Recruiter toolkit
For the last 10 years, I constantly have to deal with recruiting in the IT field, that is, both industries are like relatives to me. It was this proximity that gave me an interesting thought.
The last decade was marked by the total automation of various business processes, technologies replace each other faster and faster (sometimes it becomes even scary). The evolutionary chain of HTML> Interactive Web> SaaS (aka Cloud)> Social Communities flashed like in one day. The Internet has just bloomed with services in the "clouds", in which you can find almost everything today: movies, mail, business, photos, communication with friends, bookkeeping, taxes and even government services. But, oddly enough, I can not find a Russian-language service that would help me in automating and simplifying the recruiting process. I can not find either a "cloud" service, or a specialized application. Neither paid nor free.
Many will now object: “Where are you looking? Yes, there are hundreds of them, if not thousands ... ”. It is true, there are many of them, but they are all some kind of "one-sided"; Ie solve one problem, but at the same time create another. Considering the demo of many of them, I cannot answer the elementary question for myself: “Why would I buy this program, what will it help me with?”. And here I will now try to describe in more detail my “problems” and how I solve them today. Maybe someone will come in handy as advice, maybe someone will advise me an online service or an application that solves them more effectively.
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Position requirements
Surely everyone is painfully familiar with setting a task for a recruiter in the form of “find me a cool programmer”. It seems to be clear what needs to be done, but what does a “cool” programmer look like? The answer is obvious - for everyone in their own way. How to make the recruiter and the future manager of this programmer understand the requirements in the same way? I usually resort to this method:
The process is simple, but time consuming. My role in this process is absolutely mechanical and, for sure, can be replaced by a simple program or a web page (if there is a good base of basic requirements for different positions).
Process definition
It is no secret that each position requires its own process of selection and evaluation of candidates. In addition to such standard steps as search, pre-selection, interview, verification of documents, etc. there are specific steps such as driving for drivers, a test of technology knowledge for a programmer, a test for attention to detail for a quality specialist, etc.
For a long time I made up the process in my head, coordinated it with the future manager and the management of the company, changed it as necessary. By and large, did not lead in any way. With the increase in the number of open positions and their diversity, this moment turned into chaos. The chaos has been replaced by a CRM system with a classic sales funnel. Not ideal, but after the completion of the file and a small scuffle with the sales department, the system worked and began to help a lot. I defined my own “funnel” pattern for each type of position in the CRM system, began to push candidates into it and drive it through the process.
It seems to be all decided, but the solution is again not perfect. The CRM system limits my capabilities, plus it is also used by the sales department, so I do not have enough flexibility with its configuration. I do not consider it expedient to install my own copy of the CRM system, this will be compared with the shooting of a cannon on sparrows.
Search for candidates
The classic problem of any recruiter. Search for personnel in IT has always been a problem, and in fact in any country in the world. You have to hunt everywhere. I have in my arsenal several channels of "traffic":
Ask what's a minus here? Minus one - the complexity and cost of the process of maintaining such channels. It takes a good part of my time and eats up a decent amount of money every month. And again, I don’t see why not to replace all of this with a kind of “social network” where one could “give away” unsuitable candidates, in return, “get” candidates who are unsuitable to others. After all, just the more I gave, the more I got in return.
Preliminary selection
For me, this is problem number one. Nothing complicated, you need to run through the resume, catch the key points, select the right ones, call and ask a few simple questions to assess the adequacy of the candidate. Mechanical work, but takes a lot of time. I had to work in conditions where in the day came up to 300 resumes per position.
I tried the "classic" solution with the "girl from the call-center." This solution works, but I prefer not to resort to it. She studies for a long time, is unable to adjust the questions herself and change the order of conversation on the situation The result is usually poor quality. And the most unpleasant thing about this decision is that when this girl falls on a superstar candidate, she continues to ask stereotyped questions with an indifferent intonation and, thereby, kills any interest of the candidate to work in our company.
Saw some good decisions in the west. One of them is the so-called “video-recruiting”, where the candidate is asked to turn on the webcam and microphone (well, who doesn’t have them now?) And answer a few questions asked on the screen. Paradise for a recruiter, free time appeared - I looked at a dozen or two “inbound” interviews, sent the most interesting ones to the future manager. Liked candidates are already being processed (reading a resume, call, etc.).
Interview Schedule
The task is to synchronize the schedules of many people. Nothing complicated, you can use any calendar or organizer. The only problem is another program that needs to be kept close at hand. Theoretically, you can use the same CRM, but it just so happened that I use the calendar in MS Outlook to organize my personal time, but I did not find a simple way to synchronize with CRM.
No simple solution comes to mind for this minor problem, but the thought of video recruiting is stubbornly jumping in my head.
