Vacancy Filler to Exhibit at HR Directors Summit @ ICC Birmingham

Vacancy Filler has announced it is to exhibit at the HR Directors Business Summit on 4th and 5th February.

The 12th Annual Event is for anyone involved seeking the latest solutions to their HR problems. The summit provides an appropriate platform to help debate the future of the HR function and its role in steering corporate strategy.

Vacancy Filler will be launching a number of new developments at the summit which will further increase the return on investment for any organisation wishing to take a more ‘in-house’ approach to hiring.

These include Asynchronous Video Interviewing, offering an alternative to phone screening or first round interviewing. Video Interviewing is time-saving as well as a way to let you see candidates’ personality and presentation, not just a list of qualifications.

Vacancy Filler partners with ERAS to provide Psychometric Testing services and are integrating their solution into the platform. Organisations can not only find the right fit for the role. The ERAS Job Analysis & Job Match tools are ideal for the identification of areas to probe at interview, for candidate sifting during the recruitment process, or for the identification of training and development needs.

Vacancy Filler provides Recruitment Process Outsourcing services, complementing your own recruitment activities, whilst making considerable savings compared with a traditional agency model. Certain of these service offerings, such as Automated Background Checks are also soon to be integrated into the platform. More information on the Vacancy Filler Platform can be found at www.vacancy-filler.co.uk/Resources.aspx

Customer Services Manager Paul Hammond commented on the importance of events such as the WTG HR Directors Summit for Vacancy Filler: “The themes of the conference events are closely aligned to our product development plan, because it is closely aligned to the needs of our HR clients. We love to attend these events to network, to learn and to contribute to the knowledge base of the industry”

Are you attending the HR Director’s Business Summit? To learn more about Vacancy Filler’s latest innovations, to view a demonstration or to arrange a consultation during the event, call 0844 800 9376 or email sales@vacancy-filler.co.uk

Enhancements to Equal Opportunities section

We have made a number of enhancements to the way Vacancy Filler captures your candidates' Equality and Diversity information. Hiring managers no longer see this information as part of their application.

Instead, Full Access users now have this information available within the Reporting tab. For singular or multiple adverts you can report on the full Equality and Diversity Summary or, for adjustments required for candidates attending interviews, you can report on the Disability Summary.

We are also developing the same enhancement for the "Disclosing Convictions", which will be released shortly.

This enhancement was made in co-operation with a number of our clients, both from public and private sector, and we would like to thank those involved once again.

Agency Management module is now fully live

While Vacancy Filler’s software significantly reduces business’ dependency on agencies and the commensurate savings that go with it, the new Agency Management module will seamlessly integrate candidates that your preferred suppliers put forward into the process.

All stakeholders can now operate on the same platform, streamlining and improving the relationship organisations have with any third party suppliers.

An online webinar will be held shortly to show users around the new addition to the platform, but you can begin using the module straight away. Speak to your Account Manager to find out more or email support@vacancy-filler.co.uk to book an online training session.

Recruitment Technology Vs Recruitment Service in 2014

The total recruitment industry turnover reached £26.5 billion in 2012/13, a growth of 3.1% since 2011/12, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC’s) latest annual Recruitment Industry Trends Survey http://www.rec.uk.com/press/news/2428

More employers are looking to hire staff as employment confidence has reached its highest level since 2008, according to the CIPD’s latest Labour Market Outlook (LMO) survey http://www.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2013/08/12/recruitment-grows-to-highest-level-since-recession-finds-cipd.aspx

So if you are looking to hire staff and recognise that your current in-house processes are cumbersome, costly and inefficient and you’re looking for a supplier to assist, then what type of suppler would you choose?

The recruitment industry has consolidated into four classifications of supplier with four different business models.  This White Paper describes the basis of their business models and how to easily identify the type of business you are currently engaging, or are thinking of engaging with.

The Service-led Recruiter

The Service-led suppliers are the traditional recruitment agencies, specialist agencies and head hunters.  In this model, companies are reliant upon the specialist knowledge and capabilities of individuals to act on your behalf. One of the oldest references to a recruitment consultancy or agency service dates back to 1650. Since then recruitment agencies have become commonplace and many companies are heavily reliant upon their services. They provide a low risk but high cost solution.  The agency gambles that they can fill your role otherwise they will not get paid. Upon receiving your job requisition, their consultant will provide a selection of what they believe to be the most suitable candidates for your position and you will select the candidates you would like to interview for the job.  It sounds simple and low risk, but is it really? As the agency is not getting paid until the placement is made and unless you have engaged them exclusively, they will sell the best candidates they can find to the highest bidder using whatever leverage they can to get their candidate to accept the job. Your recruitment and indeed your business’s growth, is in the hands of a third-party or, in the worst case scenario, a salesperson. The last few years have been particularly difficult for recruitment agencies due to the recession and businesses tightening their belts. This has led to many recruitment agencies focusing heavily on employing sales people as consultants.

