. But, as we indicate above, good CX is built on brand trust and communication of tangible career-related concepts like work culture, job details, and employer branding, not compromised web pages.
• However, candidates do expect efficient, simple and transparent application and recruitment processes, so recruiters need to be aware of where mobile-first strategies can help the recruitment process along.
• This is especially relevant when it comes to application processes – mobile users will clearly not complete a convoluted multi-page application form on their mobile…but they will send a simple message directly to a recruiter’s LinkedIn page, or contact email address! Make it easy and make it relevant.

Targeted speedy recruitment where it matters.

• What all this comes down to is utilising the speed and efficiency of mobile interactions for recruiting good, without compromising on job detail or brand power. 
• Recruiters need to be aware that with the majority of potential candidates doing their research and job search on a mobile device, being able to engage and convert that engagement as quickly as possible is a high priority. 
• And when one of the primary complaints of modern job seekers is that applications and recruitment take too long, taking a mobile-first approach to some elements of a career page will work to speed along that process, giving candidates the belief that this particular recruitment channel is one to trust.

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs. 

From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business!

The post Should you make your careers page mobile-friendly? appeared first on Rectec.

Last week, we were invited to be guests on a special webinar hosted by our vendor partners eArcu on how to convince your c-suite to invest in a best-of-breed strategy. 

We covered a lot of ground from L&D to budgeting to CX and UX strategy…and, critically, what a best-in-breed strategy looks like, and how TA leaders can position themselves in the best way possible to create meaningful change further up the management chain.

We wanted to summarise the main takeaway points from our webinar with eArcu for some quick-fire BiB strategy building!

What is a best-in-breed strategy, and what do Talent Acquisition leaders need one?

A best-in-breed strategy is simply a plan of action to achieve a goal – in this instance, we’re referring specifically to the strategy you use to acquire the best talent for your business.

At the very highest level that includes: your team, and the people you involve in hiring, the processes you follow, the technology you use, the way you present yourself as a business, and the HR policies and practices that you adopt internally.

When you start to detail out your strategy, you need to consider every element of TA, from how you define your hiring needs to how you onboard new hires, even beyond that into how you measure the effectiveness of your TA strategy.

In today’s market, it’s not just about following a TA process – there’s so much more that can be done to stay ahead of the competition, and so many innovative ways to acquire talent. A best-in-breed strategy ensures TA efforts aren’t in vain, and that companies have proven, effective methods in place to keep hiring outcomes all moving in the right direction.

Whatever BiB strategy you decide to implement, it needs to be carefully considered. So, ask yourself;

• What does your strategy need to deliver?
• What does a win look like for your business?
• Are you looking for increased output, efficiency gains, cost savings, or are you just out to hire the best talent in the market at any cost?

It’s also absolutely essential that your strategy considers candidate experience… If you don’t meet the expectation of your candidate in today’s market, you’re probably going to lose them.

What are the biggest barriers facing Talent Acquisition professionals when it comes to building a best-in-breed strategy?

In our view, TA leaders being blindsided by CIOs and CFOs, who making system consolidation decisions without consulting their teams. 

This often leaves TA with a solution that doesn’t meet their requirements. As a result, they end up having to contract with additional solution suppliers to provide the functionality they need and/or hire additional resources to make up for the lack of tech functionality and automation. 

Measuring the effectiveness of any tool is also vital. TA is rarely a quiet place in a growing business, and establishing a best-in-breed strategy in itself can also be a time-consuming task. But it’s time well spent. Essentially, if you don’t have the right tools in place to measure how effective things are then it’s going to be difficult to follow your strategy.

From your experience, how can we avoid those barriers?

TA leaders need to be proactively demonstrating the success of their strategy to the business, in order to ensure they have a seat at the table when it comes to influencing key decisions.

Review as you go – the fundamentals of TA have been the same for years, but the market moves fast. That means that you not only need to ensure that the correct strategy is implemented from the outset, but you also need to be conducting regular reviews of your strategy to ensure success.

This comes back to what I said earlier about what winning looks like for your business. If you’re looking to reduce time to hire, then you need to be measuring how long the process takes, not just from application to hire, but between every stage in the process so that you can pinpoint any issues or bottlenecks that might exist.

You also need to be making data-driven decisions, so technology plays a key role in this. It’s not just about making sure that you have the right tools in place, but also that you’re using them effectively.

How can you put in place plans to help TA teams avoid being blindsided by CIO/CTO decision making?

Our two cents is that TA leaders need to understand whether a CIO’s aim is system consolidation for efficiency, or cost saving. For CFOs, it’s most likely budgetary – but it’s always worth confirming.

