The quest to source the best talent acquisition platform can be mind-boggling. After all, applicant tracking systems and various other pieces of HR recruitment sotware are a dime a dozen. So, what differentiates the wheat from the chaff?
The best talent acquisition platforms on the market have moved beyond a disparate ATS here and a HRIS or HCM there. As a result, they embrace the front-end of a new employee journey – recruitment, onboarding, learning and development, HR analytics. There’s a very good reason for this. Future forward talent acquisition isn’t achievable if your data sets aren’t aligned and interrelating with each other.
Long-term strategy
Marketing software giant HubSpot’s Caroline Forsey said, “Talent acquisition is a long-term HR strategy aimed at fulfilling organizational needs by finding top talent and convincing them to bring their unique skills to your company.
“To succeed long-term, it’s critical you attract and retain talented employees regardless of vacant roles. Talent acquisition can help you do this, while solving for long-term organizational needs”.
Her definition of talent acquisition helps to define why the best talent acquisition platform is such a compelling proposition. ‘Long-term HR strategy’ isn’t just a single straight path. Instead, it captures the end-to-end journey with all its crossroads and diversions. And the next generation software opens up a whole new realm of previously unthinkable strategic HR across the life cycle. Combine that software into an end-to-end platform and even better!
But identifying the best talent acquisition platform can be like searching for a needle in a haystack! So, what should you be looking for?
Well, here are just a few things to pop on your shopping list. Note, there’s likely many more question marks relating to your specific business needs and current processes.
12 Key functionalities that define the best talent acquisition platform
- Integration – Easy integration with your existing ATS, HRIS, HCM and other business-critical applications enhances the accuracy of the data. And the user-friendliness of accessing it.
- Multinationalism – Support company-wide alignment by tailoring processes to comply with the legalities and nuances of HR recruitment in different global locations.
- Pipeline Building – Continuously replenish your talent pool with a branded careers site hooked up to your talent acquisition software, job boards and social media platforms.
- Customized Application – Adapt application forms and minimum criteria questions on role-by-role basis for instantaneous, automated screening.
- Superior Candidate Journey – Keep candidates engaged with regular automated email and SMS sequences that keep them posted across the journey.
- Evaluation Tools – Provide the hiring panel with simple integrated assessment and scoring features for blind interviewing.
- Removal of Manual Paperwork – Automate new hire paperwork, such as contracts, mandatory information and reference checks, in a single place.
- Onboarding that Engages – Start ramping up new hires before they’re even on board. Connect them to colleagues so they feel a part of the team, and automate deployment of early training modules.
- Automated Learning – Auto-enroll new hires and existing employees on to relevant one-off and / or repeat training courses. And provide those courses on-the-job, self-service online or in-classroom.
- Compliance Training – Schedule the automate awarding of certificates for mandatory training and renewals. As an added bonus, maintain secure storage for more efficient compliance management and reporting.
- Tailored Development – Devise individual learning pathways based on roles, responsibilities and career trajectories. Feature off-the-shelf certified courses and / or in-house training, plus social collaboration.
- Future Forward Reporting – Unify ATS, HRIS, HCM and other data in one place. This empowers you to generate flexible insights. These insghts inform decision making aligned to current and future business goals. And as an added bonus: not a mind-numbing spreadsheet in sight!
What are the juiciest benefits the best talent acquisition platform brings to the table?
It’s what something can do for us that entices us, as buyers, to allocate budget. We tend to not be too interested in how to get there. Instead, we just want the end result. But it’s fair to say that the finest features of the best talent acquisition platform are also giant assets!The benefits these formidable features entail will blow your mind if you’re –
- Still battling with manual systems
- Thwarted by legacy systems and / or a hot mess of non-aligned systems incapable of working together.
You see, no team work means you can’t make the dream work! But imagine being able to –
- Attract, recruit, onboard and train great talent and cultural fits. Compliantly, cost-effectively, and at high velocity and / or high volume if needed
- Align and merge your pre-hire and post-hire data for smarter, better-informed decision making
- Generate unprecedented, powerful, visually attractive and easy to interpret insights at the push of a button. Track attributes that matter to your business and workforce. For example, DE&I, compensation, attrition, current and anticipated staff and skills gaps, L&D, and promotion
The good news is that the best talent acquisition platform makes child’s play of processes that are taking up way too much of your time and energy. Processes that you might not even be doing satisfactorily, through no fault of your own.
And the even better news is that transformation doesn’t have to mean complex systems with humongous price tags to boot.
We can help
At HireRoad, we’re proud of our hard-earned reputation for the best talent acquisition platform on the market. It is purpose developed by HR recruitment experts who understand your need to hire and train for cultural fit, whilst juggling resources and remaining compliant and secure.But don’t just take our word for it. Get in touch to arrange a show and tell, and see for yourself how the best talent acquisition platform aligns to your unique needs and addresses your specific scenarios.