Why Selecting Your Staffing and Recruiting Software Is Like Hiring a Top Producer

Improve your business success by using the same criteria for selecting your staffing software and recruiting software that you would use to select a candidate to boost your sales and recruiting bottom line.

As a staffing and recruiting professional, you know the value of a top producer in your business. They are hard to recruit, as you won’t find any colleges offering majors in “staffing and recruiting sales,” or “third-party recruiting and staffing.” More importantly, your top producers, whether in sales or recruiting, are likely to produce 80 percent of your business profits.

You want your business to grow profitably, so it makes sense then to apply the same criteria to your staffing and recruiting software selection as you would to hiring a top sales and recruiting producer for your business. After all, your recruiting software is the single most important tool your top producers have to produce results with. But how do you go about it? You can use the established character traits of top performers as principals for selecting your software.

Here we’ll apply the seven character traits of top performing sellers as described by Steve W. Martin, who teaches sales strategy at the USC Marshall School of Business, to staffing and recruiting software vendors:

1. Modesty. A team orientation to your recruiting and staffing software solution. Your recruiting software vendor will recognize and position you and your staff side-by-side with their own staff (sales, technical support, development, etc.) as one team with one goal – your success. Your software vendor should have the deep expertise and skills in-house – from sales to development to training to support – to understand and address your business needs. Find out how many staff they have in key positions and how long they’ve been with the firm to determine how their teams’ experience can support your business.
2. Conscientiousness. A strong sense of duty and being responsible and reliable. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor should take the importance of your business success very seriously and feel deeply responsible for the results. This “ownership” of your success is most often seen in their ongoing investments in technology development, their honesty in their business dealings, and the responsiveness and quality of the after-the-sale customer support you get, so find out how much of their gross is dedicated to development and talk to lots of customer references about product performance and support.
3. Achievement Orientation. Understanding and measuring how your software fits into your business. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor should be fixated on achieving goals and continuously measuring their performance in comparison to their goals. This means that they are continuously refining their products and services based on your feedback (and that of their other customers) to improve performance. Learn how they measure their development and support performance and seek to improve it for insight on how key performance metrics play a role in their business.
4. Curiosity. Inquisitiveness about your business that translates into effective solutions. Your staffing software and recruiting software vendor should have a hunger for knowledge and information about your business, your customers, and your industry. They will be driven to ask you difficult and uncomfortable questions in order to close gaps in information that will help them provide you the best solution and services.
5. Lack of Gregariousness. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor is your technology advisor – not your BFF.  Your staffing software vendor should have long experience with many customers across relevant industry segments. That gives them deep insight into the business of staffing and recruiting and how their solution can improve your success. As your trusted advisor on recruiting and staffing technology, they may offer recommendations that, at first glance, may be counter to your own thinking, but are nonetheless sound.
6. Lack of Discouragement. Competitive, never-give-up attitude to winning and keeping your business successful.  The staffing and recruiting business is a tough, competitive one and your recruiting and staffing software should be eager to help you compete. That means that, regardless of what the business climate is like, they are focused on developing and delivering the products and services you need with dedication, expertise, and staying-power to support you today and in the years ahead. Seek references that have been with the vendor for some time and ask about their software and business support experiences.
7. Lack of Self-Consciousness. Aggressively capable of “thinking outside the box” to discover and implement new technology to enable your success. New technology and ideas confront old perceptions and ways of doing business daily. Your staffing and recruiting software vendor must be comfortable embracing changes in technology or business processes that offer you important new benefits and fighting for their cause even if it means rankling you in the process.

So there you have it – seven principles for selecting your next staffing software or recruiting software package based on the same standards you should use for selecting a top performing sales or recruiting staff member. If you are in the market for a change in business software, these can be helpful in your selection process. Even if you are not in the market for new software, maybe you should consider applying them to your current software vendor – you might find it enlightening.

If you would like to talk to us about how our staffing and recruiting software can improve your business, click demo or give us a call at 800-318-4983 today. We’re here to help you succeed.