eRecruitment on Suppliers: Survival of the Fittest

Having had a great family Christmas break back to the UK, I have found no end of recruiting technology topics to blog about first in 07. That's partly from having cleared my head on holiday, but to be fair a client also inspired me when he asked this week about what 'risks' they should expect from recruitment firms by introducing a web recruitment software package.

Naturally I am involved in implementing a number of ATS packages into large corporates at any given time. A current project is into the largest retailer in the Middle East of the Sniperhire ATS Corporate Edition version 5.2.

So the Corporate HR Director asks a great question on this conference call and we get into a four way discussion about what kind of push back to expect from trusted recruitment firms, and how do intend to handle that. Now any company introducing eRecruitment technology wll face resistance to change from within, more from HR and Line Managers than from Recruitment staff; but recruitment suppliers can be a world unto themselves. Fortunately now the majority of established recruitment firms have had to start using one product or another for their largest customers.

Suppliers are critical when hiring markets are tough, and in developing markets they are always tough so nobody wants to upest their recruitment suppliers unduly.

One of the first things to mention here is that agencies around the world are now depending heavily on the web themselves to source candidates, which they then interview, repackage and send over email to the client and charge $?,000's for. So if the suppliers can themselves use the Net to find candidates, it shouldn't be a big ask to ask them to submit the same CV's to you (their clients) over the Net also. The only loser in that equation is the email tool, not the supplier.

The next thing we discussed is that as corporate employers introduce and manage their PSL (preferred suppliers list) of recruitment firms, they need to be able to understand (read: Report) on the performance of those supplied services to be able to decide which firms to reward best (read: give more work to). So really the corporate employers facing this challenge
should consider their communications plans carefully for the PSL members, and openly encourage that they support the corporate efforts to manage their recruitment supply chain better and streamline their operations by using eRec technology.

I read an article on workforce.com today and the MD of Stallion Security in South Africa was talking about hwo hard it is to find decent recruitment suppliers. That is one of the great reasons that corporate employers force their agencies onto ATS systems because they can then work out which firms are worth working closely with, and which ones to cut relations with.
"It took us a long time to find the right agencies," Zullberg says. "Most of them just want to pump out CVs to you and don’t want to work with companies that use behavioral assessments or other complex tools for evaluating candidates."

There are other benefits for recruitment suppliers in using ATS technology to submit their CV into also, for example they can receive instant feedback once the client has reviewed or made a decision on a candidate, they can get alerts when interviews are scheduled or offers are issued.

Suppliers can also be informed when they are proposing a candidate that the client already has in their database, rather than waste time only to find out that the candidate was considered by the client previously. That transparency and collaborate approach can help the supplier work smarter and save themselves time, and therefore make their fees faster.

The biggest fear that recruitment suppliers have when it comes to their clients forcing them to use the ATS platform, is that it will lead to them being given less briefs, and make less money; but that simply isn't valid. If a recruitment supplier is skilled in sourcing and providing the best CV's, and they can evaluate them better/faster than the employer, then they will continue to win business.

Certainly the employers introducing recruiting technology do become better themselves at sourcing and managing candidates, so to some extent they will be reduce their supplier dependency - but the fittest will survive. Are clients under pressure to watch costs, absolutely, but that's only right and also only because they're spending more than ever on talent.

Bottom line is that it is well worth the risk for all parties, and if a supplier cannot supply a service at a higher level than the client can themselves, then yes they will lose business, but good suppliers will remain.

Happy new year and happy recruiting by the way, hope you have a great one.