• If the aim is system consolidation, will losing this functionality mean you have to integrate with another solution in order to supplement your ERP or HRIS? This would therefore mean another integration for the CIO to maintain and defeat the purpose of system consolidation.
• If the aim is budgetary, will the loss of this functionality mean you have to hire additional resources to make up the shortfall? Or will it mean you have to assign more budget to resourcing in order to get the same number of quality applicants? If so, how do the numbers stack up with the current state?

Internal relationships are essential. I’ve worked with many people in the past who see their C suite as an obstacle. In our opinion, the C suite only becomes an obstacle when they’re not getting what they need.

You may wear different hats and have different priorities, but if you view other stakeholders in the business as allies and not obstacles, and you can demonstrate your successes while building strong working relationships, then you’re far more likely to get buy-in and support when you need it.

Is there anything that TA leaders need to start doing right now to guarantee better tech stack reviews and a healthy relationship with the c-suite?

TA leaders need to be constantly on the case in defining their current strategy, based on performance and adapting to business change.

Measuring success is a key item for the weekly agenda. You need to take a magnifying glass to your entire process, and refine it at every opportunity, not just in terms of speed and efficiency, but in terms of experience and engagement as well. 

If you’re going on a journey of change, then you’re not going to succeed alone. Engage with your peers and make them feel involved in the entire process. Getting your team involved and energised about any change that you’re planning to implement, will really help you in getting the buy-in you need from your C-suite.

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs. 

From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business!

The post How to build a best-in-breed recruitment tech strategy – eArcu webinar recap. appeared first on Rectec.

Two years ago we launched Rectec Compare – our unique recruitment technology comparison service which connects our clients with highly matched recruitment technology vendors.

We’ve helped hundreds of recruiters, HR teams, and agencies to find the perfect recruitment technology solution for their needs.

Our recruitment technology Marketplace generates greater awareness of affiliate recruitment and HR tech within the scope of our comparison service, helping qualify new buyers directly into your sales pipeline.

We’re helping our clients to identify the perfect blend of technology for their needs, creating a powerful recruitment or TA tech stack to increase efficiency, reduce effort and save recruitment costs.

The Rectec Marketplace showcases a range of complementary tech within our comparison tool, such as;

• Job Marketing
• Remote Interviewing
• Testing and Assessments
• Background Checks
• Onboarding
• AI and Automation
• Analytics

The Rectec Marketplace is a powerful weapon for recruiters and TA leaders to build their perfect recruitment technology stack.

We’re supporting a wide range of recruitment technology vendors to elevate their brand, and connect with the right buyers…

With your very own, customisable vendor showcase, you can present your company and your solution to our users through a range of;

• Company information
• Product videos
• Screenshots
• Demo videos
• Clients
• Features
• Integrations
• Reviews
• Contact information
• Website and social links

Over the last two years we’ve focused on listening to our clients and finding the best technology solution for their needs. The Rectec Marketplace is our effort to make any search via Rectec Compare more complete, and more effective.

“Following the success of Rectec Compare in the ATS and Recruitment CRM space, we’re thrilled to be supporting a wider range of recruitment technology solutions with the addition of the Rectec Marketplace. Our mission has always been to change the way the recruiters buy tech, and this excellent addition to our offering extends the service we provide to our amazing audience who have been incredibly receptive of the work we’re doing.”

Rob Green – Founder of Rectec

Over the coming weeks and months we will be inviting more of the best recruitment tech vendors in the market to join the Rectec Marketplace, so watch this space!

We’re also incredibly pround to have been featured in Business Insider – read our Marketplace Press Release here!

For more information on the Rectec Marketplace, or to see it in action, please Contact Us today, or simply email us at hello@rectec.io

The post Introducing the Rectec Marketplace appeared first on Rectec.

So how can we make sure we all take full advantage of AI to better connect with talent, whilst retaining everything about effective human-centric recruitment that works?

Before we dive into some recruiting AI nitty-gritty, it’s worthwhile pointing out that without a strategy for AI implementation, and full awareness of the limitations (and incredible breadth) of AI, you’ll have no idea of how these amazing systems can help you.

Formative AI, and our horizon of change.

A strategy and creating a list of AI priorities are very, very important. AI, especially generative AI and AI Agents are in their adolescence. New products are being released almost weekly, but one rule stands out – the quality of what you feed into AI tools correlates directly to the quality that comes out.

So before you dive into any AI platform be aware of your priorities – the more specific the better.

