When I first transitioned into a recruitment leadership role it was 1998 and the emergence of the Internet and the ASP model for Applicant Tracking Systems were emerging market disruptors. ATS’s were hitting their peak around 2000/2001, after which industry consolidation quickly followed. Yet today there is still more dissatisfaction than praise around the effectiveness of the various systems – few people/companies truly love their ATS…system or vendor. Even when terminology and systems began evolving towards Hiring Management Systems and the technology/application advanced from what had quickly become a commodity to one that could be a value-added system of integrated processes there was still a lot of pain and dissatisfaction. The industry was fragmented, vendors often didn’t listen to the customer, features and functionality delivered lots of bells and whistles that went unused – resulting in companies overpaying for the technology they had purchased. New features continued to be introduced but this was more to the satisfaction of the vendor than the client. Excellence was clearly the exception.
Internally, the absence of clarity around decision maker roles between HRIS and Recruitment functions complicated matters further since perspectives were often swayed one way or the other. The losers in the end were typically the recruiter and the job seeker/candidate. For the job seeker they simply didn’t benefit from the experience to the degree they could have and developed increased doubt about the online process. The recruiter was frustrated, overwhelmed, and still could not access the information they needed when they needed it. An important observation here is that the recruiter needed time to see how to transfer their time/skill to a different activity, one that would be even more value-added, and let the technology deliver the advantages it could. In the beginning, many recruiters resisted and/or discounted the technology. After all, their world was changing. Most acclimated in time and saw the benefits to be gained – even if they weren’t all that was desired. But this was short lived.
Ultimately the technology didn’t continue to evolve and achieve the scope of possibilities around increased efficiencies and effectiveness during a time of tremendous opportunity. Sure the majority of companies have implemented the technology, and, yes, there are more tools available and processes, to a certain degree, have been refined and improved. But, few companies have really leveraged technology and, even more importantly, the structure of the recruitment function to enhance strategies and advance the attraction, engagement, and selection of talent.
What happened? Well, basically, as new channels from which to attract talent continued to emerge the technology that was designed to simplify the process didn’t evolve at the same pace, in the same direction. Thankfully, talent attraction has moved far beyond posting to job boards but if you want to take advantage of the breadth of channels/tools from which to market opportunities – whether push or pull, you’re now looking at numerous interfaces from which to manage advertising activity and candidates. The process has sprung many leaks and there is candidate data in too many places leading to too much complexity and too much strain on the recruiting function.
Now, it’s important to state a couple of things. First, I always felt extremely fortunate that I had the opportunity to work with Gary Alpert and the team at WetFeet – which was the vendor selected during my tenure with Federated Department Stores/Macy’s Inc. I’ve written about this previously and won’t go into details again but I wanted to be clear that I don’t feel any differently about that relationship – they’re awesome! Second, its clear that through the introduction of the ATS and specifically the ASP model we are all better off than we were – there’s no doubt about that. Lastly, the absence of a single interface from which to manage job advertisements, distribution and candidates – regardless of source, represents a market opportunity. It’s unfortunate that ATS’s aren’t further along with integrated tools and processes, intuitive interfaces and a candidate experience that is value added. The most encouraging news I’ve heard recently is the addition of a CRM component from Virtual Edge.
If technology hasn’t continued to evolve and meet the most basic talent attraction and acquisition needs to add increased value; and, the number of channels recruiters are tapping into is continuously rising then something has to give. The answer – enhanced sourcing functions. Is this the new disruptor? Watch for part 2.
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