Recruitment Management Software greatly reduces otherwise labor-intensive data entry and record-keeping associated with job creation, advertising, screening and employee selection. Use this Business.com guide to get top tips for evaluating the best RMS available- to make your HR duties a little more manageable.

1. 1
Overview of Recruitment
Management Systems

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3. Contents
Overview of Recruitment Management Systems 4
Features of Recruitment Management Systems 6
Benefits of Using Recruitment Management Systems 8
Trends in Recruitment Management Systems 10
Top Tips for Evaluating Recruitment Management Systems 15
Business.com Checklist for Recruitment Management Systems 18
Glossary of Recruitment Management System Terms 22

4. 4
Overview of Recruitment
Management Systems
Recruitment Management Systems (RMS) and software include a suite of
applications to automatically identify, screen, interview, and evaluate job
candidates. RMS systems can also be used by schools to recruit students and by
nonprofits to recruit donors or manage volunteers.
RMS is often called by similar names, including “e-recruitment,” “online
recruitment,” and “talent acquisition” (TA) software. RMS is most often sold as a
service now (so-called “software as a service,” or SaaS), although it is still sold
both as standalone software and as a service on private networks, in addition to
being available on the cloud.
Beyond the functionalities of the software itself to manage attracting and hiring
new employees, RMS can generate reports and other analytics to assess the
effectiveness of recruitment campaigns. They can manage and track interactions
with job boards and employment agencies, as well as track recruiter activities,
employee retention rates, and other HR-related information. Findings can
establish performance benchmarks and determine where best to find the most
suitable and qualified candidates.

5. 5
RMS is typically integrated into the organization’s human resources management
systems (HRM) as well as the enterprise’s larger information management
systems. While the scope of large global enterprises usually dictates either
purchasing the standalone software or contracting with a private network,
smaller companies can take advantage of free Web-based services. These free
services make their money offering ancillary third-party services (i.e., posting
jobs to LinkedIn or Monster) as well as “priority support” service contracts.
RMS pricing is all over the place, from free to $100/month per person. Many
companies offer a free trial, hoping that once you have invested the time to learn
the system, you’ll be reluctant to switch services. Other firms have low entry-
points, such as a few dollars per month, for limited capabilities. Typical pricing for
full-featured services ranges from $20 to $75 per month per user, and from $50
to $500 per month for an organization.
While the scope of large global enterprises usually
dictates either purchasing the standalone software or
contracting with a private network, smaller companies
can take advantage of free Web-based services.

6. 6
Features of Recruitment
Management Systems
¾¾ Standardized templates to create job descriptions.
¾¾ Ability to distribute job postings automatically to multiple corporate
sites, online job banks, and social media.
¾¾ Online job application forms, with ability to capture key data (name,
address, skill sets, etc.) from submitted resumes.
¾¾ Bulk emailing of job openings to past candidates, qualified individuals,
job boards, employment agencies, and other third-party agencies.
¾¾ Ability to store and organize job openings and submitted job
applications.
¾¾ Manage third-party recruiters or recruiting agencies.
¾¾ Receive and track referrals and recommendations from employees,
associated companies, and other third parties.

7. 7
¾¾ Analytics to assess and rank applicants.
¾¾ Applicant and job tracking.
¾¾ Interview management.
¾¾ Background checking services, including credit reports.
¾¾ Candidate portal to submit additional forms, establish and update
personal profile.
¾¾ Mobile interface to communicate with candidates, receive/update
resumes and candidate profiles, provide new job notices, and submit
job applications.
¾¾ Scheduling interviews, including confirmations, reminders, and
rescheduling.
¾¾ Ability to generate a contract for employment.
¾¾ Report generation capabilities.

8. 8
Benefits of Using Recruitment
Management Systems
R
MS software greatly reduces otherwise labor-
intensive data entry and recordkeeping associated
with such tasks as:
¾¾ job opening creation and submission
¾¾ job advertisement
¾¾ identification, screening and selection of qualified job candidates
By eliminating the possibility of duplicate record creation and/or inconsistencies
or errors in data entry, the efficiency of candidate identification and tracking is
greatly improved and more accurate.
It also ensures full compliance with all EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission) as well as other federal and state hiring regulations. In addition,
RMS provides a host of management reports for both external and internal
reporting purposes.

