Recruiter software - natural recruiting process

Natural or not, the recruiting process can be simplified into a few basic steps.

1. Get a job order by calling clients and recording the calls for future marketing and follow up.
2. Find applicants for the job order by researching a database or databases for applicants or referral sources.
3. Call identified applicants and record calls.
4. Determine the applicant(s) to present and present the applicant(s) to the client.
5. Track the interview process to the point of hire and the applicant starting to work for the client.

That's right, only 5 steps!  This is what is alluring to a lot people thinking about recruiting as a career.  But any experienced recruiter will tell you that each of these steps demands a fantastic amount of skill, resources, marketing and tools if you are going to be successful.

To me, the job of executive search software is to make sure that each of these 5 steps can be performed without any wasted motion.  Note my emphasis is on saving recruiters time and not on features.  I cannot begin to count the features I have reviewed and discarded as being a good idea but simply not practical in the day to day activities of a recruiter.

I have always said that I could take six seniors majoring in IT from any university and come up with a recruiting system in about 6 months.   It would then take me about ten years to make it really work for a recruiter.

I think everyone would agree that there are many ways to perform the 5 steps.  But I like to think of them performed in an ultimately natural process.  We give in grudgingly to the limitations of computer code making the recruiter do something besides talking to a qualified applicant or client.

So what would be the ultimate?  Have the recruiter sit next to a phone and be told or shown who to call and be informed of the full nature and objective of the call and have all the information available that might be needed for the call without doing anything but talking. Then when this call is finished all the follow up information regarding this call is recorded without any effort by the recruiter.  Then the recruiter talks to the next client or applicant.

This is the ultimate goal of our tracking, staffing, recruiting software or whatever else you want to call it. This is what I like to call the natural process of recruiting.  To me anything else takes away from the effectiveness of the recruiter.

For example, if using a resume database or any recruitment tool causes the recruiter to stop at the end of the day to 'feed' the database just to keep the rest of the executive recruiters, management and himself informed then the recruiting system is not natural.   The recruiter had to perform a task not related to talking to an applicant or client.  The recruiter had to run back behind the lines, count noses, inform and organize for the next assault because the army was in disarray.

So with all that being said, Gopher tries to keep the recruiter primarily on the 1st of only 6 screens.  This is the calendar or daily planner.  But the planner also exposes a single note area so that the recruiter can make an informed call without doing a thing with the computer system.  The notes are taking the place of redundant comments that need to be made in a traditional tickler or follow up system.  But there is more we can do to reach the ultimate goal, even though the ultimate goal can never be reached!  We use the calendar and notes to communicate to other recruiters, eliminating the need for conversations with other recruiters about applicants and clients and 'feeding' the system to keep everyone informed.