Human resource professionals have many secrets, but the biggest one they keep close to their vest is how to find great talent immediately once a position becomes vacant. And that is… drumroll, please… a great human resource management system (HRMS) that stores old resumes in a searchable database.
Think about it. Your business gets plenty of unsolicited resumes or resumes that just don’t fit the position you’ve advertised, especially in this economy. Instead of tossing them into the recycle bin, if you scan them into your HRMS system, you have the talent’s information at your fingertips.
For example, Sally Smith may not have the experience needed for the senior-level sales position you advertised, even though she sent in her resume (and was probably crossing her fingers that you’d consider her for something). Instead of wasting a perfectly good resume, you scan her resume into the HRMS system. When a more junior sales position opens up, you search for keywords and qualifications before you spend money on a classified ad, and Sally’s resume pops up. She’d be perfect! In fact, several other resumes also pop up, and you instantly have a pool of candidates to vet before you’ve gone through the expense of a classified ad.
In fact, you’ve also made the sales department very happy, because they don’t have to wait as long for a junior salesperson. HRMS systems shorten the time needed to find qualified candidates because the candidates are already in the database.
Instead of being flooded by yet more resumes, it’s entirely possible for the human resources department to use what’s already available in the database before posting an ad. And in today’s marketplace, it’s very likely that the best talent is still searching for a position and would be interested in meeting with your company.
Think of all the other recruiting tools you normally use: seeing if anyone in your network knows someone, posting on job boards, and looking for internal applicants. Those all work, but they’re time consuming if you have to do that every time a position becomes vacant. A database full of resumes from interested candidates is easy to search by keyword and provides you with a talent pool that you can immediately tap.
This is one of only many benefits of an HRMS system. You can track employee time, improve the accuracy of HR records, assign tasks, and generally streamline the HR department to run like a well-oiled machine. It’s worth more than a look.
About the Author
Anthony Kelly is a frequent contributor to compareHRIS and PEOcompare. compareHRIS provides reviews and information on HRIS companies such as Ceridian, Ultipro,and ECI empower.