The Apple iPhone 4S, with it’s “intelligent assistant” Siri, came with great fanfare and some amazing marketing . Commercials showed actors Zooey Deschanel and Samuel L. Jackson interacting naturally with their phones, asking questions, making comments, and requesting administrative tasks of their techno-gadgets in what appear to be almost two-way conversations. To say that the actual performance of Siri, once it hit the stores, didn’t live up to the advertisements is a huge understatement. But alas, misleading advertising in the technology sector is nothing new, especially in the area of recruiting software, otherwise known as applicant tracking systems (ATS for short). TalentWoo discusses the marketing behind the dozens of applicant tracking systems that permeate today’s talent acquisition space, and the three critical features that most lack.
If you do a search in Google for “Applicant Tracking Systems” or “Recruiting Software” you will be inundated with software vendors peddling their online resume tracking and applicant sorting software. All of them will come with buzz-word-rich features like: “online careers page;” “social-media integration;” “1-click job sharing;” “post to hundreds of free job sites all at once;” and more. But the truth is, almost all recruiting software does the exact same thing – create an html link of your job opening, which can then be posted, shared, or tweeted, and which ties in to an applicant tracking system on the back-end, allowing you to view incoming applications. Most of the other features tend to be hyper-inflated descriptions of basic software functionality . A careers page, for instance is merely the url for your job advertisement; 1-click social media integration for most means there is a “share-this” feature attached (ie what comes standard with blogs); posting to hundreds of free job boards at once is misleading since job listing aggregation sites like Indeed, SimplyHired and others scour the career pages of corporate websites daily and repost openings automatically; basic applicant tracking for most small- and medium-sized companies is no more complicated a scenario than using email to track incoming messages.
The point we make is that basic software like this should be FREE, and usually is. When was the last time you paid to send out an E-vite, check your Gmail account, add a friend to your Facebook, make a connection on LinkedIn, or tweet an update on Twitter? Think about it: you don’t pay for software that allows you to send and receive messages or connect with others… do you? So why are you paying for an Applicant Tracking System? If you are an HR Manager, Recruiter, Hiring Manager or Business Owner that is looking for recruiting software to help you make great hires, we would like you to consider only using free software. That’s right – FREE software! What you should be paying for are add-on services to your applicant tracking system, such as:
Posting to paid job boards like Monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, Craigslist.com, or Dice.com. These job boards charge hundreds of dollars to post jobs on their properties because of the volume of active and passive job seekers that they can reach. Pay to advertise, but please DO NOT PAY for recruiting software!
Access to proprietary resume databases and referral networks. It definitely makes sense to pay money to ensure that your open job is marketed to qualified candidates. With resume databases and candidate lists you can send targeted email campaigns that often times generate more qualified applicants to your job than merely posting a job. Pay for targeted email marketing campaigns related to your job, but please DO NOT PAY for recruiting software!
Limited recruiting support when needed. The truth is, lack of recruiting software to track job applicants is NOT the biggest obstacle hiring managers face. It is finding qualified talent to hire. Managers want hires, not software. And the best hires usually take a bit of nudging – an email, a phone call, or a note through LinkedIn. Find a service that can do these time-consuming recruiting basics at a low cost as a way to supplement your free applicant tracking software. But please! DO NOT PAY for recruiting software!
The TalentWoo solution is the only SaaS recruiting solution that offers both automated recruiting software combined with certified hiring consultants to help drive candidates to your open jobs. The platform allows you to post your jobs to paid job boards at significantly reduced cost, gain access to a proprietary referral network of 3M professionals, and is supported with targeted email marketing campaigns by a live hiring consultant. Call TalentWoo today to find out how this ground-breaking approach to talent acquisition can increase your hiring success rate today!