X-ray search (aka X-ray sourcing or X-ray recruiting) is a technique for surfacing potential candidates on specific websites by using outside search engines like Google. In this context, ‘X-ray’ refers to seeing information on profiles inside of a semi-closed platform. Earlier this year, LinkedIn started reducing what useful profile data public search indexers can see, as first revealed by global sourcing guru Marcel van der Meer. Those in the know didn’t need X-ray vision to see this one coming.

So is X-ray search dead when it comes to LinkedIn? Not completely, as it can still turn up helpful information, but it does appear to be losing its depth. With hackles raised by GPT tools scraping data from places like Reddit and others, it seems likely that even more sites will begin limiting what can be reached without a login. This will impact recruitment sourcing more, as well as people-aggregation tools they use which rely on spidering data from outside.

As X-ray loses some of its effectiveness, it will likely require those who have relied on it heavily to start re-skilling to get more effective within LinkedIn’s native tools, as well as potentially budgeting for services that they were formerly able to source within for free from outside.

However, this is also a good opportunity to draw attention to the power and potential of X-ray search on those sites which it remains effective for, as many recruiters may still be unaware of it. Here’s what you need to know.

What is X-ray search anyway?

The internal search functions of platforms like LinkedIn and other professional networking sites can sometimes be less effective than external search engines like Google and Bing. They may lack the tools for granularity or nuance for those tough-to-find candidates by specific skills, experience, or qualifications. To counter this, X-ray searching applies advanced search operators (words and symbols that add instructions to search queries) to directly target specific websites and platforms

For example, the ‘site:’ or ‘inurl:’ operators can be used for finding results specifically on one domain or with a particular URL structure. i.e. “inurl:linkedin.com/in/ software engineer” to find pages with ‘software’ and ‘engineer’ within LinkedIn profiles. You can also use search queries to target resumes on job boards or portfolios on personal websites.

Why do recruiters use X-ray search?

X-ray search can be a powerful tool for sourcing candidates, identifying top talent, and building robust talent pipelines. Here’s what it can do for your recruiting efforts:

• Access passive candidates: Many highly qualified candidates are not actively searching for jobs, but might consider a role if the right one came along. X-ray search allows you to find and reach out to these passive candidates by targeting specific websites where they have public profiles but which may not be ‘job boards’.

• More targeted searches: X-ray search enables you to conduct highly targeted searches based on specific criteria such as skills, experience, location, and industry, beyond the filters a specific site’s tools might supply. For example, you may be unable to use wildcards, generate synonyms, search number ranges, and so forth within a site’s native search. This targeted approach helps find candidates who more closely match the requirements of the positions you are trying to fill.

• Bypass platform limitations: Internal search functions on some sites can have result count limitations. X-ray search can sometimes allow recruiters to bypass these limitations and access a broader range of candidate profiles or resumes.

• Gain competitive advantages: Recruiters who know how to search more effectively cab identify top talent that may not be easily found by competitors. When you turn up otherwise undiscovered prospects, you increase the likelihood of making successful placements and built your talent pool for future searches.

Boolean Basics for Recruiters

If you’re interested in using X-ray search to enhance your recruiting efforts, knowing how to use the basic Boolean operators is imperative. Of course, experts in the field will have more in-depth recommendations!

Once you’ve run a search and identified profiles matching your specified criteria and assessed their suitability, use a candidate profile capture tool (like PCR Capture!) to add them to your private database and add them to a recruitment Sequence to get a conversation started.

X-ray search & LinkedIn: What’s changed? 

Until recently, performing an X-ray search on LinkedIn was a great way to access a wider talent pool, especially for niche or specialized roles. But in early 2024, experts in the field of recruitment sourcing and Boolean search noticed things starting to change. It looked like LinkedIn was cutting back on search engine access to their profile data.

While it has been speculated that the goal is to push more recruiters toward using LinkedIn’s paid tools like Sales Navigator and Recruiter, it could also be part of plans to keep user data more privately held within the site. It could also be helpful in keeping AI-based search tools and other outside aggregators from using the data without permission or payment — especially now that Microsoft is deploying their own AI tools. While jobseekers on LinkedIn may want maximum exposure, those using it for B2B or other networking may not (although LinkedIn already has a “Your profile’s public visibility” toggle for that).

As of today, X-ray search on LinkedIn is still possible, but it’s increasingly limited. As sourcing guru Irina Shamaeva noted on the Boolean Strings blog, public searches of LinkedIn data have been stripped of key elements like Headline, About, Experience, and Education. When Ms. Shamaeva inquired directly about the loss of Google search capability within LinkedIn’s site, she got the following response:

Google is a tool for finding websites/pages and answers to questions. It isn’t a Recruiting tool, nor is Bing, or any other generalized search engine. Can it sometimes find people? Sure. … But at its core I don’t really follow the logic. If you know the thing you are looking for is on ‘X site,’ why would you look for it on a different site? If I knew the item I wanted was on Amazon, I wouldn’t type in to Google to find the perfect item. I’d look in Amazon. 

LinkedIn Engineering

Going forward, it sounds like LinkedIn expects all searches of their data to be done with their tools. While their search tools are improving, they may still lack what sourcers have been accustomed to with X-ray. That means recruiters now need to hone their skills on getting the best from LinkedIn’s built-in functionality, combining free tools with paid ones.

Ultimately, If your entire recruitment business rests on the walled garden of someone else’s data – like Indeed, LinkedIn – then you’re at the mercy of their search tools and pricing models. This is why we always recommend building your own talent pool as much as possible. When you do that, your data is your data, no matter where you’ve sourced it from. 

At PCRecruiter, we regard security and availability as our most important goals. This commitment extends beyond our internal operations. We understand the crucial role secure and reliable partners play in your organization’s success. But how can you, as a customer, effectively assess potential vendors in terms of their security and availability posture?

Here are some key considerations

Established Security Certifications

Seek SOC 2 Compliance. This widely recognized independent audit assesses a service organization’s security controls and measures to safeguard customer data. SOC stands for System and Organization Controls. It refers to a framework developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) for assessing the effectiveness of a service organization’s controls related to information security, privacy, and other operational risks.

Consider Additional Certifications. Depending on your industry and data sensitivity, additional certifications like ISO 27001 (Information Security Management) or PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) might be important factors.

Scrutinize Security Policies and Procedures

Request access to the vendor’s security policy outlining their approach to protecting your data, who can access it and under what controls, and what their incident response plans entail. It’s important to understand what their communication protocols are in the case of a potential security incident.

Inquire about third-party testing procedures they may be employing and learn how they address vulnerabilities found by these tests. It’s one thing for a vendor to claim security of their system, but without outside auditing and testing their claims may be hollow.

Evaluate Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Plans

Ensure documented disaster recovery plans exist. These plans should outline what the vendor’s backup systems include and how the vendor would restore critical systems and data in case of an outage. You’ll also want to inquire about redundancy measures that guarantee application uptime during unforeseen circumstances.

Your PCRecruiter account is always available to you in a warm standby (read-only) mode, operating on a completely independent and geographically separated infrastructure, and continuously backed up to our current Recovery Point Objective. We call this our ‘snapshot’ feature. In the event of a loss of access to our primary service, snapshot can quickly be switched out of read-only mode and be promoted to primary service, and then reverted to backup mode as required.

Transparency and Communication

A reputable vendor will openly discuss their security practices and be prepared to answer your questions concerning their security practices. Look for vendors who prioritize transparency and actively communicate.

Main Sequence Technology is pleased to provide PCRecruiter users and prospective customers with this information, including documentation of our SOC2 compliance. Your comfort level and ability to meet your own vendor assessment responsibilities to your customers and stakeholders are important parts of the value that working with our company provides.