9. 9
Moreover, once a candidate is hired, all employment data collected by the RMS
software seamlessly transfers to the company’s internal HR and payroll systems.
A recent study indicates that 3 out of 4 organizations don’t feel they’re adequately
measuring the effectiveness of their recruitment efforts.
HR departments need to know which recruiting efforts are working best. Without
a well-conceived recruitment management system, the lack of good metrics
makes decision-making difficult.
A quality RMS should provide not only industry-standard measures, such as
cost-per-hire and time-to-fill, but also track the sources of referrals and compare
that automatically with efforts to attract recruits, such as job fairs, job boards,
outside recruiters, direct email, direct mail, search advertising, broadcast
advertising, and display advertising, and other marketing communications.
HR departments need to know which recruiting efforts
are working best. Without a well-conceived recruitment
management system, the lack of good metrics makes
decision-making difficult.

10. 10
Trends in Recruitment
Management Systems
T
here was a time when business owners stuck a “Help Wanted” sign
in the window and the applicant pool walked through the door. That
method still works in some places, but the vast majority of hires now
require a much more complex process of attracting applicants, reviewing
applications, scheduling interviews, vetting references, making written job
offers, and generating employment contracts -- all while complying with
numerous shifting government regulations.
During this same time, applying for a job has gone from applying in person to
applying through the mail to applying online and now applying from a mobile
phone. Integrating recruiting with social media offers benefits (easier screening) as
well as drawbacks (an embarrassing stumble can cause recruiting nightmares).To
stay competitive, modern recruiters need to embrace new technology.
Some important innovations include:
“Going Mobile.” Today, the primary communication tool is a mobile device,
either a smartphone or tablet. Consequently, it’s absolutely essential for your
RMS system to have mobile capabilities.
Applying for a job has gone from applying in person
to applying through the mail to applying online and
now applying from a mobile phone.

11. 11
Mobile access to the Internet is increasing exponentially, and is expected to
surpass fixed Internet access in 2015. However, small-screen access, as from
a smartphone, is a poor medium for tasks that require concentration. The
recruiting “short tasks” that should be modified for the mobile environment
include the ability to:
ƒƒ apply online
ƒƒ search jobs
ƒƒ sign up/receive job alerts
ƒƒ interact with recruiters/potential employer
ƒƒ obtain application status
ƒƒ schedule, cancel and reschedule appointments
ƒƒ obtain company information.
¾¾ LinkedIn. It’s the premier business networking site. The mobile LinkedIn
app is a particularly valuable and widely used platform. There are a few
LinkedIn “wannabes,” such as Facebook’s “Social Jobs Partnership”
app which, while not to be ignored, are basically just aggregators of
traditional job boards that offer some networking features.

12. 12
¾¾ Social Media. While LinkedIn is social media for professionals, more
general social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest
are equally in play for job searches and referrals.
More companies are looking to export job postings directly from the RMS to
the company’s social platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Companies
are spending time and money developing communities online, and want to
integrate those communities with their recruiting efforts.
Recent research shows that almost 75% of organizations review
potential job candidates’ presence on social networks. A study
conducted at Northern Illinois University found participants could more
accurately predict a job candidate’s success in a position by browsing
their Facebook profile than by evaluating personality surveys.
According to a CareerBuilder survey, “In 2011 [...] 70 percent of US job
seekers search for potential employers on Facebook, and 72 percent of
job seekers will talk with a friend about a company on Facebook.”
¾¾ Open API (Application Programming Interface). This is a set
of technologies that basically enhance collaboration among so-
called Web 2.0 platforms used for social media and other virtual
communities. Perhaps the most notable user of open API is Facebook.
Given the trend toward social media, any RMS software should be
open API-compliant.

