The candidate experience is traditionally split into pre and post application, but does that really makes sense for how TA leaders work in the real world?

Today, there are tech solutions to enable every workflow under the sun, and most likely not just one – many! Want to track vacation days, plan work trips, onboard new employees, or even organize a gift exchange? There’s an app for that. In fact, the Human Capital Management market as a whole was valued at 14.50 billion last year, and it’s projected to grow by nearly 30 percent by 2022 to $21.51 billion.

This is great news in terms of innovation, but for talent acquisition leaders already trying to stretch 24 hours into 25, it means a deluge of SaaS decisions. That’s why we are answering one of the most pressing questions – ‘When do I go with a blanket solution and when do I specialize?’ and applying it to candidate relationship management (CRM).

CRM has become an imperative consideration in the current climate of talent scarcity. Unemployment in the US is at a 17-year low of 3.9 percent in May of this year, there is a predicted worker shortage of 8.2 million people from 2017-2027, with an increasing number of employers already reporting a lack of qualified candidates across multiple industries. Organizations with their sights set on growth will need to distinguish themselves as A+ employers at every point of contact.

Think of CRM as “keeping in touch at scale”. One of the top candidate complaints in the hiring process is a lack of communication, which is where CRM solutions step in. Without getting too technical, CRM helps nurture potential candidates, including passive ones, so that an organization has ready access to top-talent ahead of demand. That means resurfacing formerly rejected candidates as well as finding new connections. With the right system in place, recruiters become recruitment marketers thanks to features like branded landing pages, targeted email campaigns, messaging templates, and custom reporting and analytics.

Learn the difference between ATS and CRM here!

Back to our original question: when it comes to CRM, is it better to bundle your CRM with an ATS for an all-in-one solution,  or to specialize with a third-party CRM?

The argument in favor of native CRM solutions is rooted in data quality and ease of use while specialization makes sense if the solution will significantly increase the quality of experience and work produced.

The deciding factor between native and non-native CRM is whether the candidate journey should be split up into pre and post application or not. Which makes for a better experience?

A non-native CRM breaks the candidate flow into two distinct parts— pre-application and post-application while the non-native CRM covers the pre-application phase through a nurturing system. Once the candidate has applied, their data is transferred to the ATS and funneled through the recruiting process.

This workflow would make sense if the candidate journey was linear. Unfortunately, that typically isn’t the case. Let’s say a sourcer nurtures a candidate in the CRM, processes them through the ATS, but doesn’t make the candidate an offer. Does the relationship end there? It shouldn’t. At this point, the candidate’s information must be transferred back to the third-party CRM.

Anytime there is more than one software solution as part of a recruiting workflow there must be an exchange of data, which can lead to data duplication or misplacement. This effort is worthwhile if you are siloing distinct workflows while providing a better candidate experience, but in this case, the cost outweighs the benefits.

In a general context, when and where a company decides to split the systems has to reflect the workflow or the candidate journey. This is where non-native CRM becomes problematic. The reality is that separating the nurturing process from the application process is a huge headache for recruiters and sourcers, not to mention for candidates as well.

Larger companies may have sourcers working with a CRM and recruiters/hiring managers working with an  ATS, which means sourcers may not know what has happened with candidates that pass into the ATS, causing them to neglect rejected applicants when the demand for future hires arises. For smaller companies, sourcers and recruiters are required to constantly toggle between systems,  and be unable to provide a consistent flow for the candidates as they move through the hiring process.

With native CRM is fully integrated with the applicant tracking system so there is one data flow. That means candidates have a universal profile as they move through the candidate lifecycle, which makes for consistent, updated candidate data for all parties. In addition, sourcers and recruiters can use the marketing tools of the CRM like branded landing pages in the latter half of the hiring process, for great brand consistency.

For recruiters, a quality CRM solution balances effective functionality with strong design that delivers impactful communication and consistent employer branding. While there are multiple third-party CRM solutions available on the market, a native CRM offers seamless integration with your existing workflows that doesn’t compromise candidate experience.

Learn more about SmartCRM with our VP of Product, Rebecca Carr.

Don’t lose great talent to the competition because of bad recruiting software—here’s why your hiring team needs a TA solution that makes no compromises.

Recruiting is changing on a fundamental level. Today, 36 percent of the US workforce currently freelances, and reports project this figure will grow to over 50 percent within the next decade. Conversations about the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning replacing human jobs are at the forefront of our social consciousness, and recruiting is becoming exponentially more difficult in this economy.

Traditional sourcing channels are no longer yielding the quality candidates they used to, and truly exceptional talent is not actively seeking new work opportunities, though 82 percent admit they are open to them.

