A panelist in a recent conference said that IT recruiters are overwhelmed by the number of software tools that they are required to use. They have to perform many tasks even after sourcing the required resumes . An earlier post covered various sources from where they source the talent.
This article is based on a survey that explores variety of tools used by technical recruiters for various tasks after sourcing a bunch of resumes. Total of 43 respondents who worked as recruiters in medium and large IT companies in Pune participated in the survey.
Technical Assessment
Technical assessment has always been a challenge for the IT recruiters because of their non-technical background. Tools like Hacker Rank, Hacker Earth, Mettl, Reliscope and Glider are being used by one third of the recruiters to overcome this challenge. Among all these Hacker Rank seems to lead the pack. Wonder what is keeping any of these tools from widespread adoption. May be it’s the time and effort to create, administer and analyse results of these tests. May be it’s sheer inertia. Total cost per use is non-trivial. These tests need continuous updates as new technologies get added every day.
Technical Assessment Tools
There is no established software solution to conduct technical assessment. Two thirds of the organizations depend on in house on line or off line tools. Hacker Rank undoubtedly leads the branded technical assessment tools lot.
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
Applicant tracking solutions are by far most used special purpose tools. Here the adoption is close to 50%. There are many ATSs providing varied degree of automation at number of price points. Many enterprises already use Oracle and SAP resulting in their natural affinity towards Taleo and Success Factors respectively. I will be surprised to find a company using the ATS without the ERP. It’s surprising that none of the respondents mentioned the Naukri RMS in spite of it being integrated with the most used source of resumes.
Applicant Tracking System
The respondents are evenly divided between branded ATSs and other means to track. Taleo and Success Factors tie for the first place in branded ATSs.
Personalised Log of transactions or Tracker
There is no personalised database solution available for the recruiters to maintain their own pipeline of current and past candidates sourced by them for various openings. Excel is the default choice – easy to use and ubiquitous. Looking at 80% adoption there is no reason for any competing solution to try to dislodge Excel. Recruiters are so additced to Excel that they are maintaining their trackers even though the entire log of all the transactions is automatically tracked by the ATS!
Personal Database (Tracker)
It’s a surprise that 100% don’t use excel. Wonder whether the others maintain their personal database.
Interview Scheduling Tools
Microsoft Outlook and Google calendar are the leading scheduling tools used by the recruiters accounting for more than 91% of adoption. It’s logical that most ATSs provide integration with these 2 scheduling tools. The vCal and iCal format of calendar invites are becoming the de-facto standards.
Interview Scheduling Tools
90% of the respondents use either Outlook or Google Calendar to schedule interviews. Some years back Outlook had even bigger share.
Remote Interviewing Tools
What about “Specialised” video interviewing tools like InterviewMocha or Talview? There seems to be no significant adoption. Recruiters are still using Skype and phones.
Remote Interviewing Tools
Skype is the winner with 55% respondents using it as the preferred way to conduct remote interviews – landline calling comes distant second.
We love automation but we hate the loss of control
Wonder why recruiters are maintaining trackers in Excel and schedule interviews using Outlook or Google Calendar when the entire history of their transacations is maintained and automated alerts are given by the ATS? Is it because old habits die hard? The answer is partly that and partly the fact that automation is a black box. People want to be doubly sure that the interviews happen as scheduled and they don’t lose the history including their comments. It’s the same reason why we carry cash even though we hardly ever use it. I am sure for the same reason we will have our hands on the steering wheels and our feet on the pedals when we get to “drive” our autonomous cars.
Thank You!
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Vinayak Joglekar is a technology & recruitment expert with around 40 yrs. of experience. He is a distinguished thought leader who has changed trends in recruitment and futuristic software development. He is acclaimed for recruiting and developing great talents in IT.
Vinayak believes in empowering IT recruiters with technical knowledge so that they can earn their due respect. Currently, he is the CTO of Synerzip and Director of Rezoomex.