Candidate rating
The number of tools for evaluating candidates is truly large. Starting from the manuals, and ending with ready-made programs. HR forums are just overflowing with topics dedicated to candidate assessment techniques, compatibility with corporate culture, tests for intelligence and so on and so forth. Yes, I use them quite successfully.
Everything is good, but the variety is not happy. There is no single and convenient system. Brainbench.com comes to mind with its advanced testing and evaluation base. Many companies in the west use this system. Do we have analogues? I did not see.
Visibility of the current state of the search process
Our company has several offices scattered around the world. I had to act as a “customer” to search for new people in remote offices. A typical problem that I encountered was the lack of visibility for the recruitment process and, as a result, the lack of ability to predict the success of a search or change the requirements in time. A typical answer that I often received: “I’m looking for, like there were two, rang, did not ring… there were three more, got through, turned out to be one of those two, invited another one, the first one came, everyone didn’t come”. Brrr ... All I want to see are some indicators of current activity (how many new candidates came from which channels, what process they went through, what percentage of disqualification, what the main reason, how many candidates are in processing now, how far they are from the result and etc.). Having this visibility, I can approximately predict the success of such a search, if it is necessary - to abandon the search or change the requirements.
Of the solutions, again, "sales funnel" with all its inconveniences and limitations.
Database of candidates and interview results
How does any recruiter start searching for candidates for an open position? Well, of course, from the database of candidates he or she possesses. What does this base look like? How convenient is it to look in it? I went through several stages in my career:
Summarizing, we can conclude that the CRM system solves half of the typical problems of a recruiter, but it is not a convenient and simple solution. The author sees the ideal solution as an online system (or “cloud” system, as it is called today), providing a solution for most problems on its own, or integrating solutions to single problems from third-party developers. Even if such a system will cost the author tangible money. The author of the article of such a system so far, alas, does not see. Or not looking there?
The last decade was marked by the total automation of various business processes, technologies replace each other faster and faster (sometimes it becomes even scary). The evolutionary chain of HTML> Interactive Web> SaaS (aka Cloud)> Social Communities flashed like in one day. The Internet has just bloomed with services in the "clouds", in which you can find almost everything today: movies, mail, business, photos, communication with friends, bookkeeping, taxes and even government services. But, oddly enough, I can not find a Russian-language service that would help me in automating and simplifying the recruiting process. I can not find either a "cloud" service, or a specialized application. Neither paid nor free.
Many will now object: “Where are you looking? Yes, there are hundreds of them, if not thousands ... ”. It is true, there are many of them, but they are all some kind of "one-sided"; Ie solve one problem, but at the same time create another. Considering the demo of many of them, I cannot answer the elementary question for myself: “Why would I buy this program, what will it help me with?”. And here I will now try to describe in more detail my “problems” and how I solve them today. Maybe someone will come in handy as advice, maybe someone will advise me an online service or an application that solves them more effectively.
')
Position requirements
Surely everyone is painfully familiar with setting a task for a recruiter in the form of “find me a cool programmer”. It seems to be clear what needs to be done, but what does a “cool” programmer look like? The answer is obvious - for everyone in their own way. How to make the recruiter and the future manager of this programmer understand the requirements in the same way? I usually resort to this method:
- I find 20-30 job descriptions for a similar position, choose the most specifically described requirements from them, make a list. The list of requirements is grouped into logical categories (for example, "Technology", "Experience", "Personal Qualities", "Foreign Languages", etc.)
- Together with the future manager, I go through the list, I ask him to make a portrait of the ideal candidate, guided by the list as an instruction.
- I am composing a position description on the basis of the portrait of an ideal candidate, adding all sorts of corporate requirements (such as “Registration”) and voila!
The process is simple, but time consuming. My role in this process is absolutely mechanical and, for sure, can be replaced by a simple program or a web page (if there is a good base of basic requirements for different positions).
Process definition
It is no secret that each position requires its own process of selection and evaluation of candidates. In addition to such standard steps as search, pre-selection, interview, verification of documents, etc. there are specific steps such as driving for drivers, a test of technology knowledge for a programmer, a test for attention to detail for a quality specialist, etc.
For a long time I made up the process in my head, coordinated it with the future manager and the management of the company, changed it as necessary. By and large, did not lead in any way. With the increase in the number of open positions and their diversity, this moment turned into chaos. The chaos has been replaced by a CRM system with a classic sales funnel. Not ideal, but after the completion of the file and a small scuffle with the sales department, the system worked and began to help a lot. I defined my own “funnel” pattern for each type of position in the CRM system, began to push candidates into it and drive it through the process.
It seems to be all decided, but the solution is again not perfect. The CRM system limits my capabilities, plus it is also used by the sales department, so I do not have enough flexibility with its configuration. I do not consider it expedient to install my own copy of the CRM system, this will be compared with the shooting of a cannon on sparrows.
