Today’s executive search market is complex and ever-evolving. To succeed, you need the right tools to help streamline your process, save time and align your organization around a clear strategy. Finding top talent that aligns with your culture and values is challenging at any level of the organization, but it can be even more so for an HR department that doesn’t have access to the right resources. There are so many different products on the market that it can be difficult to know where to begin. Fortunately, most executive recruitment software solutions offer similar features that facilitate a smooth onboarding process and key functionality so you can get started fast. Recruiterflow is one of the best fit for executive search software. In this article, we cover some key tips on how to choose an ESS from end-user experience all the way through to cost savings and ease of implementation.
Choose a Software Based on Key Functions
Here are some key functions that you should be looking for in your ESS:
– Candidate tracking and onboarding: The ability to efficiently onboard candidates, track their interviews and onboard them to the organization is crucial. The software should be able to communicate with your existing applications and track candidate information, including job descriptions and qualifications.
– Recruiting: Being able to review candidate information and research, as well as make contact with potential candidates to set up interviews is key. You’ll want to be able to import resumes and set up interviews with ease, track the status of the interview process, and communicate with the recruiter.
– Talent management: Managing and leveraging the data within your organization, as well as managing your team and clients’ data to make informed decisions is essential. – Benchmarking: Being able to compare your workflow with other organizations’ can be beneficial both in identifying areas for improvement and discovering how your peers are managing similar tasks.
– Onboarding: Successfully onboarding a new hire is essential to the smooth running of an organization. It can be a challenge to manage the influx of new employees at once and ensure that they’re all quickly integrated into the team.
– Reporting: Understanding where you spend time and the key areas for improvement can be beneficial to your organization’s bottom line.
Conduct a User Research Workshop
In many cases, choosing your ESS comes down to a preference of one vendor over another. However, conducting user research with users from your organization is an important way to gauge their needs and help choose an ESS that will be best for your team. During the research, you can ask for specific data about the tools that your team currently uses. This will help you better understand their workflow, identify the key areas that are causing inefficiencies and highlight any pain points that your current tools are causing.
Assess Your Organization’s Needs
During the initial assessment, it’s important to take a step back and reframe your choice of ESS by breaking down your organization’s specific needs. This will help you better understand what functionality you should be looking for in your ESS. What are the key areas that your organization is trying to improve? What are the biggest challenges your team faces on a day-to-day basis? What are the key functions that your team needs to improve?
Understand the ESS’s Strengths and Weaknesses
As you begin to investigate your top candidate ESSs, consider taking the time to learn about their different features and strengths. While some vendors may have better features than their competitors, each product may have certain areas where it excels. A useful way to do this is to create a “spider chart” in Excel or Google Sheets, which uses the same chart shape for each feature. Once you have your chart, you can begin to identify where each product is strongest and weakest. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your top candidate ESS?
Summarize Your Findings in Writing
Once you’ve completed your research and assessed the key areas and features of each product, it’s time to write up your findings. This will help you organize your thoughts and put the key findings into context, as well as highlight any areas of concern. It will also help you ensure that you’re writing up the findings accurately based on your assessment.
Take Final Notes at a Meeting Footnote
Once you’ve completed your assessment of each vendor, it’s time to take your findings to your executive search team. There are a few ways that you can do this. If your organization has a dedicated ESS pilot program, this is a great way to get your executive search team involved in piloting the new platform. You can also invite your executive search team to attend a meeting where you’ll be presenting your findings and discussing your choice of vendor. By inviting your executive search team to attend the meeting, you can help to highlight and contextualize all of the key findings and pitfalls that you’ve discovered during your assessment. It will also help to bring your team together around a single decision and help to expedite the decision-making process.
Summary
Choosing the right ESS can help to streamline your onboarding process, increase efficiency and lead to cost savings. The most important thing to do is to conduct user research with your team to understand their workflow, needs and key areas for improvement. This will help you choose the best ESS for your organization and minimize the risks of choosing the wrong one.
