6 Ultimate Steps to Choose the Best Hiring Platform

A hiring platform has a plethora of benefits. More than what you could count on one hand. Maybe even both.
But the truth is, finding the best hiring platform is not as easy as you may have thought it would be. You’ve probably sat for endless hours on Google, researching every single hiring platform available on earth.
Every vendor is saying how different it is from the competition. Every teammate is looking for something specific. Time is ticking and the only thing you got out of this is a headache.

To find the perfect hiring platform for your business, you need to follow a few steps first.

And in this blog post, you’ll learn how to compare, evaluate and choose the hiring platform that suits your hiring needs – and your wallet.

Assess your hiring needs first

This step is inevitable when scouring for a hiring platform. What are your hiring needs? Goals?
Every company has their fair share of challenges. They could be internal shortages, lack of expertise, or increased turnovers. So make sure you come up with a specific list of requirements. A fair place to start is by distinguishing your “must-haves’’ from preferences. What you want may not always be what you need.

This is why you must have a clear list of things that you want your next awesome hiring platform to fix or improve. Do you want to enhance your time-to-hire, quality-of-hire, and other recruitment metrics? If that’s the case, then you’re going to have to loop your talent acquisition team in, and get their feedback. Perhaps you’ll figure out that there are other bottlenecks in the hiring process that slipped your notice.

Here’s a list of possible hiring needs:

• The need to reduce hiring costs
• The need to provide a stellar candidate experience
• The need to improve the employer brand
• The need to assess candidates more thoroughly
• The need to get more valuable insights
• The need to graduate from outdated spreadsheets

Once you create a thorough list of hiring needs, you’ll be ready to move on to the next step.

Work out your recruitment budget

Just like going shopping, planning your recruitment budget in advance will go a long way.

A good place to start is by estimating the total number of hires that you want to make. If you’re not sure yourself, perhaps you can have a talk with your hiring manager. Organize a meeting to discuss past hiring budgets and upcoming objectives. If you’re not sure how to budget your number of hires, you can always use a recruitment yield ratio. And if you’re not sure what that is, it’s simply dividing the number of hirable candidates resulting from stage (n) over the total number of candidates to came in stage (n). This ratio will quickly show you the efficiency of your hiring process.

Then, start estimating your basic hiring needs. Such as job boards, recruiters’ salaries, employer branding, and other miscellaneous costs. And don’t forget about fixed costs. Perhaps you’d like to participate in recruiting events or partner with institutions. Be sure to factor that in.

Look for an innovative and agile hiring platform

Now that you got a good idea of your recruitment budget, it’s time to dig into the good stuff.
First and foremost, don’t just look for a hiring platform that will solely manage the resumes flowing in. You need to look for an innovative and agile technology that will help you stay relevant in this digital age. So here are a couple of pointers to keep in mind:

• Make sure it fits your company’s size. So if you’re a startup, your needs will be different than a corporate’s. Perhaps you don’t need all the features that the hiring platform has to offer. And vice versa.

• Offers a wonderful user experience. At the end of the day, you want to invest in a technology that is easy to use, intuitive, and user-friendly. You want your entire talent acquisition team to get on board without the hassle. They will be using it on a regular basis after all.

• Provides advanced analytics. It’s crucially necessary to have a hiring platform that provides BI analytics and data-driven insights. So be sure to choose one that offers real-time reports that can help you keep track of your recruitment process.

• Contains the features your company needs. Maybe you’re looking for simple features such as automating communication and categorizing candidates. Or, you might be looking for other advanced features that will take your hiring to the next level. Such as AI-powered rankings, candidate screening, customizable pipelines, world-class integrations, and numerous job boards.

Once you keep these few points in mind, it will become relatively easier for you to pinpoint the right hiring platform once you see it.

Get the demo process right

As they say “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”. The real value of something can only be judged through practical experience.

Before you start inviting in numerous salespeople to your office (or via Zoom), we recommend you cut to the chase and book an online demo. This way you can identify in advance if this hiring platform fits perfectly into your company, like a glove. And when you book a demo, pay special attention to the following:

• Sourcing. In today’s hyper competitive market, the best candidates rarely seem to apply. This is why it’s fundamentally important to find a hiring platform that can seamlessly source candidates, improve reply rates, and convert top talent with ease.

• Managing pipelines. So many companies invest a lot of money on resources that go into talent acquisition. It costs a lot to get candidates into your pipelines and database. But the truth is, you need a hiring platform that won’t have you wrestling with it just to find the best candidates. Look for a hiring platform that automatically helps you manage, organize, and filter through candidates.

• Candidate experience. At the end of the day, you can’t sweep the candidate experience under the rug. It’s one of the most important parts of the hiring process. You can’t precisely overlook it. So make sure the hiring platform can boost engagement with candidates through automated follow-up emails and a personalized process.

Make your final decision

Before you make the final decision and jump straight into signing the contract – make sure your shortlisted hiring platforms share information from their clients. You’ll want to read enough reviews and testimonials before you invest in the technology. You can always opt to reach out to trusted colleagues in your network, or use LinkedIn as a useful tool for recommendations. Talk to your fellow HR professionals and find out what they think of the hiring platform of your choice.

Before you make your final decision, make sure that you collected everything you need to know about this technology, and you’re 100% sure of your choice.

Monitor and keep track of results

Now that you’re done with the heavy work, it’s time to put it to test.

Give yourself and your team some time to adjust to the new hiring platform. Give it a good whirl and take the time to familiarize yourself with its features. Think of it like driving a new car. You test the breaks, look for comfort, check the tech, and take it for a long drive.

The same thing goes for your hiring platform. Keep monitoring the results. Are your teammates collaborating more? Did you nail your first hire much sooner than expected? Have you saved a good chunk of hiring costs in the first month? If yes, then evidently it’s working for you. If not, then you might need to give it one last chance before considering a switch.

Remember that list of hiring needs you created in step one? Keep track and see if the hiring platform has helped you successfully meet them. Go over them one by one, and check them off the list. See what’s remaining and discuss with your team if they’re all feeling the same way about the technology. This is the best way to figure out if you made the best choice!

In short

We know that looking for the perfect hiring platform can be a bit overwhelming. So the best thing to do is: search and check 3 to 5 hiring platforms that have awesome reviews and offer all the features you’re looking for. Then, begin shortening your list by reaching out to the providers when needed.

EVA-REC is an on-demand hiring platform that automates and improves the hiring process with AI technology. From small businesses to industry giants – EVA-REC offers fully customizable world-class features that help create a rich and immersive hiring experience for everyone. It’s known for helping enterprises drive merit-based, objective, and fair hiring practices that minimize bias, without dehumanizing the hiring process. Start your 14-day free trial and see how it can help you hire top talent starting today!

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