Be Wary of Overpromising

Watch out for vendors who make big promises or seem overconfident. The fact is, absolute cybersecurity cannot be guaranteed by anyone for reasons such as:

• Unforeseen Threats (Zero-Day Exploits): Cybercriminals constantly develop novel attack methods (zero-day exploits) that exploit previously unknown vulnerabilities. Even with robust security measures, these new threats can pose a temporary risk until patches or solutions are developed.
• Shared Infrastructure (Internet): The internet, which forms the foundation of most communication and data exchange, inherently presents security challenges. Malicious actors can exploit vulnerabilities within this shared network, potentially impacting even well-secured systems.
• Human Error: Accidental mistakes by employees or authorized users can introduce security vulnerabilities. Social engineering tactics can also manipulate individuals into compromising security protocols.
• Determined Attackers: Highly motivated and well-resourced attackers may relentlessly target specific organizations, employing sophisticated techniques to overpower and defeat commercially realistic security measures.
• External Dependencies: Software applications often rely on libraries, frameworks, and other components developed by third parties. Vulnerabilities in these external dependencies can introduce risks beyond a single vendor’s direct control.

While achieving absolute cybersecurity is an unreachable goal, carefully monitoring the threat landscape, deploying and effectively using reasonable controls, communicating transparently, and deploying skilled and objective third-party experts are what you should expect from your vendors, and what Main Sequence will provide as part of our service. Contact us with your questions.

Please note that this blog post is intended for informational purposes and should not be considered as expert security advice. Appropriate and commercially reasonable business operations regarding cybersecurity are highly dependent on conditions affecting each organization. Each organization should obtain professional services from accredited providers pertinent to their industry and the type of information processing being conducted. This blog post is not a warranty, representation of merchantability, or statement of fitness for any particular purpose regarding the service or other offerings of the company.

An effective candidate engagement process, especially one that leverages automation, not only helps candidates become more comfortable working with you, but has the added benefit of keeping your private talent pool more efficient overall.

Let’s look at some of the key factors that make up a candidate engagement experience:

The Power of Connection

Regular, meaningful communication is key for all relationships, and your relationship with candidates is no different. Whether it’s a quick email, a friendly phone call, or a personalized message on LinkedIn, staying connected keeps the relationship alive.

But it’s not just about talking; it’s about listening too. Keeping communication open with your candidates means more opportunity to learn what motivates them, what their strengths are, and what they’re looking for in a job. The more opportunities you create for candidates to connect with you, the better you can tailor your own communications with them and ultimately with the potential managers you’ll be recommending them to.

Securing Your Brand

Recruitment branding isn’t just for big corporations. Even a one-recruiter agency has a story to tell. By sharing your own story with candidates, you can help them understand who you are and what it’s like to work with you. Your reputation as a highly-attentive and engaged recruiter can lead to more referrals, better reviews, and ultimately the growth of your talent and client pools for future placements.

Keeping Them in the Loop

We’ve all been there—waiting anxiously for an update, refreshing our inbox every five minutes. Don’t leave your candidates hanging. Keeping them informed every step of the way shows you respect their time and effort. It’s not just about being professional; it’s about being human.

Furthermore, your continual engagement with candidates may reduce the likelihood of them ghosting you, which a survey by Indeed shows has become increasingly common. Even a simple email on a regular basis can show candidates that you’re still there and still interested in their career, which might mean the difference between making a placement or losing them entirely.

Embracing Automation with a Personal Touch

Automation is more important than ever, even for small-scale recruiting operations. When you streamline repetitive tasks you not only save time but you ensure a more consistent candidate experience.

Using sequencing tools with automated emails and time-based task reminders helps you check in with candidates more regularly, collect the most up-to-date candidate information, and generally stay on top of your process with less work. Giving candidates continual opportunities to update their information via simple forms means your database remains fresh and more useful for surfacing existing matches for new roles.

Your automation should also allow for manual involvement where appropriate, giving you the chance to include details about specific opportunities, personal anecdotes, or links to relevant resources. Recruitment automation should always enhance, not replace, human interaction.

Build Connections, Build Business

Growing and maintaining meaningful connections by sharing your story, keeping candidates informed, and embracing automation will help you create an experience that leaves a lasting impression. Remember that you’re not just filling a position or placing a candidate — you’re building relationships that can bear fruit years into the future. In a world where the recruiting process can feel increasingly impersonal, the frequency and quality of your candidate engagement can be the key to setting yourself apart from the competition.

For recruiters, the right recruitment tech gives them a competitive advantage. However, the methods used to gather online data on potential candidates can raise legal and ethical questions around data ownership and fair recruitment practices.

In this blog post, we explain the difference between capture and scraping, and how recruiters can best navigate this online frontier.

Capture vs. Scraping 

There’s no doubt that automating the process of extracting data about potential candidates or clients is a time-saver for recruiters. It’s a process that would otherwise be done manually, by transposing information from the source to a recruitment CRM or other data store.

From a recruiter’s perspective, what’s important is how that process is automated. This starts with knowing that capture and scraping are two very different approaches with very different implications. 

• A capture tool processes information displayed to an authorized user of a service after downloading to the memory of their device.   

• A scraping tool automates the download of prospective web pages directly to a database without user intervention.

Legally, this is yet to be codified, but ethically, the distinction is clear. A capture tool is designed to extract authorized information about a candidate from a source already accessible to the recruiter. Importantly, although it is automated, it still requires human direction and intervention. Essentially, capture is simply speeding up the manual copy/paste job that the recruiter would otherwise be doing.

On the other hand, scraping uses a ‘bot’ to indiscriminately extract candidate data from a website, which it may or may not be authorized to access. Authorization is largely determined by a data provider’s terms of service.

Terms Of Service

Put simply, some third-party terms of service distinguish between the use of legitimately downloaded information and the automated collection of information while others do not. 

At the same time, some terms of service are so restrictive that they essentially disallow any use of information not explicitly approved by the vendor. It’s important to note that very few terms of service agreements are ever tested legally all the way to trial and damages.

Third-party vendors also have all kinds of enforcement mechanisms outside the legal system, which can influence customer behavior. Whether used systematically or on a whim, it’s possible for vendors to take a variety of actions to deter actual or perceived malpractice, including warnings, altering service privileges, suspending users, or even cutting them off entirely. They may also choose to engage with tool vendors.

Legal Cases

hiQ LABS v. LinkedIn (now owned by Microsoft) is one of the most high-profile cases on scraping to pass through the US legal system. 

In 2022, the appeals court ruled that under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, anti-hacking law does not apply to public websites. So far, LinkedIn has been unable to obtain an injunction to stop hiQ from scraping personal data from its professional networking platform. 

So far, the merits have not been decided. Although it outlines an interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the appeals court has suggested that the CFAA is not the correct law to regulate hiQ’s conduct.

So where does that leave recruiters? Automated methods for extracting candidate information are here to stay. It’s only a question of time before a court ruling sets the precedent for the legitimate and ethical use of these tools. For now, it’s up to recruiters to use capture tools in accordance with relevant data privacy laws — such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

PCR Capture

As the name suggests, PCR Capture is a capture tool, not a scraping tool. As a specialist software vendor, its creator (Main Sequence Technology), has no measurable influence over major third-party service providers.

For that reason, we’re not able to certify any activity or obtain any kind of consent or waiver on behalf of our customers in their use of PCRecruiter Capture. Neither can we assume liability for behaviors and contexts over which we have no control.

However, we do assert a good faith belief that information downloaded to the memory of a user’s device in the normal and authorized course of the usage is information that belongs to the user, and the vendor has exhausted their right to that information by providing it.

