Article: Technology is the lifeline of recruiters

Talent Acquisition

Technology is the lifeline of recruiters

Technology has become an essential tool to unearth vital information about prospective candidates
Technology is the lifeline of recruiters
 

Different types of background checks provide a multitude of useful information and these will vary depending upon the industry and position for which you are hiring

 

When companies do hiring, there are three things that they should focus on: Character, Commitment and Competence. While the business managers can measure commitment and competence, it is the job of the HR to identify the character. The first step towards doing that is cross-checking the resumes and details provided by the prospective candidate. Providing fraudulent information is a deal-breaker for any company and background verification is a crucial checkpoint for all recruiters. It averts the risky marriage of a non-compatible candidate with an unsuspecting company.

The use of technology in recruitment is not new. Applicant tracking softwares, known as a recruiter’s best friend, have been in existence for more than a decade now; job-boards even longer. Earlier, recruiters used technology to stay organized, managing their interview schedules and other process related things. They used technology to collect and integrate all data. However, technology has moved significantly beyond data management and task management for recruiters now.

Technology has become very critical for everyone in the recruitment world today. Recruiters are leveraging technology by using Social Media, Big Data and Advanced Predictive Analysis tools to do things they simply could not do earlier. They are reaching out to candidates much faster and making much better business decisions. Mobile and Cloud have also played a huge role in enabling them to work from anywhere, anytime. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have now become tools that recruiters cannot live without. Their ability to engage and brand themselves to highly targeted audience has increased multi-fold because of the use of social media. In short, technology is now the lifeline.

However, with the ease of access and the increasing numbers of applicants across all platforms, the job of the recruiter has become harder as well. Human capital is the most precious asset for any company. It is way too risky to take resumes at face value and end up with bad apples who can jeopardize your business and brand. One cannot afford to skip this important, yet inexpensive step to protect their business.

With the coming of age of recruitment, background verification has become a crucial component of the employee on-boarding activity. When it comes to hiring the right employee, what you don’t know can hurt you! The cost is really very low if you compare it to a wrong hire, the time and money it takes to replace a wrong hire, to undo what a wrong hire did. It is seen that one out of every six resumes carries fake information.

In a competitive job market, individuals are more likely to embellish or hide certain aspects of their histories in order to appear more attractive to recruiters. While some of these actions are fairly obvious to the trained recruiter, not all will be easy to spot until the background check takes place.

It is, however, not just the basic task of checking out the facts of history. Technology has again become an essential tool to unearth vital information about candidates from Social Media, to ferret through newspapers worldwide and government maintained and other repositories of criminal and court records. However, a critical element of new age background verification tools is a pleasant on-boarding experience. The top advantages of performing Background Verifications for any company can be:

•   Finding the right candidate

•   Creating a safer workplace

•   Building a culture of trust and safety

•   Protecting your people, brand and profits

•   Lower risk of negligent hiring

Different types of background checks provide a multitude of useful information and these will vary depending upon the industry and position for which you are hiring. For example, education checks are a must have for hospitals for all their medical and para-medical staff to ensure that only qualified professionals are providing patient care. It is very similar to using a CCTV camera. In its own way, it acts as a deterrent to weed out fraudulent resumes. Also with the increase in automation, it helps countless number of work hours for the HR team as well. 

With verification, the basics of this industry will always remain the same even though technology will evolve. In the coming years, automation will also prove to be an over-arching trend for this industry, which will grow at an approximate rate of 20-25 per cent in the next five years. 

Read full story

Topics: Talent Acquisition, Recruitment, Technology, #TechHR2015

Did you find this story helpful?

Author

QUICK POLL

How do you envision AI transforming your work?