SEATTLE—Technology, cloud computing and data continue to transform the talent acquisition space, and specialists need to stay ahead of the curve to attract talent, tech leaders said June 28 at the 2017 Talent 42 Tech Recruiting Conference.
Talent acquisition specialists must create a technology road map that will work in tandem with human resources and IT road maps, suggested Nick Mailey, vice president of talent acquisition at financial software company Intuit in San Francisco. "Developing that tech road map is critical," he added.
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Recruiting Tech Tools
"Keeping up with technology is a part of your job in talent acquisition," said William Tincup, president of RecruitingDaily.com in Dallas-Fort Worth. He recommended several tools for talent acquisition specialists:
- Candidate assessment. Arctic Shores taps into gamification to evaluate candidates, while Predictive Hire brings artificial intelligence to HR and recruitment.
- Candidate communication. Better Company lets candidates anonymously chat with employees. Text Recruit communicates with candidates and employees by text, chat and artificial intelligence (AI).
- Candidate matching. Blendoor is a merit-based matching system that strives to avoid bias, while Workshape.io ditches recruiters and resumes to find software developers.
- Employee referrals. Simppler delves into employees' digital networks, while Teamable transforms social networks into high-performance talent pools.
- Recruitment marketing. Symphony Talent brings together technology, data and creativity. Meanwhile, VideoMyJob allows recruiters to create branded video job ads to better engage job seekers and connect with the right talent.
- Screening. Both TechScreen and eTeki streamline the screening process for recruiters.
- Sourcing. AmazingHiring and Ideal use AI to find passive candidates who post on Github and StackOverflow.
Weigh Options
Tincup presented multiple factors recruiters and talent acquisition specialists should consider when they look to invest in recruitment technology products. The technology should be predictive and should provide recommendation systems, which are intelligent information filtering engines that narrow the decision-making process to a few proposals, Tincup explained.
Recruiters should question if these new technologies will be easy to access anywhere with Wi-Fi and on any device—a laptop, smartphone or tablet—and whether they will recommend how to clean data.
"Processes are always more important than products," Tincup continued. Recruiters should look for products that will fit their processes.
Once recruiters have a tech foundation in place, Mailey said, they should experiment with emerging technologies like predictive assessments and AI. During this process, Mailey advised recruiters to ask themselves:
- What business needs will you solve?
- Will the investment accelerate your business?
- Will your team adopt it?
"Don't fall in love with the technology; fall in love with the solution to the problem you are solving," Mailey concluded.
Catherine Skrzypinski is a freelance writer in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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