Google’s new policies apply to emails received by any Google-hosted account, including Google Workspace and Gmail accounts. It is estimated that Google’s servers host roughly 1/3 of all email, so no matter what email provider you’re using to send your email, a significant number of your recipients are likely hosted by Google and will have their filters managed under these new rules. It’s important to understand these changes so you can stay on their good side.

Meet The Inbox’s bouncer

Spam filters exist to protect the recipient from unwanted and unsafe mail, and the rules about what is and is not allowed into the inbox are up to the email recipient’s provider and the email server administrator. This means there’s nothing that you can do to 100% guarantee your email won’t get routed to a recipient’s spam folder (if there was a surefire way to avoid every spam filter, the spammers would be using it.)

The email spam filter examines each incoming message for common hallmarks seen in previously reported spam, including text phrases, web addresses, sender domains, IP addresses, and underlying code contents. Each suspicious element found is used in a weighted calculation and mail that reaches a given threshold gets filtered out. The specifics of the formula are up to the email server, and some are beginning to apply GPT methods in addition to traditional tools. While Google Workspace Business edition admins can create whitelists and adjust spam settings for their own users, users of basic Gmail accounts get standard spam filter settings that are beyond their control.

These systems learn to identify spam based on which emails cause the user to hit the ‘spam’ button, as well as the emails that users choose to remove from their spam folders by hitting ‘not spam.’ They build up a reputation for your domain or IP that is continuously updated over time. Your objective as a sender should be to minimize the number of people who mark your messages as spam, as that can affect your deliverability overall.

6 Best Practices for Email Delivery

Whether you’re sending 10 emails or 10,000, there are established best practices that will go a long way toward keeping you deliverable. Several of them overlap with the CAN-SPAM Act, so adhering to them helps with your email getting delivered as well as your FTC legal compliance. The CAN-SPAM laws apply only to advertising email, so messages about an application process or other ‘transactional’ messages with existing candidates or clients are typically exempt from it. The laws in non-US jurisdictions may vary, so if you’re emailing people elsewhere, check the applicable laws.

1. Be thoughtful about what you send and to whom — Sending the same email blast to everyone in your recruitment database is bound to hit people it doesn’t apply to, and the less relevant people find your email, the more likely they are to flag it as spam. If you’re building an email sequence or sending a single-mail campaign, make sure your content and your email list are well-matched, and that you’re not including anyone unnecessarily.
2. Be transparent and authentic — Don’t fake your email address, use deceptive subject lines, or hide your contact information. Put your physical mailing address and phone number into the email. This not only legitimizes your business and helps to reassure the recipient that you’re not a scam, but it also gives them an alternate way to reach you if they want to do business.
3. Be responsive to opt-outs and keep your lists clean — Don’t make it difficult for people to stop getting your emails if they don’t want them. Include an unsubscribe link and make it easy to find. Remember that losing an unwilling email recipient is better than getting marked as spam, because getting a spam reputation affects your ability to reach willing recipients in the future. If someone opts out, retires, or bounces, make sure they stop getting your emails. It’s also smart to remove addresses from your lists if they haven’t clicked or replied to anything in a long time — outdated addresses can turn into spam traps. Buying email lists is also very risky and can fill your database with recipients who are more likely to bounce or to spam-flag you for cold emailing them.
4. Be clear and brief — A personal message from you to the recipient, particularly if you can mail-merge in their name or other unique info, is far likelier to make it past the inbox bouncer than a designed marketing piece with lots of ALL CAPS, common spam words, long subject lines, many colors and font sizes, or extraneous exclamation points. Avoid mixing advertising content and transactional content like offers or agreements in the same email. Believe it or not, some spam filters will even knock you for bad spelling or grammar, so proofread before sending! Before sending any mass email, send a test to yourself and see what it looks like in as many different email clients as you can manage. Unfortunately, there is no reliable HTML standard for formatted emails, and Outlook Classic for the desktop will often render margins and padding very differently than Gmail or Apple email, as well as blocking images. If your email doesn’t require fancy formatting and pictures, skip them for better consistency and deliverability.
5. Be prepared and informed — You can send your email to one or more free email spam checkers, such as M@ilgenius or Mailmeteor to see how they rate its deliverability. While these can catch mistakes or make suggestions before you send something, treat them as a guideline and not a guarantee — every mail server’s spam filter settings are different and a ‘good’ mail can still be blocked or a ‘bad’ mail might get through. You can also check your email domain or your IP address to make sure it’s not on any RBLs (remote block lists) using a tester like MX Toolbox. If you’re on a mail hosting service where the same email server is shared by multiple businesses, someone else’s spam habit could impact your delivery.
6. Be consistent — When an email server suddenly gets a lot of mail from a single source, particularly one that wasn’t already on their radar, it can appear suspicious and impact your deliverability. A mail server is less likely to filter out a regular newsletter than a sudden and singular blast of advertising. If you plan to send a large amount of email, ramp up slowly. Start with a small number of engaged recipients, and increase volume over time. The more email you’re planning to send, the slower you should take it as you’re ramping up. The same goes for email frequency — if you’re going to be sending emails daily, you’ll want to ramp up your quantities even more slowly than if you’re only going to send emails monthly.

What are Google’s new rules?

Google’s new changes are centered around sender authentication and stricter adherence to spam report thresholds. In response to rising scams and phishing emails, where someone impersonates a different sender by faking the “From” address on their email, Google is now changing “show our bouncer your ID at the door” from a recommendation to a requirement.

Their policies fall into two categories: rules that apply to everyone sending emails to Google accounts, and rules that apply specifically to bulk senders.

Google’s rules for everyone

Fortunately, most of the changes Google is making will not have much impact on you if you’re already using a properly configured email server and following the best practices above. We’ll outline the rules below and give some details on how they apply to PCRecruiter specifically.

Most of these items relate to technical settings that are handled by your DNS (domain registration) admin or your email provider. If you’re not sure who your configuration is through, you can perform a DNS lookup at MX Toolbox.

Here’s what Google requires for all senders:

• Keep your ‘spam rate’ below 0.10% and avoid ever reaching 0.30% or above. This is a ratio of emails from your domain that Google’s users have marked as spam vs. the number of emails received from your domain overall in the same period. You can check the stats for your domain by getting access to Google’s Postmaster Tools.

If you’re used to importing candidate lists or sending larger Campaigns in PCRecruiter, you’ll need to be even more particular about where you get your data from, what messages you send, and how often. Before these updates, Google treated the 0.30% spam rate as a recommended maximum, but these changes mean they could be treated with more scrutiny. If you want to get to the inbox, being more granular and relevant will be increasingly important. The Postmaster Tools also show your Domain Reputation — keeping your Spam Rate low will help to keep your reputation High.

• Authenticate your email domain with SPF or DKIM. These methods allow the recipient’s email system to verify that your email is really coming from the domain your ‘From’ address says it is from. Many public and private email servers already check these but Google will now be even more strict about them. 

You can verify your own SPF here. If you have a Gmail account, you can use the Show Original option in the More menu (three dots) on any email you’ve received to see if the sender’s SPF and DKIM passed or failed.

For PCRecruiter users who only send email directly from their own email account and server (i.e. you’ve linked PCR to your Google or Microsoft account), the authentication is already handled. However, if you’re using a dedicated bulk email service like SendGrid or using a self-managed email server, you’ll want to double-check that you’ve properly configured your DNS so that mail sent using your domain is showing up as authenticated, no matter what mail server it is sent from.

If you’ve got multiple Email Aliases in PCRecruiter, check SYSTEM > Email Setup > Email Alias List to review your outgoing settings. If the “SMTP Server:Port” box on any of them contains an IP address rather than a full email server domain, you may want to check with that provider about authentication options.

