It may feel like the whole world is talking data-driven decision making and analytics. But awareness around the benefits for so many industries keeps growing. And for the recruitment sector, it is no different. This is an article written for us by Archana Dhankar at Dynistics who are joining us at the technology and social media conference on 16th June.
2016 is a year where technology has been placed firmly at the top of the agenda by UK recruiters. From applicant tracking systems (ATS) to candidate relationship management (CRM) systems, as well as technology for video interviewing, recruiters are trying to get to grips with the automation and increased productivity these tools offer. But ultimately recruiters are looking at how to gain business value from technology investment to enable them to grow, remain competitive, streamline processes and drive efficiencies. This will be the subject of the forthcoming UK Recruiter technology and social media event on 16th June. We will be joining other technology providers to look at how recruitment companies can stay ahead of the game by learning about technologies and tools to help them compete more effectively.
We heard recently at the Recruiter’s Director’s event about how technology can enable recruiters to make insightful decisions based on their business’ financial data. Extend this analysis across the organisation and recruiters can use data to start to pin-point and more accurately predict their growth, skills development, competitive strategies, productivity and performance management strategies which, successfully managed, will result in growth. And growth is the key to sustainability and success in this market.
So how can other UK recruiters learn from these successful operators? What are the future challenges and barriers to growth? Most would argue that the challenges remain the same; how to do more for less in an increasingly competitive market, and ideally more profitably. The smart operators are moving to data-driven decision making, recognising that business intelligence (BI) and analytics tools are critical in delivering greater visibility across their whole business. What does this deliver? It’s clear from feedback from our own recruitment clients that an investment in the right technologies such as effective dashboards can help them to assess the effectiveness of their processes. This combined with an integrated view of their data and the ability to have access to this real-time, is taking the guess work out of core recruitment operations. Big Data tools are making it far easier to plan ahead and prioritise. By gaining a single reporting view (the much reported “one version of the truth” concept), recruiters are able to take a more analytical and informed approach to appointing the right staff. They can be confident that their data is accurate and hence the value back to their business. Fast access to business performances information via a dashboard enables companies to make the right decisions quickly which will ultimately deliver increases in revenues. Dashboard technology is also proving to be an invaluable tool for staff benchmarking. Using data to analyse and compare the productivity and success of consultants across branches, sectors or regions, for example, enable firms to set a gold standard for consultants to aspire to.
Thankfully, the ability to pull data from varies sources across the business and understand it better – called recruitment analytics – is enabling professionals to have more power over their operations that ever before.
These are our key considerations for recruiters considering data management systems:
- Recruiters need to ensure their data systems have the flexibility to connect and sync data from a wide range of information sources e.g. social media, Google analytics, finance systems etc.
- These data systems also need to operate in real-time so that all data, across all sources, is live and up to date in order to be able to make decisions based on the latest available information.
- They also need access to tools which will aid with the interpretation of that data, to be able to identify trends and gaps.
The opportunity for growth undoubtedly lies in using low-cost yet effective BI tools, such as dashboards, to gain the holy grail of the connected recruitment consultancy. For smart recruiters investing now in the tools to deliver business insight, there are certainly exciting opportunities to get one step ahead of what is a highly competitive market.
For more information about how you can gain control of your data to drive your business growth, visit our website or get in touch directly; we’re always keen to hear from you to understand challenges and get feedback. You can also look at some of Recruitment Dashboard Demos we have created to showcase how Active Dashboards can add value to your business.
We will be attending the Recruitment Technology & Social Media Conference 16th June in London. For more information on the event or to register click here.
