Recruitment Management System: Small Business Guide

A recruitment management system (RMS) is a human resources tool or set of tools used to manage the process of recruiting, interviewing, and hiring new employees. Managing recruitment requires ongoing monitoring, legal compliance, and fairness to avoid discrimination. Apart from helping with these, the right RMS also works in several steps of your recruitment process, including:

• Posting Jobs
• Employment Application
• Applicant Screening
• Interview Scheduling

ZipRecruiter provides small businesses with an end-to-end recruitment management system. It can post jobs on numerous job boards and set up and manage your entire recruitment and selection process online in one portal, creating a seamless and efficient experience for both you and your applicants.

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How an RMS Fits Into Your Recruitment & Selection Process

The type of recruitment management system you should use depends on how much hiring you plan to do and how often you plan to do it. A free job board and applicant tracking spreadsheet may be more appropriate for small businesses that are only hiring a couple of employees per year, whereas complete recruitment software works better for companies that are scaling rapidly.

Let’s take a look at how an RMS benefits your company in the different steps of the recruitment process:

Posting Jobs

Posting jobs is tedious. To reach the maximum number of potential candidates, you need to post your open job on at least several of the major job boards. Doing this one by one will take valuable time and probably result in not posting on every job board, which could reduce the number of candidates who see your open job.

Unless you work in an industry that utilizes an industry-specific job board, you’re more likely to attract the best candidates if you make your job posting visible in multiple places. A recruitment management system like ZipRecruiter will automatically post your open job to numerous job boards at once. Additionally, it will allow you to create a company page where you can direct potential candidates to learn more about your company and see all of your open positions.

A good RMS will also allow you to send recruiting emails to candidates who match the qualifications found in your job description and compile all of your candidates so you don’t have to bounce between multiple sites.

Employment Application

Even if you do not have a company employment application form, there is still certain information you need to collect during the application process. Through your RMS, you can collect relevant information about every job candidate, including:

• Full name
• Complete address
• Phone and email
• Previous employment history

An RMS also enables organizations to collect, organize, and track applicant data efficiently, leading to improved candidate management and a more efficient hiring process.

During this stage of the candidate’s application, you can also ask specific questions to learn more about them. However, be careful, as asking certain questions about a candidate’s background or criminal history can be illegal depending on the state in which your company operates or where the candidate lives. Learn more about common illegal questions to avoid.

Applicant Screening

An RMS benefits your applicant screening process by automating the initial review of resumes, using predefined criteria to shortlist candidates, such as filtering out those who lack required qualifications or experience. For example, An RMS can review each candidate’s resume individually. You’ll need to match it to the job description and ensure they tick off the boxes you need for the role. This is a time-consuming process.

RMSs do this matching automatically. It will screen candidates for you, only notifying you of those that match your open job best. This reduces the time you have to spend screening candidates and ensures that the candidates you review are of higher quality.

Interview Scheduling

An RMS streamlines interview scheduling and reduces scheduling conflicts. For example, it schedules interviews for you. When you want to interview a candidate, you can select several dates and times that work for you, and the system will offer those slots to the candidate. When the candidate selects one of those options, your RMS automatically books that time on your calendar, eliminating the back-and-forth required to set up an interview manually. If you’re interviewing multiple candidates, this is a massive timesaver.

How to Choose the Right Recruitment Management Tools

Choosing the right recruitment management tool is an important decision for any organization. The right tool can help you streamline your hiring process, improve your candidate experience, and make better hiring decisions.

Factors to Consider

Here are some factors to consider when choosing a recruitment management tool:

• Your needs: What are your specific needs in terms of features and functionality? Do you need a tool that can handle a large volume of candidates? Do you need a tool that can integrate with your existing systems?
• Your budget: How much are you willing to spend on a recruitment management tool?
• Ease of use: How easy is the tool to use? Will your team be able to adopt it quickly?
• The tool’s features: What features are important to you? Do you need a tool that can automate tasks, manage candidates, or track your hiring metrics?
• The tool’s integrations: Does the tool integrate with your existing systems? This can save you time and hassle when it comes to data entry and reporting.
• The tool’s customer support: How good is the tool’s customer support? Will you be able to get help when you need it?

Features to Look For

Here are some of the top features to look for in a recruitment management tool:

• Automated tasks: A good recruitment management tool should automate as many tasks as possible, freeing up your time to focus on other things. This includes tasks such as resume screening, candidate outreach, and scheduling interviews.
• Candidate management: A good recruitment management tool should allow you to easily manage your candidates throughout the hiring process. This includes features such as tracking candidate progress, storing candidate information, and sending candidate communications.
• Hiring analytics: A good recruitment management tool should provide you with insights into your hiring process. This includes data on things like time to hire, cost per hire, and candidate satisfaction.
• Integrations: A good recruitment management tool should integrate with your existing systems, such as your applicant tracking system (ATS), CRM, and payroll system. This can save you time and hassle when it comes to data entry and reporting.

How Much an RMS Costs

The cost of a recruitment management system (RMS) can vary greatly depending on the features and functionality you need, the size of your organization, and the pricing model you choose.

Here are some of the factors that can affect the cost of an RMS:

• Features and functionality: The more features and functionality you need, the more the RMS will cost. For example, an RMS with automated tasks and candidate management features will cost more than an RMS with basic applicant tracking system (ATS) features.
• Size of your organization: The larger your organization, the more the RMS will cost. This is because larger organizations typically need more features and functionality, and they also need to be able to support a larger number of users.
• Pricing model: There are three main pricing models for RMS:
  • Subscription: This is the most common pricing model. You pay a monthly or annual subscription fee for the RMS.
  • Per-user: You pay a monthly or annual fee for each user of the RMS.
  • Per-job: You pay a fee for each job you post on the RMS.

The subscription pricing model is the most common because it is the most predictable and cost-effective for most organizations. The per-user pricing model is a good option for organizations with a large number of users, and the per-job pricing model is a good option for organizations that only post a few jobs each year.

Bottom Line

A strong recruitment and selection process is key to successful hiring for any small business, particularly in this competitive environment. Having the right recruitment management system, such as ZipRecruiter, speeds up your hiring process and reduces the manual labor you have put in for each new open position. An RMS will also help your company remain legally compliant with confusing and complex employment laws.

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