• Have valid PTR records for your domain. These forward DNS and reverse DNS records allow the recipient’s email server to verify that your mail is being sent from an IP address that is associated with your domain name. You can check your PTR here.
• Use TLS to secure your email communications. This is the modern standard for email connections. If you’re unsure whether you’re using TLS (you likely are), this can be checked by examining the email headers of a mail you’ve sent to yourself. You can sometimes tell by checking your outgoing mail settings in your email client as well.
• Make sure your emails follow Internet Message Format standards. These are the basic rules for how email content and code should be transmitted. You don’t have to do anything special for this rule, as it’s almost guaranteed that your email client is taking care of these requirements automatically.
• Don’t impersonate sending from a Gmail account. Sending email from a fake or mis-aligned email domain is bad practice, but faking Gmail’s own domain on a mail sent to Gmail would be a clear red flag.
• If you forward a lot of emails, check that your email system is using ARC, which makes sure that the SPF or DKIM authentication from the original email gets passed along when forwarding.

Google’s additional rules for bulk senders

Google has a few more requirements for “bulk senders” in addition to those listed above. Google defines bulk senders as any domain sending 5000+ emails per day to Google-hosted accounts. Keep in mind that this is cumulative, meaning that Google considers your domain a “bulk sender” whether you’re sending a single mass mail to 5000 recipients or 100 people at your company are sending 50 personal emails daily.

• Your emails must support a one-click unsubscribe header and include a clearly visible unsubscribe link in the message body. When an unsubscribe header is found in the email’s header code, Gmail will automatically add an “Unsubscribe” link to the top of the email near the sender’s info. They will also add an “Unsubscribe” button to the mail when mousing over it in the inbox list. Gmail will only add these two links for emails sent from addresses not found in the recipient’s Google Contacts.

PCRecruiter adds the required “one-click unsubscribe header” code to any outgoing Campaign or Bulk Mail that contains an unsubscribe link merge tag in the body automatically, so by using PCR’s opt-out features for your form letters you’re already compliant. When a recipient uses the ‘one-click’ unsubscribe, they’re instantly opted out of any future emails for that bulk mail category in your PCR database.

Hiding or omitting your unsubscribe link just makes it more likely that an unwilling recipient will mark you as spam, so making it easy to get off the list will improve your deliverability overall, whether you’re sending bulk emails to 5000 or 50. If you are not currently including an unsubscribe link in your bulk emails, review our documentation on setting up the opt-in/out features to get started. 

• In addition to having an SPF and DKIM as noted above, bulk senders must also set up a DMARC policy for the domain. DMARC gives you control over whether the recipient’s server should quarantine, reject, or do nothing special with emails from your domain if the SPF / DKIM checks fail. The main advantage to having this is that you’ll get reports about the emails that didn’t authenticate, which can help you identify problems or potential fraudsters sending mail that claims to be from you. Once you reach a point where you’re absolutely certain that everything you’re sending is always going to pass SPF / DKIM checks, then you may want to set the DMARC policy it to ‘reject’ so that any mail that doesn’t appear to be truly from you gets blocked. Make sure the “From” address on the email matches the domain listed in the DKIM or SPF record.

Be smart and fear not.

The typical PCRecruiter user is sending mail from a Google or Microsoft 365 account, which means a lot of the nuts and bolts of setting up authentication are already taken care of. PCRecruiter also already generates properly formatted emails and headers, so you don’t need to change anything to comply with these rules either. Plus with PCR’s bounce handling, opt-out list, and Sequencing, you can send the right emails to the right people and keep your database clean.

So, in essence, Google’s new rules just enforce what you should be doing already: sending legitimate emails to people who want to receive them and using a properly configured email server to do it. With a double-check of your domain record and a bit of extra scrutiny of your large-scale email plans, you should have nothing to worry about.

The history of transatlantic data flows twists and turns with shifting regulations and legal pronouncements. From the sunken hopes of Safe Harbor to the EU Court of Justice’s (CJEU) pronouncements in Schrems I and Schrems II, EU businesses have sought reliable pathways for data being processed in the United States.

Today, the EU-US Data Protection Framework offers a new course, but responsible practices and reliable routes like the Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) remain available to Main Sequence Technology’s customers in the European Union.

From Safe Harbor to Privacy Shield

In its heyday, Safe Harbor was based on self-declared compliance. However, in 2015, the CJEU’s landmark Schrems I ruling effectively ended Safe Harbor as a viable path. The ruling expressed the court’s findings of inadequate US oversight and vulnerabilities in data access by US intelligence agencies, sending a shock through the data transfer landscape.

Privacy Shield, erected in response, attempted to correct course, but the CJEU’s 2020 Schrems II decision likewise foundered Privacy Shield, citing persistent concerns about US government surveillance programs. These rulings left EU businesses navigating transatlantic data flows in substantial uncertainty.

Throughout these developments, Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) have served as reliable tools to establish per se data protection adequacy, offering EU Executive pre-approved agreements that describe responsible data handling practices and define each party’s role in complying with legal requirements. At Main Sequence, we recognize the critical importance of legal compliance and per se adequacy for our EU Customers.

A Fresh Framework for EU-US Data Transfer

Following the CJEU’s judgments in Schrems I and Schrems II, the need for a durable framework governing data transfers between the EU and US became clear. From July 2023, The EU-US Data Protection Framework addresses this challenge by establishing enhanced safeguards for EU citizens’ personal data when processed in the US. Key elements of the new framework include:

• Enhanced US government oversight: Stronger mechanisms ensure robust monitoring and oversight of data accessed by US intelligence agencies for national security purposes.
• Multi-layered redressal mechanism: EU citizens now have a dedicated ombudsperson within the US Department of State to address concerns about potential data misuse.
• Binding obligations for US companies: Participating US organizations must adhere to strict data protection principles and implement comprehensive security measures.

PCRecruiter is Certified to DPF

Main Sequence have approached this challenge by adopting industry-recognized best practices, continuously offering the SCCs, and participating in the available frameworks as they have evolved, but our commitment extends beyond basic compliance with available frameworks.

We regularly and realistically assess risks, invest in ongoing training, and conduct evaluations of our vendors and third-party audits of our own controls. By responding with agility to the regulatory landscape and employing a multi-layered approach to data security and availability, we seek to position Main Sequence as a trusted partner for organizations navigating the complexities of transatlantic data transfers.

Accordingly, Main Sequence is pleased to announce that as of January 2024, we have certified to the Data Protection Framework. We will continue to offer the SCC’s, but now our customers can be comfortable that their PCRecruiter accounts are managed in a per se adequate way for EU data protection requirements.

For more information about the DPF and the certification list, please see dataprivacyframework.gov.

To discuss your private recruiting database needs or for further details about EU data compliance, please contact your PCRecruiter representative.

On that note, this year we had the pleasure of getting to know our customers and their industries a little better. We’d like to extend a huge “thank you” to everyone who has contributed to the PCRecruiter blog. We’ve uncovered some fascinating insights into different challenges, approaches, and niches of the recruitment world.    

In the coming year, we’re looking forward to speaking with more of you, hearing your stories, and discovering how PCRecruiter helps you get the job done. For now, we’d like to leave you with a round-up of the top trends from 2023, and a look at what’s to come in 2024.

5 Ways ChatGPT Can Enhance Your Recruiting Workflow

Although large language models and GPT AI tools are quickly becoming smart enough to help recruiters work more efficiently, they’re still not good enough to do the job better than humans. Still, cutting-edge recruiting firms are already taking advantage of emerging AI tools like ChatGPT. In this popular post, we uncovered 5 ways ChatGPT can enhance recruiting workflows.

Keeping It Real In Recruiting: When To Push Back On Clients

Finding the right talent is tough — if it were easy, recruiters would be out of a job, after all! But sometimes the difficulty comes from the client rather than the jobseekers. The client may not understand the limitations of the market, especially when there’s a small pool of candidates for an open role. In this post, Dave Nerz of NPAworldwide shares his thoughts and expert insights on when to push back on clients.

