Today, recruiters must deal with the challenges of a tight labor market. There simply aren’t enough candidates to go around. As a result, 50 percent of human resource managers say that they are struggling to find qualified job seekers for at least one opening.
While there isn’t much that can be done about the state of the labor market itself, recruiters can take steps to improve their results. By implementing the right tools, sourcing and selecting candidates can become easier. With that in mind, here’s a look at five of the best recruiting tools you can use right now.
1) Applicant Tracking Systems
When it comes to recruiting tools, the applicant tracking system (ATS) is hard to beat. Over 98 percent of Fortune 500 companies rely on ATS technologies, and for good reason.
With an ATS, employers can screen applicants against job descriptions. This includes incoming resumes as well as those stored in the database, allowing companies to tap into multiple talent pools with ease.
Some of the more advanced ATS resume databases can save Boolean searches and use the criteria to alert recruiters to potential matches whenever one enters the system. Essentially, it functions as a “candidate match” alert, allowing recruitment professionals to discover strong contenders even if they didn’t directly apply to that specific vacancy.
There are numerous ATS solutions available, including Taleo, Workday, ADP, BrassRing, and Greenhouse, just to name a few. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks, so it’s wise to explore several solutions before selecting one to implement.
2) ATS Texting Integrations
In a highly competitive market, speedy communication with candidates makes a difference. While most recruiters and hiring managers have long relied on email and phone calls to engage with job seekers, that may not be ideal any longer.
If a candidate is currently employed, they might not be able to take a personal phone call during business hours. While they may be able to discreetly check their email, the average American receives 121 emails every day, so there is a decent chance that yours will get buried in the pile.
Today, 75 percent of adults own a smartphone, and about 80 percent of people use text messaging in a professional context. Plus, text messages have an open rate of 97 percent, and 33 percent of business professionals usually respond to a text within 10 minutes.
Tools like TextUs allow you to use text messaging to your advantage. These solutions integrate into an ATS, making it easy to accelerate communication and track conversations, all leading to better-recruiting results.
3) Job Ad Effectiveness Monitoring
Most recruiters rely on multiple resources when searching for candidates. They may post vacancy announcements on several social media platforms, job boards of all shapes and sizes, and even send out notices to candidates in their existing database via text message or email.
While it’s wise to diversify your approach, figuring out which routes are the most effective isn’t easy without the right tracking solution. With UTM codes – a string of text that is tacked onto recruitment ad URL links – you can see which candidates came from where. Just assign a unique UTM code to each part of the campaign, allowing you to monitor who is clicking which ones.
Services like utm.io make the process simple. Plus, you can get started for free.
4) Job Ad Optimization Tools
The words and phrases you choose when creating a job ad impact your results. This is especially true if diversity is a priority, as the language you use can either attract or repel candidates that belong to various demographic groups.
Today, there are a variety of AI-driven tools – like Textio and Gender Decoder – that can help you analyze your posts and language patterns to identify potential issues. You can also discover why certain job ads were a success while others failed, allowing you to optimize your approach.
5) Recruitment Chatbots
When it comes to streamlining the top of your recruitment funnel, a chatbot can be an ideal solution. These technologies use language processing capabilities to respond to questions or multiple-choice approaches to provide details about common inquires, making your FAQs interactive.
Chatbots can also be designed to perform follow-up, schedule interviews, and relay information to recruiters. This allows technology to handle simple or repetitive tasks, freeing up your recruitment team to handle duties that genuinely require the human touch.
Options like Freshdesk and Intercom can be integrated into company websites, while tools like MobileMonkey can help you create a bot-based in Facebook Messenger, allowing you to make use of a popular social media platform both on and off of your site.
While the world of recruiting tools is always changing, those listed above are worth exploring. If you’d like to learn more, the team at Cloutera wants to hear from you. Contact us to discuss your needs with one of our recruitment specialists today and see how our expertise can benefit you.
