How Recruiting Tools Can Streamline Your Tech Hiring Process

Experiencing a bottleneck in your tech hiring process? Using effective recruiting technology is one way to streamline your process. However, it can be difficult to introduce new ways of working, or properly leverage existing recruiting tools within your hiring team.

In our recent Untold Stories webinar, we explored the kinds of HR tools available, a few common misconceptions around them, as well as how to use them to their full potential.

Hosted by Deborah Watt, our Head of Talent Acquisition, panellists Willem Wijnans (Leading EMEA Go-To-Market at Ashby) and Luke Shipley (Co-Founder at Zinc) led the discussion looking at how recruiting tools are changing the way we hire.

Why tech recruiting tools matter for your tech hiring process

According to Willem, we’re in the early stages of widespread HR tech adoption. “There are still a lot of people that don’t see the value of automating some recruitment processes,” he said.

Recruitment tools allow companies to gain an upper hand in a tech hiring climate that remains competitive despite recent cooldowns in the market. These give in-house teams a better chance at creating a faster and more efficient hiring process that provides a better developer experience.

With the rise of remote work, companies are competing on a global stage for the same tech talent. Furthermore, from small startups to Big Tech, everyone is hiring to address their software needs. Companies with efficient systems that incorporate the HR tools matching their needs have a better shot at finding and attracting the right developers for their open tech roles.

Recruiting technology misconceptions to combat

According to Willem, one of the “longstanding elephants in the room” is that technology will completely take over human jobs. Artificial intelligence and automation are at the heart of people’s concerns here. “A total reliance on AI is not going to happen,” he told attendees.

The human element will always be important for building connections with your technical candidates. However, AI can simplify a lot of your processes. One suggestion from the webinar was to reframe it to IA, or “intelligent assistance”. This looks at automation as a way to complement the hiring process, rather than running it completely.

“All the tech that's out there helps amplify a recruitment team’s strengths,” Willem added. “I'm not worried about us getting replaced.”

By spending less time doing manual work that can be automated with tooling, hiring teams have more capacity to connect with tech candidates and spend time on meaningful work.

The HR tools available and how they work

There are many different HR tools on the market today. Tools vary by practical application, ranging from those that focus on a specific area to all-in-one solutions.

Examples of these tools include

Applicant tracking systems

An Applicant Tracking System (or ATS) is an industry-specific tool that many employers and recruiters already rely on for managing their recruitment process. This type of recruitment software is efficient in terms of broader management, and attractive because they come at varying price points.

Examples of ATS systems: Ashby, Workable, Greenhouse, Lever.

Tech recruitment platforms

Other recruitment tools, like OfferZen, help with finding scarce talent and quickly building a pipeline of candidates. This removes the element of cold outreach and manually searching for promising tech talent.

“This is appealing for recruiters, because you’re reaching out to ‘warm’ candidates that won’t be as likely to turn you down,” said Willem.

Background checks and onboarding tools

Platforms, such as Zinc, help hiring teams spend less time conducting routine tasks such as background checks manually, by automating this process instead.

Tools such as Introist slots into the onboarding part of the employee experience.

How to implement HR tools in your organisation

So you’ve identified an exciting tool that can make a major difference to your hiring team. Now what? Getting buy-in for wider adoption of a new HR tool can be a challenge.

The most important point to drive home for executives in your business is what your hiring team could be spending their time on, were it not for tasks that could easily be automated with a HR tool instead.

Luke and Willem discussed the following key steps for tech recruitment teams to get buy-in for the adoption of a new tool:

Identify the biggest bottleneck in your recruitment funnel

“Start with the biggest problems that you're facing, and try to have some clear outcome from that,” said Luke. “You want to get X amount of hours back, or perhaps you want to stop spending time doing scheduling, for example.”

Start by scoping out the amount of manual work hours this is taking your team. Next, identify the best tool to automate this part of your process, and demonstrate the impact that would have to other leaders with buying power in your organisation: What work could you be doing if all those hours were spent on other work, instead of the bottleneck?

Managing changes in your team’s workflow

Once you’ve adopted a new tool, properly managing this change within your company presents a different set of challenges. There will likely be some initial issues as the team gets used to using a new tool, with long-term results typically coming at the six-month mark.

“You're likely going to get better engagement if you can get people excited about the change,” said Luke.

To do this, he recommended including them in the journey of adopting the new tooling from the very beginning. This means finding out what their specific needs are, and involving them in the process to select a new tool.

“That way, they understand what's coming and they're brought into this change before it happens, rather than it being forced upon them.”

Connect systems wherever possible

The webinar discussion touched on cross-tool integration and the challenges of how this blends into your existing tech stack. Luke suggested that all pieces of tech should be collecting information while talking to each other wherever possible.

There are endless ways and combinations to go about doing this, with some no-code platforms offering the capability to do so already. “You can push information around in a way that just wasn't possible 10 years ago”, he added.

Encouraging your team to explore and learn about new tools

It’s essential to have an open mind about how technology can enhance your recruiting process. Willem encouraged HR managers to look critically at all the solutions currently in rotation, defining where they add specific value.

The same goes for getting the most out of new systems. Adopt a view towards learning more as you go. An eagerness to stay curious about new recruiting tech is important too, otherwise your competitors may end up beating you to the punch.

A unique window of opportunity

There is some advantage to the current cooldown in the hiring market: Quieter hiring periods are an ideal time to change processes that aren’t quite working to their full capabilities anymore.

Finding the right recruitment tools based on the needs of your business is fundamental to an efficient hiring process.

There’s a clear window of opportunity to incorporate recruiting technology in a way that changes the way you hire for the better.

Read more

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