How To Write Job Descriptions For Search Engines

SEO – Search Engine Optimization – techniques are primarily used by digital marketers to increase traffic to websites, generate leads, and increase revenue. The question is: how can inbound recruiters use SEO to improve the chances of job descriptions being discovered and shared online? We talked with Steve Gipson, Sales Manager at Recruiters Websites, about some of the best practices.

Secrets To Successful Recruiting In Engineering And Energy

There have been a lot of changes in the energy industry over the last 30 years, particularly in the area of renewables and the reduction in fossil fuels. For this blog post, we spoke with the President of Natek, Mark Dillon, to uncover some of the secrets behind his sustained success in recruiting engineers for renewables and energy efficiency using PCRecruiter.

A Guide To Switching Recruiting Verticals

For recruiters working in a specific sector, switching verticals is a chance to grow their business and learn something new. But more often than not, recruiters find themselves moving in and around different industries out of economic necessity. Long-time PCR user and experienced executive recruiter David James shared his extensive knowledge on how to handle a switch in recruiting verticals with us.

Recruiting Franchise Tech That Drives Success

While many recruiting firms see great success as indepedent operations, there are valuable advantages to joining a wider operation. For this post, President and CEO of American Recruiters – Gino Scialdone – explained why the franchise model is a great fit for recruiters, and how choosing the right ATS and CRM (PCRecruiter) helps drive its success.

Why Leading Recruiters Build Their Own Talent Pool

The danger of proliferating AI-driven sourcing tools and a sea of public profiles at your fingertips is that it can become easy to overlook the people you’ve already got in your history. There are remarkable benefits to building your own talent pool. In this post we discover why a private database of people in your industry is a valuable business asset.

Top Recruitment Firms Make A Success Of Internal Splits

Recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms – four years in a row – Bowerman Group is a boutique firm specializing in premiere and luxury consumer brands. They’re experts in all things retail, ecommerce, and marketing. Not only that, they’ve got the process of internal splits down to a fine art. We uncovered their insights on this method for this post.

What’s in store for PCRecruiter in 2024?

2024 is already shaping up to be a massive year for PCRecruiter. You can expect an all-new version of our flagship platform with more a more intuitive, modern, and easy-to-learn design that retains and builds on the high level of functionality and customization that our users have loved for 25 years. 

In addition to the fully reimagined user experience, PCRecruiter will also see the direct integration of GPT features in the new year. We’ll be implementing it in thoughtful ways that make the work of recruiters easier, such as powerful ‘natural language’ search, while avoiding the legal or ethical concerns that directly qualitative use may bring about.

The new year will also see the release of a wholly rebuilt version of our popular PCR Capture browser extension. This update will add more configurability and nuanced duplicate merging to help you add contacts quickly while also enhancing and cleaning up existing records.

At the same time as we roll out the new platform, PCR 9 users will be pleased to know that our documentation will be getting a major revision at the start of the year, making it easier than ever before to get the answers you need, when you need them the most.

Follow us on LinkedIn and watch this blog for more on the exciting news to come in the next few months, and contact a PCRecruiter consultant for a personal consultation or preview of things to come.

Tracking the number of placements made and the dollar value of customers is important from the get-go, but as your team grows other metrics also come into play — like setting KPIs to monitor team performance. Here are our insights into recruitment analytics.

Trends in recruitment analytics 

There’s no doubt that getting recruiting analytics and dashboards in place helps you get clearer oversight and control over your recruiting business. It works at every level. In PCRecruiter you can set and track business objectives, whilst individual recruiters can take greater ownership of their personal goals and performance. 

Scaling firms and larger recruiters tend to pay closer attention to activities related to job placements. Tracking the outreach journey — such as marketing campaigns aimed at potential clients — is also valuable. You can see who’s clicking on those campaigns, and which organizations should be pulled into your list and monitored.

Once you start recruiting, you can easily monitor the progress of open roles, and how well your team is performing in terms of making placements. It’s here that KPI goals can be set around metrics like the number of candidates placed, the number of first interviews completed, the number of outreach emails, and the number of calls made. 

That data also becomes valuable when speaking with clients. You can use it to tell the story of your recruiting efforts, sharing useful data such as the percentage of roles filled, the number of calls made on their behalf, and so on. 

Measure quantity and leverage quality 

Alongside quantity, you can also measure quality. Take a job marketing campaign, for example. You can track where the best candidates originally came from, enabling you to focus efforts for future campaigns and increase your impact.

The same goes for recruiter communications via calls and emails. It’s possible to measure quantity, but you can also leverage the expertise of high-flying individuals by scripting sequences based on the work of an individual contributor. 

Using the available data — and PCRecruiter’s Sequencing Tool — you can identify your top recruiters, then design and build workflows around their best practices. This can then be used to guide and support new or less experienced team members.  

PCRecruiter’s partnership with CarbonWeb means analytics and reporting can be integrated with data from Monday.com to provide even deeper insights. Not only can you see how well you’re doing for particular clients based on a job description, you can take it one step further to analyze how well your workflow is performing. 

Is there a step in the process with a big drop-off? Perhaps you’re doing too many interviews or the interview questions aren’t effective? Maybe the candidates you’re finding aren’t a good fit? You can find all of this out and more through Business Intelligence (BI), visualizing valuable and relevant data in graphs and charts. 

Monitor each and every step of the process

Top recruiters have a competitive drive, which means there’s real value in having a personalized dashboard for monitoring and measuring performance. That could be KPIs benchmarked against the rest of the team, or it could be analysis of their end-to-end performance from the initial outreach to the final placement. 

Seeing a drop-off at the first interview with a hiring manager? Any activity performed using PCRecruiter — whether inside or outside the pipeline — can be monitored, so the answer to your question is only ever a few clicks away. Struggling to get candidates through a particular hiring authority? Maybe it’s time to make a call to that hiring manager and uncover how you can bring them candidates that are a better fit.

The important thing here is that you can only analyze and report on the data you collect. PCRecruiter is designed to automatically collect the relevant data you need. For example, connecting to RingCentral enables you to report on call data, times, connections, and so on. With email addresses held inside PCRecruiter tracked via IMAP sync, it’s possible to log every email that goes in and out — whether that’s through Apple, Microsoft, or Google. 

Invest in a culture of data analytics 

For smaller firms or professionals that have been doing recruitment for a long time, collecting and analyzing data can seem like an additional burden. In fact, simply by operating out of PCRecruiter and setting it up in the right way, the software does all the heavy lifting for you.

Be warned that you may not see immediate benefits. It takes patience and discipline because the real pay-off is further into the future when you can use historical data to visualize trends which can yield actionable insights about your recruiting efforts. 

PCRecruiter’s Sequencing Tool is more than just a way to set up and send out email campaigns. What’s unique about it is that it’s an entire workflow manager. It can prompt you to make connections on LinkedIn, launch phone calls or text messages, and then link the person to a position pipeline or route them to a separate sequence depending on the outcomes.

Sequencing, along with the pipeline, takes candidates from the very first contact to the final placement, and all of this journey can be tracked and analyzed. For smaller firms, setting sequences up from day one makes total sense. It allows them to shape and refine their workflows to optimize their success rate, so when the time is right to grow, new users have a tried and tested process to follow. This cuts down on the need for protracted and complicated onboarding to your entire ATS system. In PCRecruiter, new recruiters need to know three things: the capture tool, sequencing, and pipeline. 

More time for what you do best

Surfacing business insights using data and analytics can help recruitment firms do what they do, only better. Taking those insights, it’s possible to set up automations to take care of 90% of repetitive, repeatable daily activities – like sending out automated email responses. 