As a result, recruiting is shifting from a reactive function into a proactive one, with a greater focus on candidates. Attracting passive candidates requires your company brand to stand out from others, your job offers to be highly competitive, and your recruiting practices to be fast-moving and engaging. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through feature-rich recruiting software.

The recruitment market is currently worth over $215 billion worldwide, and at a projected growth of 5.6 percent over the next few years, is estimated to be worth over $330 billion by 2025. Today’s market vendors offer talent acquisition suites and recruitment technology solutions to organizations at the enterprise, SMB, and startup level. With so many offerings available in the market—HCRM, ATS, CRM—it can be difficult to wade through the alphabet soup to decide which solution will work best for your organization.

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) systems are top choices for recruiters; however, many believe that they don’t need CRM if they already have an ATS. In reality, top recruiters rely on a solution that offers both CRM and ATS in one platform, as each focuses a specific function within the hiring process.

But what’s the difference between an ATS and CRM? And why should you use both in order to source, attract, and hire the best talent?

What is an ATS?

An ATS is a type of recruiting software that facilitates and optimizes the hiring process. It acts as a repository where recruiters and hiring managers can create and post job openings, collect and organize applications, and screen, evaluate, select, and move candidates through every step of the hiring process in one platform.

What is CRM?

A CRM system is designed to strengthen relationships between potential candidates and recruiters so that recruiters can use these candidates for future job openings. In this way, CRMs are considered part of Recruitment Marketing strategy, allowing TA professionals to create talent communities and deliver targeted messaging that helps build and nurture relationships with passive talent. That way, when it comes time to fill a rec, recruiters already have a pool of vetted candidates from which to choose.

What’s the Difference Between an ATS and CRM?

CRM systems work to scale a recruiter’s sourcing efforts by attracting passive candidates ahead of demand. Meanwhile, ATSs are built to make selection and hiring as streamlined as possible by eliminating unnecessary administrative tasks and improving the three most important hiring metrics: hiring velocity, hiring budget, and net hiring score.

In other words, an ATS is a workflow and compliance tool for managing applicants, while a CRM system is a pool of all passive and active candidates, as well as previous applicants already in your system. A bad ATS does little more than execute repetitive functions, meaning recruiting teams waste time on non-value added tasks rather than focusing on strategic initiatives.
Here are some signs that your ATS is not fully optimized with CRM:

• Multiple entry fields that require manual input
• Candidates are categorized by their current jobs or work rather than their desired work.
• No way to evaluate the candidate-recruiter relationship (i.e. measuring the candidate’s level of activity or engagement)
• No ROI (time to hire, cost per hire, quality of hire are still low)
• ATS functionality is mostly administrative work
• Hard-to-fill positions remain open for months

Why Integrating CRM With an ATS Makes Sense

Today’s candidate-centric work economy means that companies need to be aware of candidate experience now more than ever, and technology solutions that prioritize this will be critical for the success of talent acquisition leaders. Between 70 and 80 percent of recruiting happens during the pre-applicant stage, so delivering the right messaging to the right people at the right time gives companies an advantage when attracting top talent in today’s ultra-competitive market.

This can only happen when hiring teams leverage a powerful and comprehensive TA suite that seamlessly integrates CRM with an ATS in one platform. Recruiters who maintain their talent pools with CRM systems can make better, data-driven hiring decisions. And because CRM nurtures strong relationships with past, current, and future candidates, speed and efficiency are built in when it’s time to hire, making the applicant’s journey through the ATS a better experience.

With the right tools for the job, all recruiters can make great hires that drive business growth. As future industry trends emerge, the technology solutions designed to meet these demands will evolve in response, and recruiters who stay on top of what today’s exceptional candidates value will be in prime position to hire them.

See how recruiting is taking a page from sales’ playbook by adapting strategies to keep talent pools stocked with prospects.

No recruiter likes hurrying candidates through the hiring process, and no candidate wants to feel they’ll never hear from that recruiter again. These kinds of negative experiences directly affect a candidate’s impression of a company’s image, and companies need to take notice. Forty-two percent of candidates claim a poor experience would prevent them from applying to another position at a company, and 22 percent say they’d tell their friends not to bother.

At the same time, 82 percent of working professionals admit to being open to new work opportunities. Capturing their interest requires proactive strategies and a standout employer brand. Candidates open to new opportunities want to see measurable value in another company, something organizations communicate through their Employee Value Propositions (EVPs). The task of engaging passive candidates, measuring their readiness, and converting them to active applicants falls on recruiters.

