Before we delve into the reasons why making an investment into recruitment software can benefit your business today, we first need to examine the past.
The Birth of Recruitment
There is not an exact date that recruitment was invented and the first recruiter is largely unknown, however, what we do know is that the recruitment sector was a product of World War II which saw men being called to fight for their country. This naturally created gaps in the workforce which needed to be filled and therefore the need for recruiting agencies and staffing professionals to fill these gaps. These agencies would not only find work for men and women not called for the war effort, but also for returning soldiers, immigrants and refugees. As you can imagine, with the lack of computers and software, this was a very manual and paper based process which took days and often weeks to even speak to qualify a candidate or job requirement often via telegram or phone.
Resumes
As like any services to an industry, the need to become faster and more efficient got greater and within a decade the CV or Resume was born. This allowed candidates to write a CV, highlighting their skills by hand or typewriter and apply for jobs they had seen in a newspaper, often by post. Recruiters at that time would be very skilled in reading and writing in order to match the right applicants to the right jobs, and have a thorough understanding of the skills required for each job.
Technology
During this time, computers were being built to perform specific tasks (programmes) and used to process sequences and algorithms, mainly for governments, the military, and banks. They often took up an entire room and like most things evolved to become smaller and faster. By the 1970’s, microprocessors were being mass produced and the the computer became available to households and businesses across the globe. Only basic programming was available at the time but those with computer science degrees set about programming and creating computer programmes. In 1983, Microsoft released Word, the same year as the Internet age began and computers started to communicate with each other. This allowed computer programmers and companies to share ideas and by the late 1980’s the first structured database programmes were formed including Excel and SQL.
It is believed that the first recruitment specific software was launched in the early 1990’s and the phrase Applicant Tracking System (ATS) was born. Through the 90’s many agencies moved away from storing details in filing cabinets and entered data manually into their new computer systems. In 1998, Itec systems was formed and the first on-premise solution of itris was delivered to a customer.
Since then the recruitment CRM and ATS has evolved year on year and has gone from simply storing data, to supporting the entire recruitment process. There are now hundreds of recruitment industry specific systems, tools and tech to consider, from your core CRM and database, through to job boards, AI tracking apps, reporting tools and gamification, to name but a few. Not to mention the use of social media channels such as LinkedIn!
Why Recruiters Invest in Recruitment Software
What the above teaches us, is that the recruitment industry has come a long way in the last 80+ years. As the industry continues to evolve and adapt, as will recruiters and it is vital to have the right recruitment CRM software in place to support this. Many successful and large agencies in the industry today began as a one to two person start up operating from a home office, garage or kitchen table and have then flourished from these humble beginnings into large scale enterprise businesses. Much like the industry as a whole, these businesses needed to adopt change in order for them to achieve their growth plans and become more efficient. They have all been able to maximise productivity and automate as many manuals processes as possible through the use of recruitment software. As their business has grown and adapted to the changing world, so has their software, either through their existing supplier, or by them moving to one that that can support the change and in the long term reduce their business costs and make them more competitive.
So what are recruiters biggest bugbears and what takes the most time in their already busy days, which therefore slows up their ability to produce maximum output? Below are just a few things that many recruiters today need their software or CRM to process quickly and efficiently:
- Detailed CV Parsing and document processing
- Applicant referencing and tracking
- Applicant searching within the CRM and online
- Job activity, interviews and placement confirmations
- Detailed reporting and Dashboards of structured data and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
- The use of email or document templates
- Contacting candidates on mass via Email and SMS
- Compliance management and restrictions
- Scheduled calls management
- CV Marketing to prospective customers
This list could go on and on….
The good news is, that with the correct recruitment software, you can automate your tasks which will free up your time, become more efficient and help grow your recruitment or staffing business. Investing in recruiting software can have huge ROI, so yes, you should invest in it where possible.