As with any automation, it’s important to include human activity and oversight into the process — like reading a reply and qualifying a response. PCRecruiter’s Sequencing Tool enables you to do all that and more. But analytics and automation don’t replace human interaction.

At the end of the day, a recruiter’s job is to talk to people, get a feeling for who they are, and build a relationship with them. Data and analytics can help enhance those conversations, adding all round value for recruitment professionals, clients, and candidates. 

Discover how data and analytics tools inside PCRecruiter can help improve your recruitment efforts. Book a demo.

That’s because maintaining and nurturing a talent pool with clean and relevant data on people you know – who are likely to be interested and suitably qualified – can cut the time needed to source and sift. The time to hire is quicker, placements become more profitable, and your clients get high-quality candidates. 

Leading recruiters build their own talent pools. Here’s why and how.

Why build your own private talent pool?

There are recruiters out there who rely on live searches to fill their clients’ open roles. And that’s fine. But they’re missing out on a future goldmine — a keyword searchable database of historic candidate data. 

When clients come to you with an open role, you can immediately dip into your talent pool to find candidates that fit their needs. It’s also somewhere to store those candidates who didn’t make the cut last time around, as you never know when they might be needed.

Having your own talent pool makes you more valuable to your clients because it’s where you find passive candidates who are potentially unknown to (or forgotten about by) your competitors. It enables you to stay on their radar even if you don’t have an opportunity for them right now.

Sure, LinkedIn is great for sourcing active candidates, but what about that person you placed years ago? They’re now a passive candidate who may be open to taking on a new position and who’d be a great fit for this new role you’ve been given.

The truth is that often the person you need to fill a particular role is the person who’s not regularly updating and posting on LinkedIn because they’re not actively seeking a new position.

How to keep in touch with talent and the industry

You might think keeping connections going with hundreds or even thousands of potential candidates is an impossible task. Even with the best motivation in the world, trying to maintain that many relationships over time — including many that don’t necessarily end with a placement — would take time and resources you simply don’t have.

But by setting up repeatable timed tasks through the Sequencing Tool inside PCRecruiter, you can regularly reach out to candidates through automated emails, text, or other scheduled activities. By segmenting candidates or clients, you can maintain a schedule of personalized messaging.

For example, you might segment candidates by a particular role, experience, and location and send them a regular message to see how they are and qualify their interest. You can also record their response for potential follow-up activity, such as a phone call or sending them a list of roles that might interest them. 

The pay-off may not be immediate, but it could be significant. Imagine one of those candidates becomes a hiring authority themselves further down the line. Suddenly, they’re coming to you with new placements to fill.

Sequencing can also be used on the client-side. They may not have any open roles right now, but what about in the future? Set up a sequence to send an automatic email after your most recent placement, seeing how it worked out, and inquiring about upcoming roles.  

Think of it this way. As a recruiter, you are your own brand. Like any good marketer, you need to keep your brand front and center in clients’ and candidates’ minds. Regular, relevant, and anticipated communication is a great way to do that. 

Keep the message going that you’re in touch with both the industry and the best candidates out there, and you keep your pipeline full of new opportunities.

Fill your talent pool with data from a job board

The easiest way to get new and updated candidate data into your talent pool and pipeline is through a job board. Even if you don’t currently have any open roles, it’s still a great channel for securely and compliantly collecting candidate data and resumes. 

PCRecruiter’s Job Board module offers a clear target where you can direct interested candidates or clients and have them voluntarily send you their details. It’s also much more efficient and streamlined than directing them to your inbox because the data can be directly imported into your database.

The advantage of capturing candidate data in this way is that you can draw a line on how much data to collect, striking a balance between the quantity and quality of your talent pool. And when the time comes to sell up or retire, you’ll also have a highly valuable business asset.   

Discover how to use PCRecruiter to build your talent pool and add value to your recruiting process. Book a demo

There’s no substitute for experience. Natek’s enduring success is built on long-term industry relationships. Hiring authorities and career professionals in the energy sector know Natek and the team at Natek knows them. This gives the firm a deep and unique talent pool that’s all their own.  

We spoke with President of Natek – Mark Dillon – to uncover some of the secrets behind his sustained success in recruiting for the energy space (including what makes PCRecruiter a great ATS software for engineering recruiters.)

Industry expertise from the outset

More than 35 years ago, Mark Dillon was working in the energy industry. Back then, it was known as the ‘power generation’ field. His clients were major multinational companies supplying the world’s ever-increasing demand for power. Mark spent most of his time either on the road or in front of clients.  

I’ve owned my own engineering firm. I’ve headed and led energy groups for Fortune 50 companies. I’ve also partnered with the Association Of Energy Engineers (AEE) and the World Energy Congress as a career counselor.

– Mark Dillon, President, Natek

When energy efficiency and renewable power initiatives started to come in, these companies and their energy customers were presented with new incentives to reduce costs and demand. This shift resulted in a trend for performance contracting, where energy providers guaranteed efficiencies to corporate customers by identifying and delivering savings. 

In 1990, Mark decided he needed a role that would allow him to be closer to home, giving him the chance to spend more time with a young family. Recruiting was an obvious choice because it enabled him to work from home. 

Having worked with some of the biggest brands in the industry, Mark had built up a network of trusted contacts. So he took the opportunity in front of him. He focused his recruiting efforts on delivering staffing solutions in the fields of energy efficiency and renewable power.

The impact of work-from-home on energy recruitment

Fast-forward to 2020. Most of the world began working from home in response to COVID-19. This left a lasting impression on the recruiting landscape, including recruiting for engineering and energy. Today, some of Mark’s clients want everyone working from the office, some offer hybrid roles, and others are now fully remote. 

Office-based roles are still valued. They create a synergy between co-workers, especially for junior team members, that’s not easily replicated in a video call. But the biggest challenge for recruiters is to get companies — and people — to either embrace working from home or feel excited about getting back into the office. 

And what’s on offer can potentially make or break a potential placement. In Mark’s experience, he’s seen executives pass up a six-figure salary increase because they wanted to cut the commute and use that time for their kids and family. Alongside understanding where candidates want to work, the other important ingredient in making successful placements is understanding what companies are looking for in their candidates.

Recruiting in engineering means knowing what companies need

These days, energy companies increasingly need to do more with less. Like any industry, the top candidates for open roles are usually already taken or in high demand. 

Transferable skills are invaluable in the renewables sector. That’s partly because if all the best talent is taken within a particular geographic area, the next best thing is to bring in someone with related experience, say mechanical engineering or other relevant fields.

When energy companies are putting a team together, they want people who can develop a project and manage the risks of those projects – especially when it comes to performance contracts.

– Mark Dillon, President, Natek

Another important quality is the ability to manage risk. From the C-level through to engineers on the ground, responsibility for mitigating risk is everyone’s business. And that’s a big weight. Imagine a project with a performance contract worth between $10 million and $200 million. There’s a lot at stake and a lot that can go wrong.

From an engineering recruitment perspective, employers are often looking for candidates with a technical background who also have the leadership skills to develop and deliver projects to clients. Even when aspects of a project are contracted out — such as the design phase — they need someone to take ownership and provide oversight and control. 

That’s why the risks associated with recruiting the wrong person are huge. It also means industry expertise and experience are vital when it comes to finding the right candidates.

A private talent pool is the engineering recruiter’s best asset

PCRecruiter has been my recruiting software for engineering, energy, renewables, and related fields for over twenty years. It’s the heartbeat of how I do business, from logging individuals to prepping a candidate for a VP role.

– Mark Dillon, President, Natek

Recruiting is about building relationships, and Mark’s been in the business a long time. People he placed two or three decades ago now occupy C-level positions. The truth is, you just never know when these relationships could become valuable. That’s why building your own private talent pool over time is so important. Sometimes, data that could be decades old can unlock new opportunities for candidates and companies. 

