The recruitment sector cut backs had left many HR teams struggling to manage with limited resources and funds. Thankfully, however, this trend is slowly changing and we are finally beginning to see some buoyancy in the market. While 22 per cent of organisations remain affected by budget limits, the pressure of quickly finding and engaging scarce talent is no longer such a concern.
But why?
Last year candidates were faced with very few vacancies and even less desire to take the leap into a new role should one become available – making a move in an uncertain climate is certainly risky! However, there has been an increase in confidence over the last couple of months as both salaries and the number of vacancies starts to rise. This is good news for HR professionals and recruitment agencies, but does it make finding Mr. Right any easier?
The challenge still remains to find the top candidates for each position. As more people begin to look for new opportunities, it takes longer to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
How can investing in technology help deal with the high volumes of applications, sort the good from the bad, and the strong from the weak? HR professionals can use technology to move outside standard keyword search matching and start to explore the contextual relevance of skills and attributes that candidates include within a CV, bringing the most suited to the top of pile. Surely a better alternative than flicking through page after page of keyword results search to find the best match?
Embracing this technology allows you to gain competitive advantage. So how do organisations go about getting the right technology for the job in the first place? The answer is simple – what are you trying to do? Are you trying to post ads quickly to as many people as possible or do you want a system to manage your responses? Are you trying to match candidates to your database? Or are you trying to do all of the above?
It all depends on your requirements. You may need an intelligent tool that understands both the strength of a candidate’s skills and job requirements, whilst also having a level of automation. If you want the whole package then obviously expect the cost to be a bit pricier than the basic offering. So recruiters, it is time to bite the technology bullet – it’s only trying to help!