Because talent acquisition is a complex process that involves multiple parties both inside and outside the organization, companies adopt technology to help HR teams effectively find, evaluate and onboard employees. Research shows that the average company can have nine or more core talent applications in their HR tech stack, totaling approximately $5 million of annual investment.
Amidst a perfect storm of labor shortage and high turnover, organizations see the need for this technology and want to step up investments. According to Aptitude Research’s 2019 Talent Acquisition survey, investing in technology is the top strategy for improving the quality of their hires for almost 60% of organizations.
Unfortunately, even though companies say they want to invest in technology, HR teams do not always get what they want. A survey of 1,000 HR decision-makers by Allegis Group found that 93% of decision-makers find challenges when implementing HR technologies.
Recruiting teams are often stuck with the recruiting module that comes with more comprehensive HRIS systems, such as Oracle HCM, SAP SuccessFactors, and Workday. Even though human capital management (HCM) systems include talent acquisition modules, these modules were not developed as the main focus of the product. As a result, much of the talent acquisition-focused functionality, such as searching for candidates in databases, is not used by recruiters because it doesn’t work well or is not easy to use.
Clunky HR tech throwing hurdles in your hiring? Read this before you rip and replace: Click To TweetHR tech stacks can get in their own way
As a result, talent acquisition (TA) teams are forced to carry out tasks manually or use cumbersome workarounds. This not only sucks the joy out of their work, but slows down the recruiting process and, worse, causes great candidates to regularly be overlooked.
Related link: How to escape the Doom Loop of Talent Acquisition
These workarounds occur throughout the hiring process and add up to one big headache. For example, it might take several clicks to get to certain information, or the platform may require downloading a resume to view it, rather than displaying it on the screen. This alone takes most of the conversations around candidates outside of the system and onto email, simply because it’s easier to send an email than to grapple with a clunky HCM system.
An obvious result of these workarounds is that recruiters’ ability to collaborate with hiring managers is hampered. When communication occurs via email, the notes and discussions around a candidate are only be visible to parties copied on the thread. Another party involved in the recruiting process therefore would not have access to it, and even the involved parties need to dig for it in their inboxes rather than having it conveniently all in one place. This lack of visibility negatively affects the recruiting process in myriad ways.
Too many great candidates are overlooked
For reasons mentioned above, out-of-the-box recruiting modules prevent recruiters and hiring managers from accessing all of the information they need to properly manage the TA process. One of the biggest issues is that the HCM platform is often siloed from the rest of the organization’s data. For example, important data around a candidate is often only located in the applicant tracking system (ATS). This causes recruiters to miss out on valuable internal candidates who are already employed by the company. Because these systems only access resumes in the HCM database, TA teams are essentially blind to current employees who could be a great fit for the position.
This missed opportunity has cascading effects throughout a company. Employees who would love the opportunity to be considered for open positions are not even identified as potential candidates. Employees may get the impression that there are no growth opportunities inside company, which pushes them to look elsewhere, leading to higher turnover rates.
Another reason great candidates go overlooked is because legacy HCM platforms don’t utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning. They only allow searches based on keywords or job titles. This causes TA execs to completely miss best-fit candidates simply because they don’t have certain buzzwords in their application. Words used to describe roles or responsibilities change constantly and can differ by context, so keyword searches are sorely inadequate and leave great candidates overlooked.
In fact, mining their ATS is so painful and inefficient that most recruiters resort to avoiding their ATS altogether and spending most of their time on LinkedIn. Companies are wasting capital on systems that their teams are not using.
There is a better way
The good news is that the solution to all these problems is not as difficult as one may think. MojoHire sits on top of any HR tech stack and creates a unified and ergonomic user interface (UI) for all of an organization’s HR data repositories. This means that from a single interface, TA execs and hiring managers can easily view and collaborate on candidates in one place, without having to replace any of their existing systems.
MojoHire uses AI to “understand” the complete body of data about candidates across data repositories (internal and external) and interpret their skills and experience like an experienced recruiter, regardless of whether words and phrases in their applications mirror the verbatim wording of the job description or search query. This means that all qualified candidates are discovered, even if they are already working at the company.
And, because MojoHire’s AI engine can analyze vast stores of data in the blink of an eye, it all but eliminates database searches and instantly surfaces the best-fit candidates that recruiters can contact right away. This elevates their job from “database jockey” to strategic hiring partner.
Related link: Talent intelligence starts with intelligent talent discovery
One of our customers told us, “I would look at my applicants and then go to LinkedIn. Now MojoHire is a step in between these two steps. I’m mining my database.”
Our customers have reported a time to hire that is up to 50% faster, the time between posting a job and surfacing the first qualified candidate by more than 90%, and upwards of 65% of their time recouped thanks to not having to manually mine their ATS. As a bonus, the relationship between the TA team and the hiring managers is smoother, thanks to having an easier way to collaborate and a single view for all of a candidate’s information, history and related discussions and feedback. And all of this without having to change their existing tech stack!