Securely held inside PCRecruiter, Natek’s talent pool contains records stretching back to the early 2000s. It allows Mark and his team to look up individuals, pull up notes, and put candidates up for interviews in no time at all. For Mark, this database is the beating heart of his recruiting. Having PCRecruiter behind him enables Mark to focus on what really matters – communicating with people. 

I live and die by customer service! Kudos to PCRecruiter. Not only is it a great ATS software for engineering recruiters, but I know I can always reach out to somebody if I have a question and get a quick and useful response.

– Mark Dillon, President, Natek

Relationships are the cornerstone of Natek’s success. It’s a people business, and while AI and automations help make doing business faster and easier, Mark’s an advocate for picking up the phone and speaking to candidates, explaining the opportunity, and building rapport. With PCRecruiter as his recruiting software, Mark has instant access to the information he needs to have meaningful conversations with candidates and clients.  

Having their own private talent pool gives Mark and his team depth, breadth, and access to quality candidates who may not be visible on platforms such as LinkedIn. That built-in insight and expertise separates Natek from the rest of the field. It also means energy companies don’t just view them as a recruiting firm, but as a strategic partner helping to build their business. Energy companies know Mark and his team understand the bigger picture of the industry, and can lean into their know-how when identifying, qualifying, and placing high-quality candidates.

To discover more about Natek, visit their website natek.com

To learn more about how PCRecruiter works as a CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE (or any other recruitment vertical) contact us for a personal demonstration.

The economy shapes the job market. Economic downturns can reduce demand in one sector and create a surge in another. In order to survive — and thrive — recruiters and recruitment firms sometimes need to reposition themselves to weather economic storms.

We spoke with seasoned executive recruiter (and ‘O.G. PCRecruiter user’) David James to gain his perspective on how to handle a switch in recruiting verticals.  

Potential pitfalls of switching verticals

Some people come to recruiting because they want to make money, and it’s an absolute grind to them. I’ve always felt like getting somebody a job has this form of valorization. If you don’t love people and love talking on the phone, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the best vertical ever!

– David James, Executive Recruiter 

It’s possible that given the right timing and right connections, you could slide into a new sector and put together a couple of lucrative placements. The thing is, however, you’re now working outside your area of expertise. You’ve left your core competency, and its marketing, on your previous desk, and that desk has now closed. You’re in a new sector with no recyclable candidates — the talent pool of prospective placements who may not have fit one role but could potentially match your next one. 

Switching verticals creates a gap in your industry-specific knowledge and skills and puts you in unfamiliar territory. You’ll need to plug the holes in your knowledge, and fast. So be prepared to invest time and effort into upskilling. Without the established connections you had in your previous specialty, you’ll also need time to grow your network. Different industries come with different compensation structures, so also be prepared for variations in salaries, commissions, and bonus structures.

Change can be challenging. Clients may be skeptical about hiring a recruiter experienced in a different vertical. So you’ll need to earn their trust, demonstrating your transferable skills and commitment to excelling in this new market. Anticipate resistance from clients and candidates who may question your decision to switch. Some clients may even think you’re using the new vertical as a stepping stone rather than getting into it for the long term. Be clear about your intentions and how this move fits into your career trajectory.

The art of market mastery 

In any new vertical, you’ve got to have market mastery – you need to aggregate all the talent. That’s why you need a FILL statement – Function, Industry, Location, and Level.

– David James, Executive Recruiter 

A professional recruiter since 1988, David James loves what he does. He’s also switched verticals enough times — from internal auditing to cryptocurrency to casinos to construction, and back again — to know that market mastery is the key to success. That’s why, before jumping on the phone, it’s important to truly understand the roles you’re looking to fill and which types of candidates will offer the best fit.

F.I.L.L. (Function, Industry, Location, Level)

Here’s how a FILL statement breaks down…

• Function: What are the core functions of the roles you’re trying to fill? Do they align with your candidates’ skills and interests? Do the day-to-day responsibilities resonate with their career aspirations?

• Industry: Understanding the industry’s dynamics, key players, and prospects is key to long-term success. Ensure the industry not only interests you, but also has potential for growth. 

• Location: Consider the geography of the roles in your new vertical. They could be local, national, or even international. Are potential candidates willing to travel or move for new career opportunities?

• Level: Assess the level of responsibility and seniority of your open roles. Ensure that the roles align with candidates’ career goals and expectations. What are the opportunities for growth and advancement within the vertical?

Tips for making the switch to a niche

When it comes to changing verticals, David says “you need to find one thing that everybody wants. Not only do they want it, they need to have it. For them, it’s essential.” But, of course, that’s not easy to find. That’s why you need market mastery (FILL). 

Take this as an example: you’re a recruiter with a specialty in engineering, which is actually a very broad market. You need to take a deep dive into that market and pull out a niche. How about engineers who calibrate scales? Scales on the highway, scales at the meat counter, scales at the market. There’s your business model (and that’s a real example, by the way). 

It’s not how many calls you’ve made. It’s how many conversations you had.

– David James, Executive Recruiter

The big misconception is that you can conquer an entire market segment. Take the accounting sector, for example. Let’s say you need to source candidates for three roles: an internal auditor, a treasury manager, and a corporate controller.

Those are three separate searches. Why? Because the internal auditor can’t do the treasury job or the corporate controller job, and vice versa. Let’s say that you sourced three candidates for each one of those searches and it took a month to find them. What you effectively have is three different recruiting businesses. What you need is recyclable candidates.

Whatever candidates you need to find, they need to be recyclable. Think about nurses. Imagine you’ve found a nurse who is willing to travel and who has got the right certification. Suddenly, you can actually go to multiple hospital systems, and they’ll see that nurse whether they have a position or not.

Relying on the right recruiting tech

No matter what vertical you’re in, having the right recruitment tech behind you is essential. That means building out your own talent pool — a private store of candidates with your own enhanced details, activity, and history records. When you’re new to an industry, the very first thing you need to do is populate your database. 

The people behind CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE have made it one of the best partnerships of my recruiting career.

– David James, Executive Recruiter

But here’s the tip from David: don’t worry about the candidates right off the bat. You need to segment your hiring authorities. Find your hiring authorities first. Push that to between 1,000 and 2,000 hiring authorities, and then you’ve got a market. 

No matter what vertical (or verticals) you recruit in, PCRecruiter adapts to your needs. To request more information or book a demo, contact us.

Got a recruiting problem? David James is an executive recruiter and recruiting consultant  with years of industry experience. Reach out to him via email, dj@talstrats.com or LinkedIn @davidjames-iar

The CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE team has compiled this list of upcoming shows for the remainder of the year to help you keep your calendar filled with professional development opportunities.

