There are over 450 applicant tracking system providers in the UK alone, so shopping for a new ATS can be a labour-intensive task with little reward other than circling back and forth between search terms on google.

However, getting your choice of Applicant Tracking System right is absolutely business-critical, as recruitment becomes more urgent, more digital and more personable – according to TalentLyft, “86% of recruiting professionals say that using an ATS has helped them hire faster”.

Speed-of-hire is one, vital metric in which we judge the efficiency of an ATS. However, recruitment in the modern digital era isn’t just about speed – consider the shift in candidate and client expectations in regards to communicating company culture and good onboarding processes that have so dominated the recruitment conversation post-pandemic. 

These other recruitment and job-seeker behaviours – how candidates engage with the more holistic, culture-led aspects of a company – are equally, if not more important to the modern job seeker than ever.

Applicant Tracking System providers have, in the main, met the moment, and these sorts of holistic and process-led features now come as standard in many solutions. 

So considering the explosion of ATS providers and new features that those ATS providers have built into their products, how do you know which solution is the right one for you?

That’s where we step in – as any recruiter knows, recruitment is more than simply putting candidate A into job A and stepping away. From application to video interviewing to onboarding, candidates demand a more agile, more immediate and far more human service from their consultants. 

ATS and recruitment CRM systems are often the platforms from which many of these connections are built.

So here is the Rectec guide to comparing ATS and recruitment CRM, to make sure the platform you choose is right for your enterprise. 

Assess your ATS needs.

As we mention at length in another article, choosing the right ATS is only as effective as your prioritised list of requirements. You need to make sure you know which features of an ATS solution you need, as well as the ones you don’t. 

We advise you to create a simple system in which you can easily refer to the features you need from an ATS provider. For example, a traffic light system, where certain features are colour coded; Green (those absolutely must-have features), Amber (those you will get regular benefit from) and Red (those which are not required). This will help in any conversation you have with an ATS rep, or any search terms you enter into search engines or, as we discuss below, into an ATS or recruitment CRM comparison service. 

When in doubt, ask for an ATS or recruitment CRM recommendation. 

Often recruiters and HR leaders will seek recommendations of ATS providers, not only because industry peers will, in some cases, have similar recruitment needs, but because it’s a great way to obtain first hand feedback of what solution your peers are using, and what those solution providers are like to work with.

Recommendations are trusted connections between peers and ATS providers and will come with a lot of positive brand advocacy. But, like with any major investment, caution is the word of the day, and we always urge recruiters to shop around before settling on a recommendation. 

ATS and recruitment CRM comparison services. 

Rectec are proudly flying the flag for a relatively new, and novel form of ATS/client introduction, the ATS comparison service. 

ATS comparison services are fast becoming the first port of call for recruiters seeking the perfectly matched Applicant Tracking System. Because ATS comparisons follow the same sort of customer UX journey as other, more well-known comparison service platforms (such as Compare the Market), comparison services are easy to use, free, and provide an enormous amount of feature flexibility and choice as standard.

Comparison services do all of the heavy lifting and handle the main pain points that come with looking for new ATS – for example, which provider to choose from the litany of options, based on customised inputs and tangible requirements, all of which are controlled by the customer, not search engines or sales reps.

Rectec, and our ATS comparison platform Rectec Compare, are the only provider of such a service.

The bottom line.

Choosing an ATS or recruitment CRM should take time – you need to build a relationship with the provider and their representatives you work with through navigating new tools and migrating data from one provider to another, and you need to make sure whichever ATS you choose, it has all the features you need and more.

But some of that patient shopping around can be expedited, as long as you know the features you need and understand the critical job ATS platforms provide to the modern job seeker. 

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.

The post The Rectec guide to ATS and recruitment CRM comparison. appeared first on Rectec.

Finding your perfect recruitment tech in a saturated market

Many organisations stopped doing things on paper and turned to an online solution to save time and effort, standardise their processes, and improve the service they provide to candidates. Some of you might remember – We started scanning CV’s, saving them to a database and attaching them to a candidate record. It was truly revolutionary.

Fast forward over two decades, now an ATS is a must have tool for recruiters. As a result, there are over a staggering 450 ATS vendors in the market. Each vendor provides their own solution and some do this better than others. Technology’s also come a really long way and today there are more features and functions than ever before.

