7 common misconceptions when choosing a system for recruitment

Despite the existing variety of systems for hiring automation, HR departments of numerous companies still prefer to work in an “old fashioned way”. Guided by the widespread erroneous assumptions, either recruiters themselves or their management often use ineffective methods of talent management.

1. “Our programmers will develop applicant tracking system by themselves. They had already made a plenty of similar software and even more complicated ones.”
   
   Recruitment automation software is an intelligent and multitasking system. Prepare yourself to develop the staff management solution for several years, or to make a lame “odd job” for about half a year only to find out it would not improve your hiring results much.
   If you’re still wondering what it’s worth to develop candidate management system, read my article about recruiting software development.
   
   Hiring managers would often demand for a lot of new features and rearrangements. It would be quite unprofitable for any business to satisfy the requests of its own 5-30 recruiters, because every small task would cost thousands of dollars. The side developer of a cloud-based software in contrary, benefits from releasing numerous updates and new features, because these improvements are intended for many its current customers as well as future ones. The developers of the specialized candidate management systems are forced to compete with each other constantly, thus to invest in their software a lot.
2. “Our own IT professionals will set up Jira for us, and we will share the same system with them (there may be another task tracker or CRM instead of Jira).”
   
   Dear friends, may you choose the most wonderful advanced software not intended for hiring process originally — and you will definitely get into the great strategic loss. The common task tracker will never provide resume parsing, integration with job boards and LinkedIn or any other specific function for recruiting workflow automation.
   
   I would definitely recommend to those using non-specific software to try solutions developed for candidate management and to treat their current systems as temporary ones as soon as possible.
3. “HR software by the US developers is more classy than any other one.”
   
   It’s rather false than true. Foreign users usually face some critical disadvantages of American recruitment platforms:
   
   • They usually do not provide parsing of resumes in scripts different from the English version of the Latin one (Cyrillic and others).
     

   It’s a huge drawback really. Just imagine how tedious it is to fill in each candidate’s data manually. As a consequence, recruiters would add to the CV database not all the suitable candidates, but only the selected ones who have already been sent offers to or who have been hired. As a result, the company will never have its own good talent database.
   

   • They have no integrations with local job boards.
     
   • The price is significantly higher.
     

   Updating the system at €120 per hour rate is real.
   
   There also can be advantages though:
   

   • More features provided.
     
   • Design and usability are often better.
     

   The supremacy is due to the fact American applicant tracking systems are several years longer on the market than others.

4. “We need recruitment automation software to be set on our own PCs or server because using a cloud-based system increases the risk of our data breach/loss.”
   
   It’s quite strange to hear it in modern times when all the people around constantly use a bunch of various cloud services like emails, social networks, YouTube, Dropbox, Google Drive etc.
   
   If the company’s information policy obliges you to control the data storage, then you should look for the proper HR automation solution which has the enterprise version suitable for deployment on your own server.
   
   Also, you have to keep in mind that remote data storage grants you some additional favors, as for instance:
   
   • Higher reliability (protection of cloud data centers is usually far better than that of a personal server, i. e. they have regular backups, Tier levels, etc.).
     
   • Staying beyond the reach (both physically and legally) of external structures and stakeholders.
5. “We have no time to move our database. / We will lose our old database of candidates and the history of actions with them.”
   
   Losing your database or transferring it by yourself for a long time is not an option.
   
   First of all, some candidate management services provide downloading CV files to the system in an archive format (.zip, .rar). And secondly, if there is no such function in your recruitment platform or your CV database should be transferred from another software, then this has to be done by your applicant tracking software developer.
   
   In most cases your database can be carried over during the up to one week term. The experience of CleverStaff developers allows to save to the ATS system the history of actions and comments on candidates as well.
6. “Any candidate management system won’t suit our unique staffing processes.”
   
   All good recruitment automation systems have manageable features such as: adjustable stages of tracking candidates, the ability to add custom fields to vacancies and candidate cards, the customizable report format. Another customizations are worth discussing with the ATS sales managers. If long-term cooperation is at stake, then the software supplier can develop and implement something according to your needs.
   
7. “Our management is not ready to pay for extra software.”
   
   Here are some options on how you can show off the value of the professional software solution and convince your management to make use of the recruitment CRM:
   • Even +1 closed vacancy of a valuable IT talent will over cover a whole year of using the cloud-based system.
   • Bring to light how much money the company loses because some projects do not cope with recruiting staff in time.
   • Figure out the time you spend on compiling reports to your management, if you do it manually.
   • Estimate the value of the LinkedIn contacts database of every recruiter quitting your business, supposing that these contacts will leave with him/her.
   • If you use software of your own, calculate the total costs of its developing and modifying. Consider the funds you’ve already spent on it, and the budget that should be allocated for the next year.
   • Your competitors successfully hire best staff using the professional software for candidate management, the lagging behind is unacceptable.

   
   Top companies of the USA, UK, Japan and the EU have long been systematically allocating funds for automating their business processes including staffing ones. Every enterprise management tuition or training on improvement of the company’s performance contains at least one pic in the slide show (or even a whole topic) describing the importance of CRM or another system of recording and storing information.
   I guess, not all HR managers have access to the financial outcome and budgets, but it is important to figure out the indicators listed above at least approximately. Using these calculations you can talk with your management about lost profits and help the business to expand its scale, free up from particular employees addiction, save maximum data and quickly operate it.
   I assume that someone still finds all described above inconclusive. “Every business is full of expenses anyway. Why should I urgently invest in the software for recruitment automation? I can do it someday later.” Think about it in a different way. Imagine, that you can’t run a project without the necessary professional or you do not have enough time to find the right staff, so you hire “who’s currently available.” As a result, your reputation suffers, you lose time and money because you don’t make quality hires without using professional software for recruitment management. Thus, the stakes are much higher than it seems.
   Advanced software will make recruiters more effective and bring happiness to the entire company. Do not settle for less! 😉
   
   Vladimir Kurilo
   CEO @CleverStaff