• Where do you see AI helping your talent outreach and recruitment? For example, are you looking for employer brand support or more niche candidate-seeking tools? 
• Are you aware of budgetary restraints and can you afford more highly-priced tools? 
• Who is going to be using AI – consultants, BD professionals, sourcers or marketers, or all of the above?
• Have you discussed AI integration with your tech vendors – is, in fact, your recruitment ATS provider sitting on exactly the tool you already need, or do you need to reach further into the recruitment technology market?

Once you have the above in order, dig into the below and start your AI journey from a place of positivity and success. 

Here is the Rectec guide on how to avoid 7 common mistakes when recruiters use AI!

When your Data = Trash.

The cardinal rule of AI (right now) is that it is as only as good as the data sets they’re trained on. 

• “ChatGPT was trained on a massive corpus of text data, around 570GB of datasets, including web pages, books, and other sources”.
• Bard was trained on “public dialogue data and web text… totalling 1.56 trillion words”.

Using the most relevant, accurate, bias-free AI tool will take some research and a bit of A/B testing, but each tool comes with limits to its referenceable data, quality of data, transparency of data and size of data set. 

Remember – AI hallucinates, so test and perfect which tool works for you!

Not testing your AI tools.

Take a target candidate base, and test your AI plugins for accuracy and quality. 

Do not, and we cannot stress this enough, simply start building new workflows, recruiting funnels or employer branding campaigns without testing AI capability.

Most importantly, you need to have a path of accountability for when things do, inevitably, need changing or go wrong. Leadership and chain of command are vitally important in factoring in changes to AI use and further investment. 

Not being transparent with your primary service user – your candidate.

Disclaimers are essential to empowering your candidate. 

If you are using AI for assessments, let your candidate know. If automated outreach emails to cold candidates are being written and sent via AI, make it clear that’s the case. Most importantly, include a clear Call to Action for candidates that they can, at any time, speak to a HUMAN!

This not only engenders trust in your candidate base that you’re working with them in good faith, but it also gives them an out when and if AI tools don’t do their job or they misfire. Good for CX, good for comms, and good for legal accountability too.

If the AI boot doesn’t fit…

Recruitment should never, ever, lose the human-centric element of empathetic connectivity that makes a person trust another with their career.

In our view, recruiters who lean on AI to replace the human will find candidates simply switch off. Innovation in the AI space is incredible. The industry is developing at a freakishly fast pace, and we’ll hold our hands up if, in a year’s time, much of the “human” is indeed replaced by NLP-based tools. 

But we stand by our word – AI is fantastic for improving SEO ranking, automating repetitive tasks, analysing data sets, building marketing plans and perfecting recruitment strategies. But it is not, yet, human. 

Use AI to augment, not replace.

Not taking accountability.

Test, test, perfect, test again. 

Never rest on your laurels. Always be looking for drop-offs in AI accuracy, or prompt responses not working any more. Recruitment is and forever will be a results-based business, and any AI brought into that fold needs to create results, whilst maintaining fairness within the recruiting process, reducing discrimination and removing bias from the equation.

This means targeted analysis of AI use, usability, relevance, and delivery of results. This means someone, anyone, taking accountability for the systems in use.

Not training your tools.

Whilst we’re still sitting on the cusp of a true AGI, a fair proportion of AI tools require learning and training to become fully effective. 

This can perhaps be better explained by prompt analysis and development of more useful dialogues in tools like ChatGPT or Bard – practice makes perfect. 

Effective AI use takes prompt strategy and iterative learning techniques. Improvements don’t happen in a vacuum, and the real strength of AI is that it can reform and rejig output based on prompt tweaks and new data, over time.

Do not silo your AI tools.

Tech stack management 101 – never silo operations, and integrate where possible.

Using AI in conjunction with other recruiting tech tools like CRMs, CMS’, Applicant Tracking Tools, and performance management systems will improve hiring outcomes and retention rates, and build a more connected tech ecosystem for your people to work and thrive.

Most importantly, AI should never supersede human judgement or act independently of human oversight, especially in recruiting-critical touch points like initial outreach, interview aftercare or salary negotiation.

The bottom line. 

We must be prepared for change, or will be drowned in innovation and miss critical opportunities to improve recruitment and make our industry as effective and useful as possible.

A good place to start is by knowing where we mostly fall down on AI understandings!

At Rectec we help organisations to find the best recruitment and talent acquisition technologies to suit your needs. 

From Applicant Tracking System and Recruitment CRM comparison, to vendor snapshots, and technology showcases in our unique technology marketplace, we provide fee-free tools to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business!

The post Recruiting with AI? Here are 7 mistakes to avoid! appeared first on Rectec.