It is becoming increasingly important in today’s economy that every company needs to try and do more with less.  And in no place is it more present than in the recruiting sector.  Recruiting organizations consistently are asked to do more with their ever decreasing set of resources.

But not all’s lost as recruiting organizations are consistently finding ways to improve their processes and cut the fat of their overall recruitment marketing strategy.  From identifying key processes (and removing bad ones) to using technology to automate & speed up time-consuming tasks, recruiting organizations need to (and are) focusing on using their recruiters on what’s most important, finding & identifying the top talent that comes through the door each day.

When you look at both Finding & Identifying qualified candidates, they are two much different processes.  Finding qualified candidates is the process of sourcing candidates that may fit your organization.  Identifying candidates is the process of identifying which candidates that enter your ATS will be good fits for your organization and which should move on into your interview process.  While both can be time sensitive, there are opportunities on the sourcing side of the equation for technology to decrease the time and “manpower” needed to fuel these efforts.

Here are a few ways technology can help you free up time for your recruiters to focus on identifying the right talent for your organization:

Automated Resume Sourcing: Have you ever spent hours upon hours searching through your Monster or CareerBuilder Resume Database subscriptions?  You can save time by having a Resume Sourcing provider that conducts these keyword searches for you automatically when you are looking to fill a new position and bring back resumes that fit what you are looking for.

Opt-In Talent Network: Both on your Career Site and in your Apply Process, you have a tremendous opportunity to add interested candidates to your Talent Network to ping for future job openings.  These candidates are free (just need to set up the portals) and can provide a lasting recruiting channel that grows exponentially with every job ad you post.  It’s simple to do and will give your recruiters more qualified candidates to search through.

Centralized Database: As you have your recruiters source contacts for jobs, where do you have them put them?  If they all have their own spreadsheets or databases you are wasting the power of having these candidates available for use by your own recruiting organization.  Make sure to make it easy for your recruiters to add contacts to your centralized database with Excel spreadsheets, email or mobile recruiting.  Also, make sure that your Opt-In candidates make it into your database as well.

Those are a few ways you can help your recruiters ease their sourcing burden and let them do what’s important: identifying and selling the best candidates for your organization.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this as well.

In what ways have you been able to use your current resources (staff, technology, etc.) better to help improve your recruiting efforts?