As seen on Forbes
The backbone of every company is the manpower behind its development. Therefore, recruiting is paramount to every company’s strategy and long-term success. Think about it: How can you have stellar support without great customer service reps? How can you achieve record-breaking sales without great salespeople? How can you create great products without the best engineers?
There is a massive amount of pressure on human resource (HR) professionals to find, screen and hire the best talent available in the market. A company is only as strong as the people it employs. That all boils down to one department, and it creates a crucial need for a strong and efficient recruiting process.
If you spoke to a recruiter a couple decades ago, their day-to-day tasks would be extremely different than those of an HR professional today. Although the end goals of the job are the same, the ways in which those goals are reached have drastically shifted.
In the early days of recruitment, most companies tracked the status of candidates through Microsoft Excel and email. This tended to be very laborious for the recruitment team and demanded that staff be constantly logging into third-party applications to achieve the results they needed. There were a lot of moving parts in the old days of HR — and a huge lack of technology — compared to 2017.
The rise of technology, particularly cloud-based tools, disrupted the recruiting industry. It provided an opportunity for entrepreneurs and software professionals to enter the space. HR professionals now had access to software that centralized their recruiting process from job board distribution to candidate pipelines. The space became flooded with applicant-tracking systems aimed to streamline the recruiting process.
The key to surviving in the early software market was flexibility. A lot of these emerging systems did not remain on the market long due to their lack of functionality and increasing competition. As technology continued to evolve, mobile capabilities and a variety of web browsers became huge challenges when creating a centralized platform.
Prescreening questions, auto rankings, employee referral portals and background checks expedited the selection process. Payroll, calendar management, tools and electronic form integrations simplified onboarding. Some applicant tracking systems (ATS) can host up to 15 distinct integrated portals to streamline the recruiting process from cradle to grave.
The cloud also allowed for access to a large distribution network in real time. Job boards and search engines became very powerful tools for reaching candidates actively searching for employment. Social media then presented the opportunity to get job openings in front of candidates who were not actively searching.
Human Resources quickly moved from a regional scale to a global one. It soon became possible to reach the best candidates no matter where they were in the world.
Finally, integrations were key to recruiting toolkits. Early players that integrated with other companies in the HR space turned their software into a powerhouse. The consolidation of third-party integrations brought opportunities like payroll and skill assessments into that single platform. ATS systems completely revolutionized recruitment.
So what else could possibly develop?
Artificial intelligence is a crucial addition coming to most cloud-based systems. AI is the future of technology and especially important to the future of HR. There has never been a more exciting time in HR, as AI will be the ultimate tool for deeper insight when it comes to recruiting job candidates.
Proactive companies that integrate AI into recruitment will become the next generation of shining stars.