The Recruiter Database has long been the foundation upon which every recruitment company has been built, with recruitment software focused on helping to administer that database. The value of a recruitment company has sometimes been measured on the quality and size of the candidates contained in the resume database. Many Preferred Supplier Listings or tenders have criteria relevant to database size. However, in the last 12-24 months the reliance on this local, private information has seemingly diminished, and the importance of having it is being marginalised.

Threats to traditional recruitment company working practices come in the form of Social Networking and Online vendors offering cloud-based repositories of available candidates along with the tools to communicate and record information. With the explosion of data and information available, the messages we hear are all about finding the best candidates via 3rd-Party Talent Pools and Networking Sites. There is no doubt that access to such information is a viable opportunity to be exploited, but is this a reason for recruitment software to move away from the traditional Recruiter Database and the inherent business processes already established?

As far as DaXtra Technologies is concerned the answer is a resounding ‘NO’. Recruitment remains a people oriented industry and we understand that working with people is primarily about relationships. Therefore, it is the unique information and perspective those relationships cultivate which sets one recruiter apart from another.

The strength of any recruiter is the ability to quickly and efficiently place the right person, in the right role, with the right client.

For any given client or role, it is imperative to know:

• The values and culture of the client
• The sort of roles they have historically recruited for
• The nature of people they have historically recruited
• The reasons why they reject or accept different candidates
• Other activities and initiatives ongoing with the client

For any given candidate, it is imperative to know:

• Prior history with the candidate
• The particular type of roles they have historically been accepted for
• The sort of roles they have historically been rejected for
• The reasons why they have been rejected or accepted in the past
• Aspects of their personality and values that make them the right ‘cultural fit’ for any given client

Absolutely none of this imperative information is available in any Online Database. This information is unique to you and your organisation, and is both in context and complementary to the values and standards inherent to the way you and your company work. It is these values and standards, which the use of the Recruitment Database enforces and complements, that makes you work as a recruitment business.

DaXtra Technologies has always been in the field of ‘Recruitment Process Automation’ and each component of our recruitment software is aimed at supporting the activities and tasks involved in recruitment. The most important thing to note is that it is your processes we look to automate and all activities are recorded and updated in the local database. The benefit is that we save recruiters time and effort away from the mundane administrative tasks thereby enabling them to focus on creating new and maintaining current business.

All activities and networking undertaken should be recorded in the Recruiter Database for the benefit of the overall business. Otherwise, any networks, information and relationships built up in an Online space, will be lost when the recruiter leaves, the provider vanishes, money for the service runs out, or when everyone moves onto the next thing.

Using DaXtra recruiter software every day saves you significant time and money. These tools enhance your Recruitment Database by means of the following features:

• Upload a Job Description and create a vacancy on the database
• Perform instant automatic CV matching for suitable candidates shortlisted to the vacancy
• Perform a multi-search for other suitable candidates as a single search brings back all results from all of your CV sources, including the local database, job boards and networking sites
• Filter and review the ranked results in a single interface, single-click to download and shortlist from external sources, make notes against reviewed candidates, with automatic recording against the local Recruitment Database
• Place an advert from a vacancy and ensure that all ad-responses are processed automatically onto the database as a 'Long-listed' / 'Applied For' record against the database vacancy as well as the Source of each application
• Additionally review overnight ad-responses, and candidates automatically matched to the vacancy, as well as results from Watchdogs run against all sources for matching criteria
• Reject unsuitable CVs to the TalentPool so that all CVs received are searchable when needed thus retaining the cost and benefit of procuring the CV for future requirements
• Create and maintain easy-to-access and use ‘Hotlists’ of the best available candidates that you come across while searching and reviewing results and share these with your team
• All candidates added to the Recruitment Database can have a client-ready CV automatically created with branding added to the original document and contact details removed making them ready for checking and sending
• All candidates added to the Recruitment Database can have an email sent with a link to Terms and Conditions (or optionally a link to a registration portal) where they can upload their details, build, and maintain an Online CV profile thereby capturing the rich information your database needs as well as the details on the CV document

There are many ways DaXtra Technologies can help ensure both the knowledge available on your internal database system and resources available on the Internet are harnessed and exploited.

All information is stored and viewed in the best context, in a single place and, more importantly, the comfort of that knowledge being private. After all, it is your knowledge, your data, and only you should be benefiting from it.

Take a look at this visual explanation on how software can speed up your time to hire, make recruiters life easier, and improve recruitment agencies efficiency.

