Every tool belt has a hammer and a screwdriver. They are the basics for any handyman job. Likewise, recruiters use computers and job descriptions as their basics. However, there are variations in the fundamentals of recruitment. These differences are what make the stellar job descriptions stand out from the mediocre ones, and the ATS shine over the average office computer.

1.    Applicant Tracking Software

Take a guess as to how many large companies have ATS… 75% of large companies use this recruitment tool to filter through the massive amounts of resumes that come through their virtual gates. Ten of America’s largest employers have more than 300,000 workers, which combined equal 5.6 million employees. It takes recruiters an average of 6 seconds to skim one resume. Multiply that by the number of candidates in your talent pool and that’s more work than the average team could handle. Without an ATS, it would take a colossal team of recruiters to get through the piles of candidate files.

2.    Job Descriptions

How will you ever attract your dream candidate? Recruiters will only reel in a good talent pool with an attention-grabbing job description. According to Patty Hilger, Vice President of Human Resources & Operations at Genesis HR Solutions, there are certain requirements that create an attractive job description. They include:

• Be specific – Use percentages to tell candidates what exactly the job is comprised of. 
• Show the big picture – It’s important to candidates to know how they will fit into the culture of the company. Paint a brief picture showing how their contribution will benefit the organization.
• Short, sweet, and to the point – Be resourceful with the words in the job description. With the growing usage of smart technology, attention spans are getting shorter. In short, don’t be redundant.
• Include a salary – if there is one thing that will bring in a potential candidate, it’s knowing how much they could make. 

3.    Mobility is in the Hands of the Beholder

In the technology age, talent acquisition programs have little chance at survival unless they are engaging candidates with mobility. Cell phones, tablets, and other smart devices are direct avenues to attract candidates.  If your career site is not responsive to mobile devices, you’ll soon experience 40% candidate abandonment in your recruitment program.

4.    Gamification Station

Using games to attract and assess candidates is a growing trend. Large brand name companies like Canon, Cisco, L’Oreal, and Lexus use gamification to gauge skills through technology. However, unless these training programs are properly created, and well developed, they won’t be as effective as they could be. Research group, Gartner, predicted that by 2014, 80% of gamification programs will fail because they will not be successful in their design concepts. 

5.    Internet Sourcing

Of course, LinkedIn was going to make it into this article. It would be unfair to leave it out considering 94% of recruiters use the site to screen candidates. The only downside is that only 36% of job seekers actively use LinkedIn’s capabilities. Where are they? Well, there are other sites similar to LinkedIn that focus on niche talent groups. Some tools that can reach diverse talent pools are sites such as Xing, Twylah, andOpportunity.

Tool belts – of some form – are necessary for every profession. Firefighters have water hoses and ladders, cobblers use rivets, and recruiters use the tools listed above. Especially in large companies, ATS is required. Carefully formulated job descriptions, complete with specifics and percentages of job duties, attract the well rounded, and most qualified candidates to the open positions. Especially if the career site the job application is on is responsive to the increasingly popular mobile devices.

Bio: Raj Sheth, CEO/Partner

Raj Sheth is the co-founder of Recruiterbox, an online recruitment software and applicant tracking system designed especially for growing companies. Prior to Recruiterbox, he founded two other web startups -- a classifieds portal and an ecommerce site. He is a graduate of Babson College and spent the first three years of his career as a financial analyst with EMC Corporation in Boston. Learn more about Recruiterbox right now.

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