13. 13
¾¾ Video. Preliminary screening interviews are frequently conducted over
the telephone. There may be situations, particularly when recruiting
nationally, when you’d like to interview someone face-to-face, but
geographic differences make that impractical.
Video conferencing provides the next best thing to the in-person
interview. Skype and Facetime are popular and easily accessible
consumer video-conferencing applications. There are also professional
HR video systems such as Async Interview, HireVue, Interview Stream,
Sparkhire, and VidCruiter, among others
¾¾ Location capability. Some kind of location filter allows you to restrict
searches to a defined geographic area. The drawback, of course, is
that you may filter out some great candidates looking to relocate to your
area at their own expense.
Video conferencing provides the next best thing to
the in-person interview. Skype and Facetime are
popular and easily accessible consumer video-
conferencing applications.

14. 14
¾¾ SaaS (Software as a Service). An overall trend in the IT industry,
SaaS is when a vendor hosts not only the software, but your data in
the “cloud,” i.e., a large series of connected servers owned/leased by
the vendor. You pay a service fee, as opposed to buying the software
outright. Initial setup fees are usually lower because there is no on-
premise software installation/integration required.
Access is provided through the Internet. While you don’t “own” the
software, the chief advantages are lower administrative costs and quick
and easy scalability as your needs change. Moreover, SaaS typically
features social collaboration capabilities that are essential to talent
acquisition functions. The disadvantage is that while it is probably
true that no system is 100% secure, there is some minimal extra risk in
porting your data to an outside source.
Access to SaaS is provided through the Internet. While
you don’t “own” the software, the chief advantages
are lower administrative costs and quick and easy
scalability as your needs change

15. 15
Top Tips for Evaluating
Recruitment
Management Systems
¾¾ It’s better to buy a system that fits you now than one you may
never grow into. You may not need all the bells and whistles of a
full-featured RMS, especially if it’s too complicated to use without
expert guidance. Assess your goals for the coming three years,
and find a system that matches your ambitions.
¾¾ Standardize content. So where does an applicant from “VA,” “Va.”
or “Virginia” live? Obviously, in Virginia. What’s not so obvious when
you get literally thousands of applicants who might variously enter
their state of residence as “VA” or “Va.” or “Virginia,” is that when
you do a keyword search for “VA,” you miss all those applicants
who entered “Va.” or “Virginia,” or, even worse, misspelled
“Virginia.” As Maren Hogan points out, “[I]f data is entered
incorrectly, it won’t line up when you try to search that data.”

16. 16
One way to minimize the potential for inconsistent and/or incorrect
data entry is to eliminate “free-form” fields wherever possible and
replace them with “drop-down” menus of required responses.
Drop-down menus ensure the same choice is used by all
applicants/recruiters; for example, the only possible selection for a
Virginia state of residence is “VA.” If for some reason the software
won’t allow a drop-down menu, it should specify a format that won’t
allow any other kind of entry. For example, the date field must be
entered in “mm/dd/yyyy” format; any non-conforming entry results
in an error message.
¾¾ Scalability. One way to “right-size” your RMS to your company’s
size and needs is to subscribe a modular system that allows you
to pay for only those features you need, while allowing you to
purchase additional capabilities as your operation grows. It is much
better to adjust services within your current system than to migrate
to a new provider every time your needs change.
¾¾ Ease-of-use. Well, vendors always claim their software is easy
to use (ever hear of a vendor that advertises, “Our software is so
good, no one really knows how to use it right?”). Besides asking for
a demo, other ways to determine how user-intuitive an RMS system
really is includes:

17. 17
ƒƒ Customer satisfaction ratings and awards
ƒƒ Success stories
ƒƒ Customer retention rate
ƒƒ Internet searches of price/functionality comparisons.
¾¾ Integration. Make sure your RMS software plays well with others. It
should seem obvious that the system you use to recruit employees
should seamlessly communicate with the support systems used while
they are employed. However, that is often not the case. Organizations
can feel pressured to select and implement a system in a short period
of time. In doing so, long-term implications such as integration with the
existing HR system and third-party recruiters is often ignored.
¾¾ Make it easy for the job applicant. Nobody likes to jump through
hoops, even in a tight job market. An online application process that is
overly difficult or in some way unwelcoming can discourage qualified
applicants. It also diminishes your company brand, making you
appear stodgy -- not tech-savvy -- and indifferent to existing as well as
potential employees.