One practice that talent acquisition borrowed from sales is Candidate Relationship Management (CRM), a tool becoming increasingly popular among TA professionals. With current numbers suggesting that a majority of the workforce is open to new job opportunities, recruiters and hiring managers are charged with managing a healthy recruitment function, and a CRM model ensures that businesses have an engaged, enthusiastic, and high-impact talent pipeline ahead of demand.

Rather than letting candidates slip through the cracks, a CRM model allows recruiters to make good on their promise to revisit and reconsider candidates who may have been passed over previously. This turns the recruitment function from a one-off execution into a relationship-building model that nurtures passive candidates over time. Speaking to SAP, Kyle Lagunas, Research Manager of Emerging TA Trends & Technologies at IDC, said that “by embedding candidate relationship management functionality into the core recruiting offering, candidate relationship management becomes an organic part of the talent acquisition operation — and this is proving to be a key driver of adoption.”

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS), for example, offers recruiters an overview of where active candidates are in the hiring process. Within the platform, integrated CRM technology automates communication processes with talent pools and pipeline, creating workflows that speed up recruiter efficiency, encourage candidate engagement, and improving their connection to an organization. If an ATS is crucial for sourcing and tracking candidates, then CRM is vital for long-term relationships that lead to faster, better placements in higher numbers.

At the most basic level, CRM helps shape candidates’ impressions of—and interactions with—an organization. Recruiters can use CRM to:

• Build personalized talent communities, organized, sorted, and managed to retain high-quality talent
• Organize and manage large recruitment campaigns
• Build custom career pages
• Create targeted campaigns to capture interest and assess candidates’ readiness to convert
• Build and deliver branded email, social, and web campaigns
• Share impactful content (i.e. videos or employee testimonials)

Each touchpoint is another opportunity to build rapport, increase talent pools, and maintain passive candidates. Recruiters who maintain their talent pools with CRM strategies know their candidates’ levels of interest, and can easily categorize their skills, experience, and education to make data-driven hiring decisions. And because CRM nurtures strong relationships with past, current, and future candidates, speed and efficiency are built in when it’s time to hire.

Great companies put the smart in recruiting with comprehensive and effective candidate relationship management solution.

Candidate relationship management is a model for managing a company’s impressions and interactions with potential and future hires. It involves using technology to organize, automate and synchronize the attraction, communication, and management of talent.

Easy Candidate Relationship Management (Recruiting CRM)

Business leaders need dashboards and candidate relationship solutions to give a clear view of all hiring activity at their company: new candidates expressing interest, colleagues rating, reviewing and sharing candidates, the posting of new job openings, as well as, analytics of recruiting service performance. This clear view of hiring activity, or HireLoop, only displays updates of the jobs each hiring manager, recruiter, HR professional or executive is attached to. Candidate relationship management facilitates the internal hiring discussion with colleagues and the external communication with candidates.

Great companies know every candidate touch point and are aware of what stage each candidate is in within the hiring lifecycle (from Lead to New candidate to In-Review to Interview to Offer to Hire), especially as you close in on making a hire. Not knowing where the candidate is in the hiring lifecycle is a regrettable way to miss out on a great hire. Powerful analytics give businesses insights into how to increase the quality of candidates and decrease the expenditure to hire.

Candidate Focused

With SmartRecruiters candidate relationship management and direct integration with a variety of recruiting services (the recruiting store), you can follow your candidates and your recruiting budget at the same time from anywhere.

It must be made easy for candidates to express interest in working for your company, starting with a clean job ad that maximizes conversation of all visitors. All cover letters, candidate emails, reviews and ratings build the robust candidate profile of your potential hire. In choosing a candidate relationship management solution, you must consider the barriers to adoption, such as ease of use and price per user. In our internet dominated no patience generation, implementing a new system must be as easy as sending an email to a colleague.

ROI

To attract top talent you need a candidate relationship management solution that helps you see and measure hiring activity of not only every applicant, candidate, and future hire, but also, every recruiting service expenditure (job boards, recruiter fees, database searches, candidate assessments, etc.). In today’s real-time and mobile business environment, there’s no reason for any up-front software investment that’s difficult to afford, install and maintain.

Loved

Using a great candidate relationship management platform is as easy as buying a book on Amazon.com. That means your employees will use it, so it will be a more effective tool for your business to recruit talent from all sources, collaboratively manage candidates, and ultimately scale your team. Customers, analysts, bloggers, and industry experts agree: SmartRecruiters = ease of use.

Proven

Today, over 45,000 of the world’s most innovative companies—large, medium, and small—use SmartRecruiters to hire more talented people faster.