VRP helps navigate the future of the recruitment industry

This year is definitely a year to remember. The unprecedented impact of the pandemic is forcing every industry to redefine their way of working. Particularly, in the recruitment sector, both in terms of staffing companies and corporate recruitment departments. It is no surprise, therefore, that businesses are looking to digitally transform working practices with innovative technology, while the future of the recruitment industry remains uncertain.

CRM solutions such as Salesforce are providing many opportunities and as Salesforce experts, with a focus on delivering solutions to the recruitment industry, we understand the importance of leveraging CRM and analytics for both staffing companies and corporate HR departments alike.

How the pandemic has changed recruitment

This crisis paralyzed businesses globally, particularly the recruitment industry, (staffing companies and internal HR departments). This new situation raised many concerns, as no one really knew or could predict the longer term consequences. It took a couple of weeks to fully realize and experience the scale and impact, resulting in immediate hiring freezes, paused recruitment activities and delays in collaboration with staffing agencies. As time progressed, many businesses took desperate measures by reviewing their current employee contracts, with the aim of halting any renewals on temporary employments, or even ending them prematurely.

Adjusting to remote recruitment

Another critical realization was the sudden requirement for organizations to operate with remote teams, therefore urgently looking for innovative solutions to support workload distribution and team communication. New and improved forms of work had to be designed and implemented quickly and efficiently, in order to keep everyday business processes running seamlessly. It was also vital to maintain a positive company culture in terms of employee engagement, which directly translates into team collaboration and effectiveness. This new working environment also created a great opportunity to clearly see any shortcomings and bottlenecks in current systems, as not having an agile, single source of data could be a significant obstacle.

With direct client relations being an important element of the recruitment industry, recruiters had to rapidly overcome the obstacle of not being able to conduct onsite client visits. This requirement was magnified as companies needed to stay in touch and reassure their partners that it was business as usual, especially in these trying times. Unfortunately, the pandemic not only affected ongoing business relationships but also hindered lead gen and prospecting, simply due to the lack of direct contact opportunities.

Onboarding in the times of Covid

Covid19 suddenly made the process of onboarding much more difficult. Recruitment departments were forced to completely reorganize conventional onboarding processes, which had usually taken place as the employee began their work placement. This involved face-to-face contact for initial training, team meetings, contract and documentation confirmations, etc. In many cases, onboarding had to be moved online, which meant standard procedures would be conducted remotely. Interestingly, this sparked a lot of potential for the future, as it could become an optimal and efficient enrollment method, easily implementable upon the employee signing their new contract before they enter the premises.

Processing applications

Another impact was the dramatic increase in applications. Following the first wave of lay-offs, any open position would attract an extraordinary amount of interested candidates, which became a significant challenge for many corporate HR recruiters. In some cases, applications jumped from a few, to hundreds or even thousands of candidates per a single job offer. Such a vast candidate pool may seem like an ideal situation, however it meant recruiters had a daunting task to ensure quality reviews to find the most suitable resumes.

Additionally, it became clear there was an urgent requirement to find a technology solution that not only manages the influx but guarantees an efficient and seamless recruitment process. This solution also needed to provide timely communication with the hiring manager and candidate, thereby creating a positive recruitment experience. Many companies started to revise their applicant tracking system (ATS) and VMS to analyze capacity handling. After a couple of months, they had a clearer picture of current capabilities, potential upgrade requirements and/or new agile solution implementation needs. Unsurprisingly, many realized they should invest in more agile solutions.

Seizing new opportunities with Bullhorn and VRP

VRP is proud to be partnered with Bullhorn – a leading ATS provider, designed to get the most of the Salesforce platform, utilizing the power of data to deliver cutting-edge recruitment processes. Bullhorn for Salesforce supports every aspect of recruitment in an integrated solution that helps to consolidate all operations and data, streamline workflows, quickly find the perfect candidate, acquire new customers and introduce valuable insights. It is equipped with an outstanding set of tools that can help companies face the challenges from the pandemic. It offers a leading ATS system that facilitates the management of the entire recruitment lifecycle in one accessible interface. Moreover, it provides a positive candidate experience.

Another feature that can be instrumental in current circumstances is Bullhorn’s FYRE tool, as it completely resolves the problem of data overflow within corporations who deal with a lot of temporary hires. It automatically transfers data from VMS to ATS, eliminating the need for manual processing. In effect, staffing companies do not need to be restricted by the processing capacity that previously forced them to handpick a limited amount of vacancies to present to applicants. Therefore, they can increase their chance of successful candidate matching and in the end, achieve better results.

VRP assists the recruitment industry and corporate recruitment departments – a success story

A prime example of a successfully performed implementation during the pandemic is our cooperation with a well known staffing company Charlie Works . This recruitment company from the Netherlands, specializing in arranging temporary work in the agricultural and construction industries for the Eastern European employees, reached out to VRP seeking Salesforce expertise and looking for a solution to boost their growth. The implementation process was almost ready to be set up, as the rigid lockdowns became a reality. VRP, being an expert determined to always support our customers, came up with alternative ways to perform the implementation despite the circumstances. With VRP’s online discovery workshops and hybrid delivery approach, Charlie Works were able to enhance their system as planned, before the situation in the industry became really challenging.

The decision was worthwhile as it resulted in immediate improvements as their brand new ATS, standardized procedures and training transformed their business, saving time and costs while boosting vacancy fulfillment, whilst driving revenue. Impressed with our professionalism and instant results, Charlie Works decided to continue working with VRP and expand not only to other countries, but also expanding their scalable Cloud solutions with Sales Cloud and Pardot.

Ready for the future of the recruitment industry?

The changing market forces businesses to find new avenues to assure continuity of running the end-to-end recruitment processes and uphold professional candidate journeys. The best way to adapt to this situation and guarantee success is to harness advanced technology and implement agile, data driven software that can not only sustain your current position but perpetually accelerate your business capabilities.

If this resonates with you, we can help you optimize your recruitment strategy.

For more details on how we can work together visit:
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About the Author

Patrick Joosten

Regional Sales Manager NL, VRP Consulting

Patrick Joosten is a Regional Sales Manager for the VRP Consulting team in the Netherlands. He is an established IT Recruitment specialist with over 14 years of experience in managing recruitment and sales consultant teams. For the last 4 years he has been specializing in Applicant Tracking Systems combined with Salesforce Technology.