For this blog post, I set out to identify recruiters' most significant challenges. And, just like any other amateur, I started by meeting with the recruiters  I already knew over drinks to try and scoop out some of the pain areas. Instead, I learned from the little experiment how easily the conversation drifted smoothly and, if I might say, interestingly, to other topics that were hardly related to work. Well, the martinis may have had something to do with it.

Eventually, however, I got some great information on these professionals' challenges, which were confirmed by studies and data from Bullhorn.

With these pointers in mind and after extensive research on the solutions, I’ve compiled a list of some of the biggest obstacles the recruiters mentioned. This blog post will explore AppExchange solutions that can help solve those challenges. 

The 6 most common challenges that the recruiters face:

Seize the Attention of the Ideal Candidates

Discovering the skilled and ideal candidates from a pool of professionals is like finding a needle in a haystack. And most of the recruiters see this as the most painfully exhausting problem. They eventually settle for the best among the lot instead of finding the one that meets their skill set. The number of candidates who apply for the post is only sometimes enough. There are chances to find an ideal match amongst the smaller pipeline of a qualified, talented stream of individuals. It’s this batch they find the most difficult to find.     

Making the Candidates Stay at the Apply Job Page

Because the candidates are looking for a job, there is a high chance they might stop at your website, and even better, they’ll apply for one of the job posts. This is where the challenge arises. How many candidates visit the website and spend many minutes filling in the details already mentioned in their CV? If I were the one, I’d instead hop on to another website where applying for the job needs just 2-3 clicks. “Positive Candidate Experience,” a term the HR fraternity usually refers to, is one of the major pain areas. Simply put, making exceptional candidates apply to the job post without wasting time filling in unnecessary information is the recruiter’s distress.       

 Suitable Candidates are Scouting Multiple Opportunities

Good candidates have no shortage of job offers. Recruiters from around the world are phishing for skilled and proficient candidates with enticing offers. The ones with special skills are always considering better job opportunities at one time. Recruiters find it challenging to put in extra effort to persuade passive candidates to select your company.

Quick Hiring

The recruiters wish to fill the open positions quickly because such delays would cost daily operations and money. Yet, searching for the professionals would sometimes take weeks or months. This puts the recruiting team in a dilemma. Such delay in finding the right fit would result from the need for more qualified candidates. The company and the candidates need to reach a consensus, making them select the job the competitors offer.  

Relying on Manual Data Recruitment

While depending on the recruitment metrics is an excellent way to improve the recruitment process, the team often wastes valuable time and days collecting and processing the data. Undoubtedly, using spreadsheets to keep track of the hiring data is one way, but the manual work involved only increases errors. Accuracy is one thing that is for sure compromised. What these companies still need is a streamlined approach to efficient hiring.  

 Building a Brand Value & Name

Every candidate wants to be associated with a brand name. A company’s culture is believed to attract the top 20% of the candidates and decide their future roles based on the brand.. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. There’s a positive candidate experience that should be considered for enhancing and promoting the company culture. This requires a collective measure on the behest of the co-workers as well.

After understanding and penning down these problems, the solutions, quite surprisingly, were easy to find.

Salesforce AppExchange 

During my research, I realized that most companies rely on the Salesforce AppExchange cloud marketplace. Primarily because it offers top-notch apps, customer service, analytics, and much more, surprisingly, nearly 95% of the Fortune 100 companies use at least one of the Salesforce AppExchange apps, which adds credibility to the parsers that the HRs can use. 

The most intriguing aspect was that all apps must undergo rigorous security checks to be listed in the AppExchange marketplace. This information was enough for me to ensure that, as a client, I would have access to tried-and-tested apps available on a prominent cloud platform.

After reviewing many apps, I realized each uses Salesforce-familiar tools like workflow, dashboards, and customization fields. I watched the demo to quickly review the parsers' functionality. It was just like taking a test drive, where I got to know the product's functionality and decided whether it was true to its words. Talk about revolutionizing the recruitment process.

Invest in an HR Technology

The most important part is to know that investing time scrutinizing the CVs field-wise and then segregating the best out of the hundreds will reap no good. Investing in an automated system that trims down the process from days to a few hours is imperative. This will be good, especially for recruiters who don’t wish to compromise with the quality of the professionals. Having a database of candidates segregated based on skills, experience, qualification, education, and more simplifies the process.

That’s when I learned about resume parser for human resources. Remember the problem I spoke about above? Positive Candidate Experience! This is what the parser helps with. I realized that integrating the software into the ATS would mean the candidates wouldn’t have to fill in their information repeatedly. Simply uploading the CV would suffice. The parser fetches the data fields automatically, which further helps the recruiters reach out to skilled personnel.  

What further stirred my interest in the product was that recruiters can save time that otherwise would have been wasted in manual data entry. I tested it and selected the data fields based on which I wanted the candidate list extracted to see what the hoopla was all about. Interestingly, I saved 2-3 hours that otherwise would have been wasted scrutinizing 15 resumes and instead got streamlined data within a few minutes. 

There’s more to it, which I understood after trying a resume parser. The advanced features and ease of use, particularly, won me over. I also realized how easy the whole scenario was made at Salesforce AppExchange, where they understand the concept of positive experience. To go with it, the platform’s architecture made it relatively smooth to streamline, optimize, and automate HR’s ability to deliver a positive candidate experience.    

 A Pre-built Candidate Database

Proving handy at the last moment, this is a database of the candidates who can fill the positions in the near future. A pre-qualified list will eventually reduce the time needed to find candidates and the recurring costs. All the recruiters need to do is engage the past and passive candidates.   

Train the Recruiting Team

Agreed that the recruiters in your company are highly experienced, but their skills can sometimes need polishing. One of the most common reasons I’ve realized why the hiring team may need training is to combat bias. Training them to make a candidate feel comfortable or ask interview questions can make a difference.   

Enhance the Recruiting Strategies

One good way to do this is to advertise the vacancy on the job board, which you know is a stopover for candidates. But alone, this won’t help. You may consider social portals to post your job feed, employee stories, office culture, and other benefits that would seize employees’ attention.     

Wipe out manual data entry work processes 

One of the best ways AppExchange can help recruiters is by eliminating the manual data entry that sucked up their valuable hours. A seamless integration with a resume parser would mean uploading the resumes in bulk and getting the required information about the candidates within seconds. Another good point in its favor is that it minimizes the risks involved with manual data entry, which cuts down the liabilities your company might have to bear in terms of spending both resources and time searching for the right candidate. 

Summing it up:

There’s no doubt that recruiting can be challenging, but seeking help and suggestions from others who may be far more experienced than you can help come up with ingenious solutions. The problems are common, and their solutions can be creatively advanced. Many resources are available, and this blog is one of them. My sole criterion here was finding a solution to help the recruiters perform their jobs better. This HR technology interestingly turned out to be a solution that will erase manual hiring errors in the future.