Changing technology has significant impact on business as well as candidate and user experience in the world of recruiting. Evaluating your tech investments annually is not often enough. Today’s technology changes at such a rapid pace, knowledge of what is available will be a powerful tool in HR operations. Your software solutions have a great impact on your business. This article explains what you should be thinking about when evaluating your current tech stack.
Executive Guide for Evaluating New Technology Changes to Consider in 2020
Content Summary
Step 1: Assess Your Current ATS for these Key Capabilities
Step 2: Gather Requirements
Step 3: Do the Demo
Step 4: Continue to Build A Path to Change
Check out some of the top standards you should be thinking about when evaluating your current technology:
Step 1: Assess Your Current ATS for these Key Capabilities
- Mobile: Mobile capabilities are in demand more now, than ever. Without this capability, your pipeline will likely suffer resulting in longer time to fill.
- Integrations: Seamless integrations are a crucial part of a successful ATS. Your solution should eliminate the complexity of integrations by effortlessly tying in HCM partners and pulling together all your operations into one solution.
- Scale: Does your current ATS scale to your company growth or business model? Ensuring that you have technology that scales with your business alleviates the pain points of switching to something that may not meet your requirements later.
Partner with the CHRO on the shared goal to accelerate the development of business-critical competencies. Identify the unique capabilities each role brings and how the fusion of these capabilities can expedite delivery of talent management outcomes (Gartner 2019 CEO Survey: CIOs Should Partner with CHROs to Bridge the Digital Talent Management Gap).
Step 2: Gather Requirements
- Communicate: Initially include all stakeholders involved as it is crucial to ensure all functions of the system are accounted for when researching. i.e. CHRO, IT decision makers, Hiring Managers, Recruiters, and System Admins.
- Choose Your Technology Selection Committee: The members of this committee should take ownership of vetting prospective software and actively sharing requirements to ensure a smooth implementation. i.e. Hiring Managers, Recruiters, System Admins, Technology decision makers, Business Relationship Managers.
- Rank Requirements: Prioritize “must have” features while making sure to identify “nice to have” features toward the bottom of your requirements list. This will help you avoid the pitfalls of being distracted by bells and whistles you don’t really need.
Talent acquisition has rapidly evolved in recent years, and so has its technology requirements. As the concept of a talent acquisition suite evolved from marketing message pushed by key vendors into a reality for any viable solution in the market, the core recruiting system — the applicant tracking system (ATS) — has evolved to meet demand for broader capabilities and deeper functionality.
Step 3: Do the Demo
Product demonstrations provide visual and tactical support when doing research in new technology on the market. Testing out other possibilities is the best way to arm yourself with enough knowledge to make the best decision for your company.
- Use Your Requirements List: Keep these requirements on hand to save time by lining up any new products with the current needs listed by the business and stakeholders. Send this list to the vendor prior to the demonstration so you can really see if the technology aligns to your needs.
- Buy In From Stakeholders: Arrange demo times so that all stakeholders can be present to show the value a new technology can bring in. Demonstrations solidify what a product can and cannot do by providing hands on trials which will ensure buy-in from impacted stakeholders.
Talent acquisition grows more complex by the day, and modern recruiting technology continues to play a critical role in enabling success at scale.
Step 4: Continue to Build A Path to Change
Once your current system has been assessed, the requirements listed and ranked and your research has been performed through other product demonstrations, you can move forward by talking to stakeholders across the business to prepare for implementation.
- Support Communication: Maintain a line of open communication with the IT leaders in your organization to collaboratively create a smooth path to switching software. i.e. Procurement, CIO, Project Managers and Business Relationship Managers
- Create a Technology Roadmap: Map out a timeline of when new implementations can take place by evaluating things such as current contract terms, budget, features and long-term needs. Keep in mind that when this implementation timeline is built, be sure that considerations for user adoption are noted to ensure a smooth cut over to the new technology, and usage by end users.
In a world where the pace of innovation is moving at the speed of thought, many talent acquisition functions are long overdue for technology upgrades.
Source: iCIMS
