a Research ebook by: 5 Steps to Help You Win Over Key Stakeholders and Switch to a Talent Acquisition Software Suite
WHY SWITCH? B2C technology trends in social media, mobile, and video have caused disruption in the talent acquisition market. Simply stated, the channels candidates now use to find out about jobs and apply for them have changed. These technology trends have put HR professionals in a place where they need to make a critical choice: select innovative solutions that can be integrated or go down the path of an ERP-based HR module or full suite HRIS. NEARLY 50% of organizations are interested in replacing their existing recruitment technology. Five Questions Before Selecting a Recruitment Provider, Aberdeen Group Would you value a software suite focused solely on Talent Acquisition? 68 % 16 % 16 % Yes No I don t know While consolidation can sometimes be a good thing, recruiting tasks can be extremely specific in nature; therefore, recruiting technology should be built to make a recruiter s job easier so that they can find and hire the best candidates efficiently. Considering the importance of talent acquisition efforts toward the company s success, recruiters need dedicated technology tools to expand your organization s employment brand reach and connect with best-fit talent quickly. In this ebook, icims Hire Expectations Institute maps out five steps you should take to build a business case to switch talent acquisition technology providers. Source: icims Hire Expectations Institute Proprietary Research. Based on surveys of more than 600 recruiters, 375 hiring managers, and an analysis of 400,000 jobs. BREAKING UP 1
STEP 1: DEFINE THE REAL PROBLEM The first step, before researching different technologies and speaking with vendors, is defining the problems and challenges that need to be solved. For example, do you struggle with: A long and drawn out hiring process because you have too many candidates to screen, or not enough? A recruitment process that s manual, labor intensive, unstructured, or all three? Limited employment brand awareness? EEO/OFCCP compliance? Write the top 5 problems that need to be solved within your organization on the right. # Talent Acquisition Tip Distinguish the Symptoms from the Disease Automating a bad process will not solve the problem. TOP 5 RECRUITMENT PROBLEMS 1 2 3 4 5 2
STEP 2: DEFINE YOUR GOALS The next step is to identify your talent acquisition goals for the next 6-12 months. Do you want to decrease turnover? Do you need to hire X number of people within a specific timeframe? Are you looking to expand your business into new locations? Do you want to super-charge your company s employee referrals? Are you trying to improve key metrics like time-to-fill, cost-per-hire, etc.? Write your organization s talent acquisition goals for the next 6-12 months on the right. # Talent Acquisition Tip 80% of hiring managers and 84% of recruiters agree that hiring the right people is the key to a company s success. 1 2 3 4 5 GOALS FOR THE NEXT 6 12 MONTHS Source: icims Hire Expectations Institute Proprietary Research. Based on surveys of more than 600 recruiters, 375 hiring managers, and an analysis of 400,000 jobs. 3
STEP 3: RESEARCH THE MARKETPLACE Identify What Solutions Are Necessary to Achieve Your Goals Once you've identified your goals, you can determine which technology solution(s) will best support the achievement of those goals. For example: WHAT IS RECRUITMENT MARKETING? Recruitment Marketing is a strategic process that involves automating job board distribution, social recruiting, search engine optimization (SEO), & employment branding tactics that target and attract top talent. GOAL SOLUTION Improve Quality of Hire Automated Screening - Screening Questions - Video Screening Tools Close Hard-to-Fill Positions Recruitment Marketing Automation - Build Talent Pools - Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) Reduce Paper & Mailing Costs Electronic Forms Standardize the Recruitment Process 1 2 3 Configurable Candidate Management Workflows Improve the Candidate Experience/ Increase Number of Applicants - Mobile-optimized Career Portals - Simple Application Process with Social Media Profiles - Recruitment Marketing 4
STEP 3: RESEARCH THE MARKETPLACE continued What to Look for in a Vendor Not all companies are alike, especially when it comes to the customer experience. Given that hiring the right people is a huge contributor towards a company s success, your talent acquisition provider should be a true partner that offers the following benefits: Pure SaaS. With Pure SaaS providers, all clients run the same version of the software, which is highly configurable and upgraded by the solution provider at routine intervals. There is no need for costly or time-consuming custom coding and implementations are usually swift and relatively painless. Expertise. Talent acquisition is the most dynamic aspect of Human Capital Management (HCM), and the software should be designed by experts in your field, rather than a solution created as an add-on module. Innovation. Truly effective pre-hire solutions need to leverage the latest social and mobile functionality to compete in what is an extremely vast, fast-paced, and