Service First, Technology Second suppliers

This category can be considered as the “online” recruitment agency.  During the recession, recruitment agencies saw a large reduction in revenues from their existing client base through cut-backs and the commensurate reduction in recruitment.  Recruitment agencies have been one of the first suppliers to be cut when budgets are tightened.  Many agencies have responded with a cheaper cut-down service offering which usually consists of your vacancy advertised on Job Boards for a fixed price.  The agency will use a basic third party applicant tracking system to present the candidates or simply email the responses directly to you. Again, looking at this model from a distance it has its advantages, providing some transparency to the work in progress and doing so at a significantly reduced cost against the standard percentage-based recruitment model. Also you gain better visibility of the candidates assuming they are using an applicant tracking system. However most of these suppliers are still reliant on their old business model to make a profit, so if you don’t get the candidates that you need through the fixed cost advertising option, you can upgrade to the traditional agency service.  Looking on the internet, you will find dozens of companies with this offering. There are, however, a number of disadvantages to this model. You are not building your own talent pools and all the candidates are still going into the agencies first.  Whilst some agencies provide tools to find and qualify the candidates, you have limited support to identify the quality candidates you need and the agency will always be tempted to increase their margin by pushing the full recruitment agency service so they make a profit.

Technology Only providers

Most technology providers that have recruitment functionality fall in to three clear categories.  The first is the extension of the existing HR Management System (HRMS).  The second Applicant Tracking System (ATS), developed specifically for recruitment and the third category are Job Boards themselves, with varying degrees of functionality, who post job advertisements directly.  All three have varying degrees of integration with social/business networking sites. Hundreds of companies have sprung up over recent years and have different commercial models from simple Pay-per Campaign (PPC), Software as a Service model or on a Subscription basis.  Business software these days is increasingly hosted in the cloud and available on-demand rather than on-premise.  This means that there is not the IT management overhead attributed to on-premise systems.  Whether an organisation adopts a Pay-as-you-Go model or invests in a software Subscription - often as a term licence - largely depends on how many times an organisation recruits in any one year.  The more advanced ATSs integrate mobile, candidate testing, video interviewing as well as posting to Job Boards and social media and tend to be purchased on a Subscription basis as organisations will recognise that these systems will largely form part of a bigger HR strategy.  In contrast, PPC systems tend to be a tactical approach to fulfilling roles. (Please see Vacancy Filler’s White Paper PPC vs Software Subscription which compares these models in more detail).  Either way, purchasing software only means that the recruitment process is largely managed in-house either through a dedicated recruitment team or individual.

Service Enhanced Technology Providers

This model is the most recent to appear in the recruitment market, these companies have invested heavily in technology and also offer all recruitment support you need, or may need, included in the subscription. These companies have no hidden agenda; they offer the best recruitment tools and resources so you can recruit directly. These providers will however, wrap a service around the technology if an organisation does not have a dedicated recruitment team or resource.  This works well either as a safety net, just to help out if organisations who are going through a particularly busy period, where the provider can step-in to offer assistance either on an ‘ad hoc’ basis or part of a more formal arrangement under the governance of a Service Level Agreement.

These vendors will often have in-house recruiters themselves who can resource candidates on behalf of an organisation so that if a particular campaign is not doing so well, they can assist their clients by bringing in their expertise, anywhere from optimising job advertisements, proactively searching for candidates or re-qualifying some of the early applicants who may not have fully included their experience or qualifications at the time of application.  These services can often be negotiated separately as either a one-off or on an on-going basis, depending on the scope and volume on offer.

Conclusion

In conclusion there are many different companies that you can engage with, you don’t have to settle for the high recruitment agencies costs and as the topic of recruitment heats up over the coming months, companies now have more choice than ever before to recruit their own way.

About Vacancy Filler

Vacancy Filler Ltd falls into the latter category of Service Enhanced Technology Providers. The company was first established in 2008 and has since moved from strength to strength through re-investing in the development of our product and business. The Vacancy Filler software platform has been developed from first principles based on an original idea from a local recruitment company dissatisfied with the then current market offerings.

The software continues to be developed by Vacancy Filler’s own in-house software developers against a product roadmap which is driven by our direct engagement with HR and Recruitment professionals across both Private and Public Sector. Since then, the company has invested in Recruitment Support Services providing advice and guidance ranging from job advert creation to managing entire campaigns. It is important that each campaign is successful in its own right, so that our customers continue to receive value from the system and fill roles.

If you are interested in learning more about how an ATS could work in your organisation or would like further information on how Vacancy Filler can help you with a your business case, then please contact us.