Search for candidates
The classic problem of any recruiter. Search for personnel in IT has always been a problem, and in fact in any country in the world. You have to hunt everywhere. I have in my arsenal several channels of "traffic":
- Three dozen recruiters from related companies and personnel agencies with whom we work on partnerships (share inappropriate candidates themselves).
- A dedicated person whose task is to continuously post vacancies on various sites over and over again to be “at the top” all the time.
- Paid services of job search sites, such as banners, VIP vacancies, contextual advertising
- And, of course, a mouthpiece within the company, which constantly broadcasts about open positions and offers rewards for suitable candidates.
Ask what's a minus here? Minus one - the complexity and cost of the process of maintaining such channels. It takes a good part of my time and eats up a decent amount of money every month. And again, I don’t see why not to replace all of this with a kind of “social network” where one could “give away” unsuitable candidates, in return, “get” candidates who are unsuitable to others. After all, just the more I gave, the more I got in return.
Preliminary selection
For me, this is problem number one. Nothing complicated, you need to run through the resume, catch the key points, select the right ones, call and ask a few simple questions to assess the adequacy of the candidate. Mechanical work, but takes a lot of time. I had to work in conditions where in the day came up to 300 resumes per position.
I tried the "classic" solution with the "girl from the call-center." This solution works, but I prefer not to resort to it. She studies for a long time, is unable to adjust the questions herself and change the order of conversation on the situation The result is usually poor quality. And the most unpleasant thing about this decision is that when this girl falls on a superstar candidate, she continues to ask stereotyped questions with an indifferent intonation and, thereby, kills any interest of the candidate to work in our company.
Saw some good decisions in the west. One of them is the so-called “video-recruiting”, where the candidate is asked to turn on the webcam and microphone (well, who doesn’t have them now?) And answer a few questions asked on the screen. Paradise for a recruiter, free time appeared - I looked at a dozen or two “inbound” interviews, sent the most interesting ones to the future manager. Liked candidates are already being processed (reading a resume, call, etc.).
Interview Schedule
The task is to synchronize the schedules of many people. Nothing complicated, you can use any calendar or organizer. The only problem is another program that needs to be kept close at hand. Theoretically, you can use the same CRM, but it just so happened that I use the calendar in MS Outlook to organize my personal time, but I did not find a simple way to synchronize with CRM.
No simple solution comes to mind for this minor problem, but the thought of video recruiting is stubbornly jumping in my head.
Candidate rating
The number of tools for evaluating candidates is truly large. Starting from the manuals, and ending with ready-made programs. HR forums are just overflowing with topics dedicated to candidate assessment techniques, compatibility with corporate culture, tests for intelligence and so on and so forth. Yes, I use them quite successfully.
Everything is good, but the variety is not happy. There is no single and convenient system. Brainbench.com comes to mind with its advanced testing and evaluation base. Many companies in the west use this system. Do we have analogues? I did not see.
Visibility of the current state of the search process
Our company has several offices scattered around the world. I had to act as a “customer” to search for new people in remote offices. A typical problem that I encountered was the lack of visibility for the recruitment process and, as a result, the lack of ability to predict the success of a search or change the requirements in time. A typical answer that I often received: “I’m looking for, like there were two, rang, did not ring… there were three more, got through, turned out to be one of those two, invited another one, the first one came, everyone didn’t come”. Brrr ... All I want to see are some indicators of current activity (how many new candidates came from which channels, what process they went through, what percentage of disqualification, what the main reason, how many candidates are in processing now, how far they are from the result and etc.). Having this visibility, I can approximately predict the success of such a search, if it is necessary - to abandon the search or change the requirements.
Of the solutions, again, "sales funnel" with all its inconveniences and limitations.
Database of candidates and interview results
How does any recruiter start searching for candidates for an open position? Well, of course, from the database of candidates he or she possesses. What does this base look like? How convenient is it to look in it? I went through several stages in my career:
- Archive of letters in a separate Outlook folder. It seems everything is there, but there is no history of working with the candidate and it is difficult to filter out the person’s specialty on the subject of the letter (although I got it to use subfolders).
- Archive of letters, plus Excel file with information about the candidate. A little more convenient filtering and search, there was information about the results of interviews and opinions about the person. It is still inconvenient to store related materials (files with completed tasks for example). Plus, it is often necessary to match several letters related to one candidate.
- Good old CRM system. So far, the most successful option, solved all the problems described above.
Summarizing, we can conclude that the CRM system solves half of the typical problems of a recruiter, but it is not a convenient and simple solution. The author sees the ideal solution as an online system (or “cloud” system, as it is called today), providing a solution for most problems on its own, or integrating solutions to single problems from third-party developers. Even if such a system will cost the author tangible money. The author of the article of such a system so far, alas, does not see. Or not looking there?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/285366/
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