It’s no secret that technology has had a major impact on the recruiting process. In order to keep up with the competition, it’s essential to invest in technologies and tools that can help you find qualified candidates faster and easier.
However, not all tech investments are created equal. So how do you know which ones are worth your time and money? Then how do you take that technology and make a positive ROI on it?
Matt Dickens from Astute Technical Recruitment has real-world experience in making this happen. He has leveraged technology and automation in his own 45-person firm to become more proficient and profitable.
Let’s dive into his tips on how to get a return on your technology investments—both in obvious and not-so-obvious ways.
Why should you invest in recruiting technology?
Before we get into Dickens’ tips on maximizing your recruitment technology ROI, let’s address the obvious question: why should you consider investing in recruiting technology at all? After all, if things are working for you, why should you have to change?
First of all, just because things are working now doesn’t mean they’ll work forever. Modern recruiters are quickly overtaking their traditional, stuck-in-the-mud counterparts, especially in today’s candidate-centric market.
If you don’t adapt, you’re going to fall behind. If not now, eventually. It’s better to get ahead of the curve instead of struggling later on down the line.
Plus, technology offers a number of benefits that can help you impact your bottom line (if you use it correctly):
- Reach more candidates and build bigger communities through scalable, automated communications
- Save time by automating menial, repetitive tasks—like screening, reference checking, email follow-up, review capture, and more
- Improve the quality of your hires by freeing up recruiters to spend more time on getting to know the people they work with
Although technology adoption requires an upfront investment, you’ll reap significant rewards fairly quickly.
6 tips for improving the ROI of your recruiting tech stack
Here are Dickens’ top six tips for improving the ROI of your tech stack—based on his experience with Astute Technical.
1. Adopt only the technology you need
It’s easy to get caught up in all the new technology that is available and feel like you need to adopt everything that is out there. But not all technology will provide value to you and your recruiters.
Start by identifying gaps or shortfalls in your recruiting organization, and focus on technology that helps to fill those gaps. For example, if your recruiters are having trouble following up with their candidates, consider an applicant tracking system (ATS) to keep them organized, or a recruitment marketing platform to automate their communications.
Evaluating the options and figuring out what you need specifically can be an involved process, certainly. But the time spent in being intentional and strategic in what you adopt will end up saving time, money, and frustration in the long run.
A quick note on charlatans: There are plenty of people out there who will “guarantee” a certain success rate. While that makes great marketing copy, it rarely lines up with reality. There are so many inputs that factor into success that no one can guarantee anything. If someone is aggressive with their guarantees, then they’re probably not on the level.
2. Fit the technology to your business, not the other way around
If you’re looking to modernize and scale your recruiting agency, odds are you’re doing so from a foundation of success. You shouldn’t run away from what’s working now—but embrace it!
If you already offer a great candidate experience, consider an online review platform to aid in brand promotion. On the other hand, if you struggle with reference checking, perhaps a system to automate that process can help.
Every team has unique needs, so it’s important to adjust the technology to fit your processes and culture—rather than upend your team to fit the technology.
3. Don’t just buy the tech—use it!
As important and helpful as recruiting technology can be, it’s not a silver bullet. You have to put it into practice effectively, or it just won’t work for you.
Recruiting technology is like a gym membership. You can spend money on it, but if you aren’t showing up everyday, putting in reps, you won’t get fit. Similarly, if your team doesn’t understand the value of your technology and how to realize that value, the platform is just going to sit on a shelf collecting metaphorical dust.
That means understanding all the features and functions of the various tools available, and then implementing them in a way that makes everyone’s lives easier. It can be a challenge, but it’s worth the effort. The right technology can make a big difference in efficiency and productivity, and that can translate into more placements—and profits.
4. Understand how all your technology fits together.
There are a lot of great individual platforms out there. But if you don’t regularly evaluate the capabilities of your entire stack and look for redundancies, you’ll end up paying for features you don’t need.
Too often, people approach their tech stack with a siloed mindset. They see each tool as an island and fail to understand how they all fit together. As a result, they end up with a hodgepodge of disparate tools that don’t work well together. This can lead to inefficiencies and frustration.
A better approach is to think of your tech stack as a puzzle. Each piece has a specific purpose and function, and when they’re all put together, they create a cohesive whole. The key is to find the right combination of pieces that work together to meet your specific needs.
5. Gather buy-in from all the interested stakeholders.
When it comes to adopting new technologies in your recruiting agency, it’s important to get buy-in from all interested stakeholders. That means users, managers and executives all need to be on board with the change.
The best way to get everyone on the same page is to have a clear plan for how the new technology will be used and what benefits it will bring. Once you’ve received buy-in from all of your stakeholders, you can move forward with confidence that everyone is on board with the change.
6. Look at the big-picture return on investment
When evaluating the ROI of your tech stack, there are things that don’t necessarily relate to placements—you have to make sure to look at both the quantitative and qualitative metrics.
Some things are really easy to evaluate. For instance, if you start using a new job board, and you can track how many placements you’ve made through that board, and whether the money from those placements offsets the cost.
However, some of the supporting tech you use is probably going to be much more difficult to track. In those cases, the best place to start is to define exactly what you expect to get out of the platform and what value it offers you: is it time, money, efficiency, improved flow of information through the business? If you know the benefit you expect from it, then you can measure the ROI—even if you have trouble assigning an exact dollar amount to it.
Just like with that gym membership, you won’t start to see results within a week, or even two. Consistent motion is the key to realizing the benefit of recruiting technology. That said, if you aren’t seeing something within six months or so, then you have a problem.
READ MORE: Return on Awareness: A Better Way to Measure Brand & Experience Management
Final thoughts
Recruiting technology can be a huge boon to your business, but it’s important to make sure you implement and use it correctly. Fit the technology to your business, not the other way around—don’t just buy it because everyone else is doing so.
Most importantly, understand how all of your technology works together and the long-term value it delivers. If you do these things, you’ll be well on your way to building a modern, growing, thriving agency.
