HR Should Demand More of the Recruiting Function and Critically Evaluate The Use Of Technology and Applicant Tracking Systems

Synopsis

The purpose of this article is to encourage recruiters and HR professionals to honestly look at their recruiting process to determine if a desire for technological efficiency is hurting the effectiveness of their recruiting process.  I challenge every HR professional to sit down with a friend and ask them to apply for a job on their company’s website while they watch.  If you take on this task, I suspect that you will start to reevaluate your recruiting approach.

It has been nearly a decade since I experienced recruiting from a candidate’s perspective.  As I have been looking for my next position, I have had the pleasure of going through the application process for dozens of companies.  It has been enlightening.  In my humble (or not so humble) opinion, I am convinced that individual company applicant databases are narrower than ever because of current technology.

At first glance, technology should help with recruiting but it is a mixed bag.  In some cases, technology driven efficiencies are hurting the ability to source candidates. On the other hand, hundreds or even thousands of resumes can be submitted by email or with a single click.   Using technology may be necessary to help recruiters filter and search applicants, but many of the filters being used today can have a negative impact on the breadth of the candidate pool.

This article will address the purpose of recruiting, techniques, technology, solutions and a number of specific platforms that are in use today.

Here is the challenging question from many business partners . . . if we have a database of so many external candidates, how come it is taking us so long to fill the position?

The Purpose of Recruiting: identify the best candidate who can be convinced to accept the position.

At the turn of the century, Monster, hotjobs and Career Builder were the primary search platforms for candidates and the primary advertising platforms for employers.  The explosion of the internet disrupted what was a highly consolidated marketplace.  There are now hundreds of employment websites, not to mention every state, professional organization or employer site that has a careers section.  Everyone has the same goal – to get the best candidates.  Some employers advertise, others use headhunters, but the goal is attracting and identifying qualified candidates.

Whether on Monster in 2000 or on an employer site today, the purpose of having an applicant database is to allow an employer to identify qualified candidates for a new opening – specifically, individuals who are not actively seeking employment or may not see the opening.  Passive candidates are highly valued by employers and are the bread-and-butter of retained executive recruiters.  Regardless, having a broad candidate pool has always been the goal.

In the ideal world, recruiters would search a database of the 100 million plus U.S. workers and send an email to the 10 or so best qualified that might be interested, identify three for interviews, and hire one lucky candidate.  In the real world with a decentralized marketplace and with the advent of applicant tracking programs, employers continually try to increase the size of their own internal applicant database.

Changing Methods of In-House Recruiting:

Before computers, Company recruiting took the form of advertising (and “working” individual openings), networking and saving unsolicited resumes for future openings.  Ironically, we often looked at unsolicited resumes (perhaps collected at a public recruiting event) as a significant burden.   Now most recruiters have decided that because reading every resume is too daunting a task, they use an applicant data base to search candidates and filter out good prospects.

Old Model: Candidates submit resume directly or decide to populate one of three national candidate databases.

New Model: Candidates apply and are directed to populate individual multiple company databases before they can be considered.

Both models could have the same level of effectiveness, except new model effectiveness is dependent on candidates spending the time to populate the database of virtually every Company to which they apply.  Many companies highlight the process that applicants can apply by computer, tablet or even on a smart phone – arguing that this broadens the applicant pool.

I will not argue that manually scanning resumes to pare down candidates is an efficient or enjoyable task.  I will argue, however, that we should seriously evaluate whether or not the current practice to almost exclusively utilize internal applicant tracking system databases is causing employers to miss candidates – both active and passive searchers.

Technological Limitations:

As I have experience a number of employer websites and systems, a few things become apparent:

• Most applications require at least 5 to 10 minutes of work to apply;
• Applying is repetitive and frustrating simply because many systems give a false hope of easy downloading when in fact it is quite challenging;
• There is a tremendous difference between simple websites and ATSs.