Now, as much as I love talking about this, I’m not here to provide a history lesson on Applicant Tracking Systems. But I would really like to provide you with a great deal of help and advice for when your organisation decides to review the market. I’ve come to learn a thing or two about Applicant Tracking Systems during my career, and as sad as it might sound – they are what get me out of bed every morning.

The ATS market is incredibly competitive and as something that organisations shouldn’t have to do too often, there is no defined way of buying an ATS. There are many ways of trying to find out which ATS is right for your business, but over 35% of organisations don’t get this right, and that’s typically after investing a great deal of time and effort, researching the market and assessing suppliers.

So if your organisation is in the market for an ATS then – where do you start?
A Google search? A LinkedIn post? Reaching out to industry forums? Perhaps checking out some of the many directories out there. All of these options will provide you with some insight, but none of them will confidently answer your question “Which ATS is right for my organisation?”.

Your organisation is unique, you have your own business processes, business challenges, objectives, and requirements. So if your business is unique, and every ATS provider is unique – you need to do a great deal of research in order to make the right decision about which solution provider is the best fit for your needs.

There are industry experts out there that should be able provide you with more comprehensive guidance and support, and that is a sensible thing to do. However, many consultants will only have knowledge of a limited number of Applicant Tracking Systems – these are typically the ones that they work with.

Buying software is a long-term buying decision. It’s expensive and can be time consuming to implement – and if you don’t get it right, the consequences can be insurmountable. Not only in terms of the time, money and effort spent on implementing the wrong solution, but also in terms of the push back from Hiring Managers and lack of engagement from candidates if they have a bad experience or don’t get what they need.

At the end of 2019 I left a job I that loved, doing something I’m very passionate about, because I knew that this very common and very painful issue our industry faces, which has gone unsolved for far too long, had to be solved. Last month, my company, Rectec, soft-launched a sophisticated solution to solve this problem, for good.

Rectec have created unique partnerships with a wide range of Recruitment technology vendors. We’ve conducted an immense amount of research, and created a centralised database of vendor information which already holds over 85,000 pieces of information.
Rectec have independently evaluated each of our partners, and validated the information we hold.

We’ve created a revolutionary way to help your organisation buy the right Recruitment software, using our powerful comparison tool, Rectec Compare. It’s completely free to use, and you can find the perfect ATS for your organisation in as little as 15 minutes. We’re changing the way that recruiters buy software.

Simply input your business requirements and we’ll instantly compare a wide range of vendors, producing a unique vendor shortlist. We provide all of the information you might need, all in one place. This will save your organisation enormous amounts of time and effort, whilst allowing you to make a more confident software choice.

Your shortlist will highlight the vendors who best match your requirements, each with their own rank and match score. We’ll highlight any areas where vendors fall short of your requirements, and also give you access to a unique showcase for each vendor.

Each vendor showcase provides you with an intro video, and a range of company and product information. You’ll see a list of features, screenshots, demo videos, integration partners and a reel of clients too. We also provide access to the corresponding profiles on the industry leading review sites, as well as their website and LinkedIn company page.

Rectec Compare comes with a built-in software assessment tool. This allows you to quickly and easily assess every vendor demonstration, using a tailored assessment, based on your captured requirements. It’s quick and easy to use, and will provide you with more confidence that you’ve fairly and accurately scored each vendor.

If your organisation follows a formal tender process, you can also benefit from our built-in RFI automation tool. This will automatically document your requirements into a branded RFI document. We’ll automatically submit your RFI to your selected vendors, using your own email content and branding too. This saves enormous amounts of time and effort and also expedites vendor turnaround.

If this is something you think would be a valuable tool for your organisation, either right now, or in the future. Then you can register today, for free. If you have any thoughts we’d love your feedback and if you would like any further information at all, or if you just want to talk tech – please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Rectec Compare is a brand new service, which we’ve developed to support our industry. We want to spread the word about our new services because they are extremely valuable, and solve a very common and painful problem. We want to help as many organisations as possible and we’d really love your support. Please follow us on LinkedIn and if you think our free service will be valuable for you network, then please do share our details.

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.

The post Finding your perfect recruitment tech in a saturated market. appeared first on Rectec.