An ATS is for hiring applicants.
An executive search process needs something different.
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Businesses striving to staff their teams with the market’s best talent are thinking beyond reactive searches to full-scale talent pipelining – building maps and data libraries on exceptional performers in their markets they may one day wish to invite to join their teams.
From a technology perspective, needs are changing fast.
ATS platforms geared towards management of inbound applications can’t keep pace with an increased focus on pro-active candidate identification, engagement and relationship-building.
Enter the staffing CRM…
In most commercial sectors, the twin key drivers of core market activity are supply and demand. In the hiring of senior-level staff, however, it’s not as simple as that.
Talent is not a commodity. So for the most senior levels in an organization, the correct hiring decision is strategic, with strategic implications. It can make or break an organization.
Certain skillsets or experiences tend to see spikes or slumps in employer demand based on business needs and change.
Behind the scenes, the factors impacting these demand fluctuations can be varied. They could be regulation changes, emerging technologies or specialist subject matter expertise in topical issues.
Whatever the cause, it’s common to watch ‘demand’ for more junior candidate profiles fluctuate as employer goals and applicant skillsets align.
But – whilst that may be true for the majority of the workforce – in the upper echelons of business leadership, things are different.
Less affected by short and mid-term issues or business cycles, proven executives remain in high demand throughout almost all business climates and environments.
A great leader is a great leader. And the versatility and applicability of leadership skills ensure that business executives with strong track records are always sought-after.
This ‘permanent demand’ creates unique challenges for internal search teams focused on senior-level hires. They face continual competition to attract and engage the best candidates for management and strategic roles.
With no ups and downs in the market – just a perpetual tussle among global leaders to win high-achieving superstars onto their teams – the ‘executive search style’ approach used for mid and junior-level recruitment assignments often fails to deliver results.
Instead, leading search teams are taking a pro-active approach to senior and executive-level hires. They’re developing long-term talent pipelines and building relationships with target professionals in advance of a formal approach to discuss job opportunities. This is what recruiting CRM is all about.
‘Talent pipelining’ as a strategic activity is a phrase beloved by both in-house and agency search professionals. It places mid and long-term relationship development at the centre of recruitment activities instead of immediate search results.
Simply put, this means a focus on identifying key movers and performers in the market. It also builds detailed profiles of them and their achievements, skill sets and competencies.
From here, search teams seek to build an initial dialogue and relationship, supplemented and informed by the products of their research programs.
The result is a network of warm leads and open communication channels with skilled, relevant senior executives. It is then strengthened and deepened by an underlying data set that adds colour and detail to each profile.
Talent pipelining not only positions executive recruiters to move more quickly when there is an urgent, short-term hiring need within their organization, it also positions them to organically and naturally fill skill gaps across the business via ongoing engagement and nurturing of relationships of executives with synergistic experience and skillsets.
At the heart of many commercial recruitment teams is an ‘Applicant Tracking System’ or ATS. This is a platform used to manage the candidate journey throughout interview and selection processes, providing pre-built workflows and analytics.
ATS systems can also be powerful tools – a life-saver for busy recruitment managers fighting to stay on top of thousands of profiles and daily applications. It often includes some excellent features for automating or digitizing the recruitment process.
A good ATS will also integrate with online job posting software. It will allow recruiters to promote and broadcast live vacancies to job boards and across channels where active job-seekers are browsing for new opportunities.
In essence, however, the ATS is designed to solve a problem that executive recruiters don’t face – how to store, document and manage large volumes of applications, and fill multiple roles throughout a business without dropping the ball on any process.
Executive recruiters have very different needs, chiefly how to:
However, for a typical ATS system, much of this is out of scope. And that’s where the executive recruiting CRM comes in.
The transition by executive search teams from legacy ATS to better-suited executive search software involves migration onto a new type of platform.
In place of a system focused on tracking inbound applications, recruiters switch to a ‘Customer Relationship Management’ platform or CRM.
Equally well described as a ‘Candidate Relationship Management’ tool, CRM software allows recruiters to track and nurture their relationships. So, connections with key potential candidates are nurtured, using technology to boost their process of search, identification and engagement.
In the past, recruiting software of all types has concentrated on two main areas:
While useful, neither function provides a value-add for recruiters beginning new assignments or building vital candidate pipeline and grow relationships.
Both features can process information fed in from other platforms. This forces the recruiter to begin the wearying and fragmented process of collecting data from hundreds of external sources.
Once the data is in the platform, traditional recruitment software allows users to store and organize it. But the critical step of harvesting data in the first place is a problem the technology doesn’t attempt to solve.
For senior and executive recruiters, this is certainly a crippling gap in their technology environment. It reverts the vital steps of finding and engaging the best candidates to manual, inefficient processes.
Talentis was built to solve this gap by putting data at the heart of the candidate relationship management structure. Then it allows recruiters to focus on growing relationships and enhancing data, not building it from scratch.
Talentis functions like a highly advanced global database.
Anchored in an index of millions of company and professional profiles, it unites internet data from a huge wealth of sources in a single platform. It also equips recruiters with game-changing insight and information as they conduct their search projects and map out new sectors.
Through constructing a recruiting CRM software around a data hub, we’ve managed to accelerate the process of researching and engaging candidates at all seniority levels.
Along with data, Talentis also leverages AI techniques to help recruiters build a faster understanding of their target candidates. It prompts them with intelligent signals and data connections as they navigate through the database and as they browse online.
And, despite being built on pre-existing profile data, Talentis offers all the features users would expect from recruiting CRM software. This means users can add their own notes and records to enrich profiles and track engagement history.
Additionally, connecting the dots is an intuitive browser extension. It allows recruiters to switch in and out of their platform without missing a beat. They can take their data with them as they browse and research online.
For instance, when a user runs a Google search listing potential candidates, the Chrome extension will allow the user to engage – without leaving the search engine.
When a user identifies a top profile as part of a market-mapping or search assignment, Talentis can offer related or similar profiles matched by company, skills set, job title or other attributes.
By tying together data from multiple sources in this way, Talentis offers recruiters a borderless interface that provides access to all relevant information at all times. So this means no more switching platforms, no more copying and pasting notes, and no more slumps in momentum where technology gaps appear.
The Talentis executive recruitment CRM was built and developed by the team at Ikiru People. We’re a software development firm with decades of experience in providing tech to the executive search and recruitment sectors.
We’ve used our years in the industry to watch and learn from our customers. This includes some of the top names in executive and in-house search.
As we’ve learned, we’ve taken note – building and refining a world-class solution to candidate relationship management software for elite recruiters and headhunters. So, our candidate relationship management software tool provides a truly game-changing advantage over other brands, agencies and employers.
Though we’ve been around a while, Talentis is new and we’re excited to share it!
We want to get it in the hands of as many recruiters as possible. And for them to see what the next generation of candidate relationship management tool looks like.
That’s why – after your demo – we’ll set you up with a free, no-obligation trial. Then you can see why modern recruitment CRM is the way forward for passive candidate hiring!
So, are you curious?
Then get in touch or book a demo today.