The Solution – How Companies Can Get the Broadest Applicant Pool

Here are the quick fixes that I suggest will increase recruiting success aka broadening the qualified applicant pool:

1. If you are deciding on an ATS platform, let your recruiting goals drive the decision. Do not worry about integrating recruiting with payroll – especially, if that integration has an impact on recruiting effectiveness.  Also, eliminate as many drop down identifiers as you can (e.g., County) – parsing is completely ineffective at populating these fields resulting in required editing.
2. Do not ask candidates for the following information until you have determined that the candidate has a decent chance of moving forward in the interview process:

• References
• Social Security Number
• Date of Birth
• Driver’s license information
• WOTC Tax Form
• Extensive screening questions
• Psychological profile surveys

** Understand – anything you ask for on the above list will cut down on the number of candidates and may cost you the good passive candidate who does not have the time (or ditches the process when they are asked for SS# or DOB). Once you are interested (and express interest) candidates will willingly spend the time to complete virtually anything.

3. Insist that you ATS/candidate database provider has effective resume parsing technology to make it easy for candidates to upload their resumes without having to spend much time editing. You may want to limit the database parsing to the 3 most recent positions, but your focus is to shorten the applicant’s time to apply.  Also, encourage your ATS supplier to develop resume templates that can facilitate parsing.  [If they tell you it is great, be cynical – most parsing is not very efficient – believe me!]
4. Offer multiple recruiting channels. Post any position as normal, but allow a bypass for an expedited resume review.  Allow colleagues, friends and family to submit resumes this way too.  For candidates that chose to expedite, the templated email response can be one of two messages:

“Your resume was submitted for our expedited process. We conducted a quick review.  Understanding that the review is limited, at this time we are not sure that we have the right position for you, but we would encourage you to add you resume and information to our database for future positions.  Click on this link – the process will take 5 minutes.”

“CONGRATULATIONS – You are 1 in 100. We conducted a quick review of your resume as part of our expedited process – based on what we saw, we think you may have a really good opportunity to become part of our team.  Click on this golden ticket link to apply – the process to get in our database will take 10 minutes.  Keep in mind – we only give the golden ticket link to a small number of the candidates who apply through the expedited process.  Please reply to this email letting us know you are done.  If the current position does not work out, we will keep you active for other positions.

Conclusion:

Leadership should acknowledge that the only good candidate filter is the candidate’s qualifications and not their perseverance using an applicant tracking system.  Take actions to increase the volume of your relevant database by improving the ease by which candidates can apply.

Appendix: My personal grades for some of the technology in use:

Monster and Career Builder: Solid Performers

 As two of the main players when I was last looking for work in the past, I have found that these platforms have not changed significantly from the user perspective.  What has changed significantly is that applying directly from Monster and Career Builder do not allow the same ease of application as existed before every Company had their own ATS.  It does seem to me that more of the positions on Monster are simply redirects to Company websites – Career Builder seems to offer more “Quick Apply” positions.

Search Favorites: Excellent Performers

I have found LinkedIn, Indeed and The Ladders worth the effort to search positions and apply.  Although the features vary, I have found the platform and the regular “these jobs might interest you” emails to be worthwhile.  Occasionally, I have ended up on other limited sites (some geographically focused) – some of these are good, some not, but since they seem to be so limited in scope, I decided it was not worth the time to address here.

Technology Favorites: HIPOs

In my recent search efforts, I found SmartRecruiters.com platform to be incredible easy to use for candidates.  It met the standard of being so quick to apply that they employers will definitely broaden their applicant pool.  It is a quick 2 minutes and done.  HireVue has a great product that allows the candidate to record video answers to defined questions.  Obviously, this is done as part of the interview process when there is interest in a candidate – from a candidate perspective it is the same as a core interview without having to commit to an exact time and without what are sometimes awkward before and after questions.

Oracle/Taleo: Development Needed

My guess is that the market penetration of Oracle has resulted in Taleo becoming a very popular ATS product – I have seen the Taleo platform frequently.  It is unfortunate that the functionality is not great from the applicant side, undoubtedly causing candidates to drop out of the process (or spend more time from initiation to completion.)

In my experience, Taleo does a poor job of resume parsing.  After some frustration, I developed a basic format consistent resume that should be parsing friendly, but Taleo still has problems – for example, never picking up the accurate dates for one position.

I reached out to Oracle to see if they provided a parsing friendly template (or spreadsheet) and/or comment on the issues.  After a couple of tries, I was able to reach the right person in public affairs.   Ultimately, the response from Oracle was a commitment for “continuous improvement” on what they called a “key product.”  I take them at their word, but I would encourage employers using the product to continue to push Oracle to improve features that are being used by candidates with a higher degree of urgency.  Ultimately, if Oracle provided a template for candidate information that applicants, Taleo could provide a unique recruiting advantage to its customers.  Unlike other platforms where candidates have to upload and edit data from LinkedIn or a resume, uploading your Taleo profile could save 5 minutes per application.