Speed up your time to hire - Daxtra.pdf

Interested in speeding up your time to hire? Take a look at our products or contact us and find out how we can help you put your candidates in front of your clients before any competitor.

The use of online recruitment sources appears to be unstoppable, as proven by LinkedIn passing its 200 million user mark – including 11 million people from the UK. According to a Jobsite Social Recruiting Survey from the US, 92% of employers use or plan to use social recruiting to help them source candidates, a significant increase on last year’s 77%.

However, whilst LinkedIn and associated Job boards provide an invaluable source of candidate information, by design, they are unable to provide the value added service obtainable through outsourcing to an agency. If recruitment professionals solely rely upon the online sourcing of talent they will actively drive down the value attained from their own services. In short, if a recruiter depends on the sources used by everyone else, why should a customer engage with them?

A recruiter has to do something their client cannot do: find and engage the right talent for their organisation. To do this the recruiter needs specialist knowledge within the sector: they need to understand not only the job specifics but also where to source relevant candidates to match the criteria.

Turn to an online source and the recruiter is inevitably faced with a pool of talent others are considering. Clever search skills aside, a recruiter who is certain they’ve found their ideal candidate can also be certain the same candidate has been found by several other people.

Compare this to a resource that every recruitment agency should have and which every recruiter can exploit to the fullest extent: the in-house database. The in-house database offers much more than just a candidate’s CV and contact details. It can also hold comments, notes and the history of contact between the individual and the agency. If a consultant has spoken with a candidate there could be notes describing that interaction: there might be critical information here as to the candidate’s long term aspirations, availability, attitude to opportunities and past record of applications. This level of information enables the recruiter to offer the client greater value. This is more than matching CVs to job specs, more even than identifying ‘passive’ candidates: this is identifying a good match from the most valuable and reliable candidate source possible.

Give a database excellent functionality and it will repay you many times over. If a recruitment consultant understands and experiences how the technology supports their work they will continuously use it, adding to and updating candidate records as part of their everyday work.

A good database enables an agency to develop a candidate pool, to be closer to the community it serves and therefore to deliver more value to its clients. Importantly for the agency, that value is held in the database so as consultants move on and new starters join, the value is still there – a tangible, ongoing talent resource.

For recruiters who want to demonstrate a unique level of service to clients, or who aspire to delivering a global service that out-paces competition from other agencies, RPOs and in-house recruitment teams, a fully functional in-house database is critical. Not only this, but if the recruitment industry is to progress globally in the face of the onward march of online candidate sources, the continued use of and investment in recruitment dedicated databases is imperative.

Want to know more about how to enhance your internal database? Have a look at Daxtra Capture.

If you rather prefer one of our experts to help you give your internal database excellent functionality, you can now free demo.

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for recruiters, both within agencies and in-house. It has an array of tools to help recruiters communicate with potential candidates, but…

• Is it wise to rely on a tool that holds so much critical candidate information in the Cloud, rather than the traditional internal or ring-fenced databases?
  
  
• How can agencies and organisations mitigate against their employees moving on and taking a list of strong candidate contacts with them to a rival agency or organisation?

The simple answer is that they can’t. The days of protecting candidate databases like the crown jewels have gone. Businesses need to adapt in order to ensure that departing employees leave behind a record of the knowledge and experience they have acquired.

To ensure that knowledge is retained, it is now essential to enhance the functionality of existing internal databases and automatically track all searches and communication taking place within Cloud based applications. There is no denying the power and benefits of LinkedIn – it provides a wonderful opportunity for candidates to put themselves in the shop window – but if recruiters rely on a central Cloud repository, outside an agency or organisation, then there is a risk that the strength of a candidate database becomes increasingly diluted. Recruitment agencies particularly run the risk of losing any competitive edge or commercial business appeal.

In an attempt to alleviate this increasing threat, strict processes also need to be in place and rigorously enforced to ensure the full candidate history is captured and retained to reinforce database quality. The benefit of this is twofold: not only does the company retain a record should an employee move on; new employees entering the business can pick up where a predecessor has left off and understand the interactions, conversations and job opportunities that have previously occurred with a candidate.

Recruitment agencies need to be aware of the growing reliance and trend to use Cloud based tools, like LinkedIn, as a first port of call when searching for suitable candidates. Not only is it becoming close to impossible to police, but it is becoming the norm to conduct an Internet based search. Data quality is ultimately what separates a recruitment agency from the competition – the ability to monitor and extend candidate information is key. Agencies need to ensure that their recruitment software has the flexibility to allow external searches to take place, but also the functionality to easily record the results back in their own internal databases.