What is the best Recruitment Software? Answered!

During my three years at REC as their ‘Technology Bod’, I was forever being asked ‘What is the best recruitment software?’ normally on the back of being told by recruiters that everything out there is rubbish, including their own existing technology! Since leaving, it is still the main question I get asked.

Asking ‘What is the best recruitment software?’ is effectively the same as asking people ‘What is the best music band in the world?’ or ‘What is the best car?’ Everyone has a different opinion of what ‘best’ really is and how do you work it out!

Let’s take Radiohead as a personal example. They are one of the biggest bands in the world, so must be ‘best’ for many people, but they just don’t do it for me. That doesn’t make them rubbish, far from it, they just don’t hit my personal hot buttons. Likewise, no one technology is ever going to be ‘best’ for every recruiter and the objectives they have for it.

After reviewing more recruiting technologies than you could shake a stick at, I formed a fixed opinion that the majority of platforms out there are not rubbish and are in fact extremely good in terms of functionality, user ability and the potential efficiency and value they can provide to a professional recruitment business.

This provided me with a problem because after reviewing some of the technologies called into question, including some of the leading edge and emerging ones, my conclusions were probably not what recruiters wanted to hear and when I delivered my opinion and still do, it didn’t and doesn’t provide the response those asking are looking for.

I will expand!

Using my example above and relating it to recruitment software, what one recruiter thinks is good and a key feature, another will think is surplus to requirement. Throw in the different technical abilities of the users and it gets even more complex.

A business will be sold a technology and naturally all staff will be made to use it. Some will take to it like a duck to water, but others, who maybe prefer the good old days of the rolodex and the telephone will not, and in some circumstances it will effect, albeit and hopefully temporarily, their efficiency and productivity when it was actually purchased to enhance it.

This highlights just how important a decision this is and that all stakeholders in the business, including and most importantly the users must be involved in the decision making process.

In most cases I have been involved with, when the truth really comes out, the decision making process has not necessarily been based on solid and sound investigation and analysis. Recruiters are great salespeople and although it pains me to say it, I, like most salespeople, can easily get sold to.

Let’s be honest, if someone were to pitch a technology with all the bells and whistles, that will actually make the tea and sweep up at the end of the day, cheaper than anything else on the market, you wouldn’t be surprised if that technology got some interest and traction in the market.

However, once it has been taken out of the box and implemented, some will find that the tea really is great and the office has never been cleaner, but as for managing their specific client, candidate and vacancy records and facilitating placements in the style they are accustomed to, it is lacking.

Also, how much of the whizzy and jazzy functionality that closed the deal will really be used to its fullest extent or at all. I would guess that certain solutions are only being used at half strength and the core functionality elements for an individual recruiter that should have formed the basis of the procurement decision, were overlooked at the making the tea and sweeping up stage, and therefore, the technology turns out not to be the best for the job.

In addition, I have spoken to many vendors and one of the biggest issues they report is getting the training message through to the end users. Just because you can drive a car, it doesn’t mean you can drive a lorry, so absorbing and disseminating the training is as important as the procurement process. If barriers exist for doing this, then problems will ensue.

Now, some vendors can paint a good picture and sell a good story and might not be the best training organisations in the world, which is something they could brush up on, plus the sales processes can be so technical and complex that recruiters are forced to decide on price because they are so confused at the end of the process. However, if you have a solid procurement process in place you should not get caught out.

You can see where this is heading. I have told many recruiters a few home truths and that their decision making process was leaky. They did not understand what the core objectives and needs of the business were before making a purchase and it isn’t in fact the technology that is ‘rubbish’, it was the process used to identify the technology that was suspect, which created the wrong fit!

Believe me, my opinion goes down like a lead balloon, especially in seminars, where groups of recruiter’s are looking for a swift answer to what they believe is an easily answerable question.

So to draw conclusions, there is no swift answer and the only way to really identify what is the best recruitment software solution for your business is to do the necessary homework, which will include an internal needs analysis, a user and business impact analysis, a detailed specification exercise and a thorough tender process.

I expect that some recruiters believe their software to be inadequate, but in reality it might be perfectly suitable for their business and that they might be wrong to judge it without going back to the drawing board and working out what they need the system to do, and giving the vendor the opportunity to configure and train it accordingly.

If it is ultimately inadequate and a new solution is required, there is a defined, lengthy and sometimes internally painful process that you need to go through if you are to answer the question on every recruiters' lips; ‘What is the best recruitment software?’ Believe me, it’s well worth the effort!

Colin.