uncontrollable external candidate landscape. The technologies used in the external candidate world evolve at a rate that only a dedicated, Pure SaaS provider can keep up with. # Talent Acquisition Tip Did you know? 45% of our clients made the switch to icims because of customer service. SOFTWARE COMPARISON SITES Software Advice G2 Crowd Find Your Cloud Capterra Customer Service. Big-time HCM and ERP suite vendors have a lot on their plates. The bigger the company gets, the less likely it is that end users receive quality support, regular product updates, responsive invoicing, and other services that need to be agile in order to improve your day-to-day operations. Real Integration. While companies often think they can overcome their integration challenges by investing in just one provider, a full suite might actually be built upon four or five different platforms. Truly integrated products that work well together are designed to do that from the get-go. 5
STEP 4: BUILD AN INTERNAL BUSINESS CASE Whose Buy-In Do You Need? How Do You Secure It? Identify who you will need to have on your side. These are the key stakeholders who will either help your project succeed or hinder its progress. This list could include: Your Boss Senior Executives Potential Users IT Department Hiring Managers Procurement Then, discover how the proposed solution will impact each stakeholder and vice versa. For example, begin to analyze: Who has the most clout? Does the proposed solution make their job easier? Harder? No change? What information would this person find most important? What is the best way to communicate to this person? Who will likely promote the project? Who will likely derail it? KEY STAKEHOLDERS & INFLUENCERS Stakeholder: Points of Interest: Objections to Change: Stakeholder: Points of Interest: Objections to Change: Stakeholder: Points of Interest: Objections to Change: Stakeholder: Points of Interest: Objections to Change: Stakeholder: Points of Interest: Objections to Change: 6
STEP 5: PRESENT YOUR BUSINESS CASE What to Include in Your Presentation When it s time to present, ensure that your business case answers key topics like: Background Highlight problems with the current process and how those problems hinder the company. Refer to the goals you identified in Step 2. Top Vendor Contender(s) Features Benefits ROI (qualitative and quantitative) Risk Assessment & Mitigation Use your analysis from Step 4 to address and eliminate any concerns that key stakeholdersmay have. Conclusion and Setting Expectations Technical documentation Price Implementation timeline Need help preparing your business case? Download our easy-to-use template. 7
YOU ARE NOT ALONE Companies have identified that their current processes will not be enough to carry them through the 21st century. We live in a fast-paced global economy where technological innovation has made nearly constant change inevitable. When we talk about talent acquisition today, we use phrases and concepts that weren t part of our industry s lexicon just a few years ago: mobile, SEO, video interviewing, social media, and talent networks. Savvy, innovative organizations realize that they must keep up with evolving trends if they want to come out ahead in the war for top talent. Only a dedicated Talent Acquisition Suite is able to keep your company's recruitment efforts ahead of the curve. icims is the second largest applicant tracking system provider in the industry. Oracle/Taleo icims ADP SilkRoad Kenexa HealthcareSource Jobvite SuccessFactors PeopleClick 23.9% 9.6% 9.6% 6.5% 5.9% 5.2% 3.8% 2.9% 1.9% Source: Based on an analysis of 88,000 USA-Based company career sites. Recruitment Solution Usage by Type 44 % 34 % 22 % Homegrown ATS No ATS ATS Vendor # Talent Acquisition Tip Did you know? Of all current icims customers that switched from a previous system, 78% came from ERP or HCM/HRIS suite providers. 8
FINAL THOUGHTS Although it may seem obvious that a change is needed, any project that requires buy-in across an organization can encounter roadblocks. That's why we created a step-by-step guide on how to prepare and win over key stakeholders to prepare you to meet these potential challenges head on. To learn more about the icims Talent Platform, call 1-800-889-4422 or take a look at our demo: The icims Talent Platform, the industry's premier candidate management solution, enables organizations to leverage mobile, social, and video technologies to manage their entire talent acquisition lifecycle from building talent pools, to recruiting, to onboarding all within a single web-based application. icims offers three core products, Connect, Recruit, and Onboard, which can be powered up with tools to attract and screen that provide added value and functionality. Providing innovative HR solutions, icims gives recruiters the necessary tools to make the most informed hiring decisions, every time. The icims Talent Platform is easy to use, scalable, and backed by award-winning icare Support; it's the ideal applicant tracking software for growing businesses. Click on the icons below to share these tips with your network! For best practice insight and proprietary research, please visit the icims Hire Expectations Institute website: 9