S Tips to Keep in Mind When Buying Your Next Applicant Tracking System

Posted On Dec 8, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

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One of the most important parts of shopping for software is informing yourself as a consumer ahead of time. To that goal, here’s important intel, backed by years of industry experience, on how to carefully research and select the next addition to being able to your company’s technology stack.

My career to date has been an interesting journey. I’ve worked for recruitment authorities, in-house talent acquisition squads, in human resources( HR) and aptitude possession( TA) tech and now these claimants tracking system( ATS )/ candidate relationship management( CRM) opening. In that time, I have been privileged enough to be both a buying client of HR/ TA tech( in a previous life) and most recently working vendor side as a provider. I’ve come full circle now.

I STILL hear some actually perturbing commentaries, bold announcements, and changed statistics made by merchants at occasions, meetups, and behind closed doors as if their half-truths or ruses won’t get out. In the open life of social media-and God knows how many feedback or recall sites–why some marketers still sell pipe dream, but deliver stern worlds is beyond me. Enough is enough. I am on a mission to call out rubbish when I see it and to help HR/ TA teams in the process.

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It’s been eye-opening and I feel that I have realized and heard enough to share some tactics I’ve picked up along the way that facilitate business prepare for and protect themselves from some of the hot-air and misleading statements that are often made during the selection processes by vendors at manufacture incidents today.

The best course to protect yourself and word an ruling of a marketer that you are considering for your business is to roll your sleeves up real high-pitched and do studies and research yourself.

Don’t be fooled! Research those tools! Geek out a bit. It’s actually recreation to get in to the weeds of it all.

Over the years, I have witnessed smart-alecky chairwomen in HR/ TA/ procurement hear new ways to probe hard and certainly push the issues “Why?” when going through the selection process. From the perspective of a client, as well a marketer.

Below are some criteria you should keep in mind during the selection process. They should help you uncover some real home truth about the marketer you might be partnering up with over next 12, 24, 36 months, and beyond 😛 TAGEND

1) Expertise

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What is the vendor’s background? Who is leading their business? Have they made in service industries before? Have they worked on your feature of the fencing and knowledge your business challenges first side? I am not saying that this is totally indispensable, but it’s great to know if this vendor absolutely knows your industry or is just taking a stab at a crack in the market.

2) Performance

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If they are publicly listed, check or ask for their financial and recital reports over the past 12 to 24 months away you look at the technology. Any listed business is an open bible and their reports will show you what’s really happening. If not scheduled, ask about their purchaser growing percentage, retention/ renewal frequencies, pricing organize, and if/ how/ why that has changed-especially if there’s been a decrease.

3) Value

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If the premium is one of the vendors key peculiar selling targets( USPs ), ask why their technology is priced the lane it is. Unfortunately, cheaply-priced technology typically means that it comes with poor support and concoction innovation prototypes. Great technology compels great investment, which will drive even greater ensues. If it’s cheap, why? What importance does this drive for you as a purchaser post-sales? The cost for coin will be far less impactful than the significance for your business.

4) Impact

What impact or return on investment( ROI) does the stage certainly have for your business? People often make choices based on cost or the latest industry buzzwords without thinking about the impact a implement will actually have on their business-physically AND financially.

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Will it save you fund in the long run, does it drive income, better business outcomes, etc? Ask vendors how they assess ROI and how often can they substantiate it to you in a presentable format that you can take to your CFO in order to show genuine business wallop. Is there any practice you can see the ROI in a live dashboard or through another business intelligence implement. People will often buy platforms because it offers a great user experience. The difficulty is they’re buying based on experience alone and without consideration for perceptible, meaningful data or the ability to report on it.

5) Product Releases and Roadmaps

There is a lot of fluff out there and many marketers will tell you that they are” endlessly working on the innovation of the pulpit .” The best space to see if they are truly doing this is to ask for their product roadmap, as well as the index of improvements, new features, and commodities launched over the past 12 to 24 months.

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This will show you how quickly they move, innovate and how present they actually are in the market. Perhaps even how much financing or receipt they are generating to build new tech that will preserve you ahead of the geniu economy as it changes, varies, and hurls new challenges your way.

6) References

This is my favorite. Ask the marketer for a cite of someone that recently left to move to another stage. Also ask for a comment from a gift purchaser, a customer that is currently going through implementation, and a patron that has been live less than six months. You could also ask for a cite from person that wanted the vendor’s platform, went through a selection process, but couldn’t devote( no matter the reason ).

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The latter was one I came across during a recent cycles/second I was in and thought it was genius. It can give you a quite different perspective. If the marketers won’t provide this type of reference, it’s not because they don’t have them, it’s because they don’t want to give them to you, so alarm bell should start ringing.

Buying tech that drives BIG business outcomes is possible, but it requires you to do your homework. Take your time, investigate the entire sell( locally and globally) and if the marketer truly relies their concoction, they will be an open notebook and spur you to go and look at other scaffolds for comparison.

At SmartRecruiters, we believe that every merchant should be transparent about all of the above spots. Feel free to reach out if I can help in any way, or if you would like to discuss anything further. I’m on a mission to help businesses make better HR/ TA tech decisions and, as a result, better hiring decisions.

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