Perhaps when I am reemployed and get the call from a representative pitching Oracle, I will get the issues addressed.

ZipRecruiter – Poor Performer to Avoid – In my opinion, save your time and money!

I do not remember how I first linked with ZipRecuiter, but I uploaded my resume and created a search agent titled “HR Business Partner.”  Zip advertises heavily, so I was familiar with the name – frankly, I think they may have more name awareness in the last two years than Monster and Career Builder.  Alas, my experience with the product and their customer service has me convinced that they are far too focused on generating volume to support advertising rates rather than developing an effective recruiting tool.  Harsh assessment, I know, but let me explain why from the recruiting perspective.

The effectiveness of search agents is critical to candidate retention – employers want the “here are positions that might interest you” list to be credible so candidates will read emails from that recruiting site.  I don’t know whether it is ZIPs business model, algorithms or what, but I found their website a virtual waste of time – and I am unemployed with plenty of time on my hands.   Let me offer a few examples of the ridiculousness:

• Phil, a bot person, has recommended a number of positions for me, that “line up well” with my resume including:
  • Business Systems Analyst requiring a degree in Computer Science which I don’t have;
  • Law Partner in a Family Law Practice which is a bit questionable because although I went to law school, that was 20 years ago and I have never practiced;
  • An HR Coordinator job at $10, which if it lines up well with my resume, wow – do I need help on my resume.

• My search agent “HR Business Partner” for Columbia, SC yielded 19 ads to be a LYFT Driver. Now there is nothing wrong with being a LYFT Driver, but 18 of the 19 ads had “HR Manager” or something like it in the job title but then was a LYFT ad.  Understand – I have been an HR Professional my entire career with the past 15 at the Director level.  More recently, my Zip search agent yielded the following suggested job results in this rough order:
  • LYFT Driver (2)
  • Japanese speaking AppleCare Partner
  • Spanish speaking HR Generalist
  • Senior Tax Manager
  • Senior Benefits Administrator
  • Senior Global Sales Manager
  • Senior Auditor
  • Healthcare Specialist
  • Warehouse Jobs
  • Licensed Electrician
  • Associate Manager Diversity
  • CFO
  • Entry Level Sales/Marketing (5)
  • Cyber Compliance Security Analyst
  • Financial Lawyer in Scotland

Zip highlights how many candidates and how many websites they feed positions to and from. The only response I got to my concerns about the ridiculous LYFT ads were suggestions on how to improve my search agent to make it more effective.  What I think Zip fails to realize is that while they may continue to build an incredibly large database of candidates and employers, what they are building is a house of cards that has no true substance.  As an employer, I would not advertise because I know as a candidate, I don’t look at their website as having credibility.

Zip is privately funded by venture capital.  I would encourage any potential investor to take a serious look to determine if Zip is building a strong product built on good technology or simply a large ineffective recruiting database built on volume.

Finally, I reached out to Zip for help/comments/discussion on multiple occasions and have yet to hear anything relevant.  In fairness, I did receive a response when I forwarded them a copy of a draft of this article.  Proving that the Zip concept is built on a lack of individual service and focused on algorithms and volume, I have copied the response I received from Melody Rios at Zip – I will allow you to draw your own conclusions.

Hi Jordan!

The ZipRecruiter team is here to help! To ensure we fully understand your request, please provide further information, specific details, and an explanation of the issue you are experiencing. The more information you can provide, the quicker our team can get to work.

For the most seamless experience, we recommend using Google Chrome to visit ZipRecruiter. Don’t forget about our 1-click apply!  This feature sends your resume directly to the hiring manager for review.   

Questions? Feel welcome to check out our Help Center for job seekers like yourself!

Should you need any further assistance, our Job Seeker Advocate Team can be reached via email at [email protected] from 6am-6pm PST, 7 days a week!

Thanks again for contacting ZipRecruiter, we wish you the best of luck in your job search!

Best Regards,

Melody Rios
Job Seeker Advocate