18. 18
Business.com Checklist
for Recruitment
Management Systems
My Needs Vendor 1 Vendor 2
Features
Create/manage/publish multiple job descriptions
Candidates searchable by:
• Name
• Skill sets
• Job title(s)
• Keywords
Accepts resumes:
• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx formats)
• OpenOffice
• Text files
• HTML
• PDF

19. 19
Import resumes from:
• Email
• Upload from desktop
• Cut and paste
Ability to add documents (cover letter, work samples)
Automatic detection/removal of duplicate candidates/
submissions
Regional/international searching capabilities
Ability to create notes
Background search
Referral management
LinkedIn integration
Social media (Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter)
interface
Candidate self-service
Interview scheduling
Contract/job offer generation

20. 20
Onboarding functionality:
• Self-service completion of new-employee
forms
• Employee orientation scheduling
• HR notification/coordination of new-employee
profile, benefits, equipment issue, ID and
passwords authorization/issue
Languages other than English?
Software
SaaS (Web-based portal)
Software package installed/integrated with your IT
infrastructure
Cloud storage
Integration with HR software:
• Employee profiles
• Timesheets
• Payroll (ADP, PayChex)
• Benefits
• Employee performance evaluations
• Vacation calendar

21. 21
Modular/scalable
Open API
Mobile support/compatibilities
Intuitive navigation
Reporting
Configurable customized reports
Hiring workflow
Status reports across openings
Skills needs/assessments
Geographic filter
EEOC
Other federal/state programs
Email alerts/reminders
Customer Service
24/7 real-time telephone/email/chat support
Fee to migrate existing data?
Free training

22. 22
Glossary of Recruitment
Management System Terms
ATS: Applicant Tracking System. Manages job applications and resume data.
Data is collected from the company’s website and/or extracted from job board
applicants.
Cloud Computing: Also called “distributed computing,” this is essentially a
shared network maintained on a large series of servers. The sharing of servers
and infrastructure among multiple users results in economies of scale and the
dynamic reallocation of resources as needed. The ability to “move around” a
myriad of technologies that are not physically present at the user’s location gave
rise to the notion of a “cloud” of services users can “see” but that are in some
sense ephemeral.
EEOC: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Federal government
agency that enforces laws against job discrimination based on race, gender,
religion, age, or national origin.
Employee Engagement: The concept that engaging employees to assess and
improve job satisfaction results in positive business outcomes. Example: An
effective onboarding process correlates with higher employee retention.

23. 23
I-9 (Employee Eligibility Verification) Service: Online completion and
verification that a new hire has submitted IRS Form I-9 form required to verify
worker eligibility status.
Job Boards: Employment website that posts jobs from various companies and
allows interested job seekers to complete a corresponding job application and
submit a resume. Major job boards include CareerBuilder, Indeed, Monster, and
Yahoo! Careers (formerly HotJobs).
Job Title Search Engine Optimization: Strategic optimization of job postings
produces higher rankings of job ads in search engines such as Google.
Onboarding: The process of introducing new employees to their job
assignments, including corporate orientation, completion of new employee
paperwork and issuance of identification/security cards, passwords, computers,
mobile phones, or other new hire equipment.
Open API: Application Programming Interface. A set of programming
technologies to enhance collaboration among websites.
OFCCP: Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. U.S. Department of
Labor program to ensure employers doing business with federal government
comply with all nondiscrimination laws and regulations.
SaaS: Software as a Service. Software and associated data hosted by a vendor
on centrally located data warehouse, or cloud; client accesses software and data
via a Web portal.