October 2023

• LinkedIn Talent Connect, Week of Oct 2 : Online and in-person (NYC) events.
• HR Healthcare, Oct 2 – 3 : Austin, TX will see WBR’s HR Healthcare forum for sharing, networking, and learning in the HR space.
• Ceridian INSIGHTS, Oct 2 – 5 : Catch visionary thought leaders, industry experts, and innovators at this Las Vegas event, including key speaker Kevin Bacon
• Staffing World, Oct 3 – 5 : This year’s ASA event in Charlotte features keynotes from Mike Krzyzewski, Paul Zikopoulos, and Dominique Dawes
• Paylocity Elevate Conference, Oct 3 -5 : a virtual event featuring keynote speakers Abby Wambach, Jenn Lim, and Elatia Abate
• Talent Success Conference, Oct 4 : a virtual conference with industry-leading HR experts discussing trends, insights, and new methods for recruiting and retaining top talent for your business.
• Recruitment Agency Expo, Oct 4 – 5 : Industry leaders in the UK will converge on Birmingham for this big annual exposition.
• Swipeclock Summit, Oct 5 – 6 : a free event with hands-on education, workshops, and so forth for Swipeclock users
• NAPEO’s Annual Conference and Marketplace, Oct 9 – 11 : The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations will be hosting this annual event for the PEO industry in Orlando
• HR Tech Conference, Oct 10 – 13 : The huge annual show at Mandalay Bay in Vegas has been going for 25 years!
• Sanford Rose Associates, Oct 11 – 13 : SRA members will convene in Dallas, TX to meet and learn
• IHRE Summit, Oct 17 : The In House Recruitment Expo Summit will be attracting top UK and global recruiting pros to Coventry Arena
• Hunt Scanlon ‘Optimizing Talent for Growth’, Oct 18 : This conference in San Francisco is on the topic of private equity and venture capital recruiting and talent management.
• UNLEASH World, Oct 17 – 18 : Taking place in Paris, this show is billed as “where the HR world meets”
• HRO Today’s Talent Acquisition Strategies & Technology Showcase, Oct 17 – 18 : A two day event with insights and best practices for HR in Houston, TX
• Gartner ReimagineHR Conference, Oct 23 – 25 : This is an Orlando, FL event for CHROs and HR leadership teams with multiple tracks to choose from
• Silicon Valley TechRecruit, Oct 25 – 26 : Head to San Francisco for workshops on recruitment operations, AI sourcing, and other talent acquisition topics

November 2023

• SIA Healthcare Staffing Summit, Nov 1 – 3 : Staffing Industry Analysts will hold their summit targeted at the healthcare staffing market at Red Rock Resort in Vegas
• Tech Recruitment Conference, Nov 2 : TRC is a one-day event in person in Amsterdam and virtually aimed specifically at technology recruiters
• Michigan Recruiter’s Conference, Nov 2 : The only specifically designed Recruiter conference for corporate Talent Acquisition Pros and Leaders in Michigan!
• NAPS Conference, Nov 5 – 7 : Jacksonville will host the National Association of Personnel Services’ annual event this year
• HCI Analytics Conference, Nov 15 : Human Capital Institute offers this event on Finding New Candidate Pools with Recruitment Analytics
• LEAP TA Healthcare, Nov 14 – 15 : Talent acquisition leaders in the healthcare space will meet in Houston for a free conference with action-orientated, strategic dialogue.
• Future of HR, Nov 15 – 16 : Join in HR.com’s FREE virtual event, “Future of AI and Recruitment Technologies”

December 2023

• Recruiting Daily “Talent Sleuths” Dec 7 : An immersive training event featuring HR sourcing leadings where you’ll hone your detective skills to unveil top talent and master the art of recruitment.

Are you planning to attend any of the events above? Did you go to one already? Let us know in the comments below!

President and CEO of American Recruiters – Gino Scialdone – began his franchise program over 20 years ago. Since then, it’s grown from strength to strength.

We spoke to Gino to discover why his franchise model is a great fit for recruiters, and how the right ATS and CRM – in the shape of PCRecruiter – helps drive success. 

Why franchise?

Franchising is about systems and processes. The beauty of the franchise model is that it gives people the chance to run their own business for themselves, but not by themselves. 

We started franchising for one reason: to better serve our customers’ needs.

Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters

This is really important in an industry like recruiting, where being able to tap into networks of people and organizations is so vital. It also helps to mitigate some of the risks involved with starting a new business. So it’s no surprise that there are nearly 800,000 franchise establishments in the US alone.

American Recruiters serves a wide range of industries – including healthcare, IT, engineering, and manufacturing – with specialist recruiters. Whether our clients are large enterprises or small businesses, they have one thing in common: they need help to bring in the right talent for multiple roles. 

That’s where PCRecruiter comes in. American Recruiters uses a centralized database – a single source of truth – for all their franchisees so that people with the client relationships are clearly signposted and so “the right hand knows what the left hand is doing”.

This is similar to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) system used by Realtors, where property details are listed alongside the brokers. Like an MLS, American Recruiters’ database gives franchise owners access to a ready-made network and a customer-base with an ongoing need to fill open roles. 

The two sides of a recruiting franchise 

Building a database in a recruiting CRM like PCRecruiter creates the opportunity for cross-selling and upselling. Take the healthcare sector, for example. A hospital system needs to recruit nurses, but they might also need someone for their accounting department or IT department. 

The American Recruiters franchise model creates the opportunity to introduce other franchisees – experts from within the network – and get them in front of the right people. Using a single private database inside PCRecruiter, American Recruiters can look across the platform to see who their clients are, the openings they have, and then knock on some different doors within an organization.

Our franchise model does two things: it enables us to go wider and deeper with our customers, and it gives new franchisees the chance to compress the bell curve and get their business started.

Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters

Relationships with companies that fill permanent placements through American Recruiters present opportunities to offer contract staffing – staffing solutions for temporary positions on projects, maternity leave, and so on. At the same time, their franchise model gives new franchise owners the chance to ramp up business faster than if they were doing it on their own. 

The relationships between franchisees are also a strong mechanism for support – they help each other out, working on placements together and going to each other for advice. That’s important because around 60% of placements made by American Recruiters are internal splits between franchisees. Recruiting really is a team sport. 

The keys to success as a recruiting franchise

Recruitment is a people business. American Recruiters’ top franchisees use their previous relationships to garner business for their recruiting practice. They’re real go-getters; people who are always open for business, working across timezones and leading and influencing others. Alongside the ability to build relationships, successful franchisees have three things in common: energy, engagement, and ambition. 

It’s all about relationships. Either developing them with existing franchisees and their network, customers in the database, or with people outside our database.

Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters

Recruiting experience is an obvious feature of their resumes, but that’s not always a prerequisite. One tried and tested route to becoming a successful franchisee is for executives in transition. These individuals move from being the leader of an organization within a particular sector to becoming an executive search consultant. Seasoned executives know their business, know the people, and they know their industry. 

Specializing works because it’s difficult to be all things to all people. In the type of recruitment that American Recruiters does, franchisees need to be entrenched in a core practice. They may diversify their specialties over time, but specific knowledge of a niche is invaluable for executive search. Couple that knowledge with good experience of sales, and you have the recipe for recruiting franchise success.

Success built on synergy, security, people

In recruiting, collaboration is key. American Recruiters’ private database in PCRecruiter enables franchisees to work as a team rather than being siloed. Franchisees also benefit from exceptional brand resilience; they move forward with the power of the American Recruiters brand behind them.

Over the years, American Recruiters has weathered multiple financial storms, from Black Monday in 1987 to the Great Recession in 2008, and more recently the global pandemic that wiped out around 40% of recruiting firms. That’s just one reason why Forbes has recognized American Recruiters as one of the top 250 professional recruiting and staffing firms since 2016. 

No matter how stellar the recruitment tech, if you can’t get someone on the phone to walk you through something – like training or setting up a new feature – the shine quickly diminishes. With PCRecruiter there’s always someone there to help.

Gino Scialdone, President and CEO, American Recruiters

This endorsement makes the brand attractive to both companies seeking a high-performing recruiting firm and potential franchisees looking to grow their own business by being part of an established recruiting brand. They also get peace of mind from PCRecruiter’s robust security protocols, which ensure the database is protected from nefarious external parties. At the same time, they benefit from reliable, high-quality, and on-demand customer support. After all, successful recruiting – and recruiting tech – is all about people. 

To discover more about American Recruiters’ winning franchise model, visit their website at https://www.americanrecruiters.com/franchise-now/

Working in an increasingly digital world, and staffing a technology-driven sector like manufacturing, it made sense for Mike and his team to go paperless. He had two goals: make it easier to get the right candidates through the door, and make better use of data. They partnered with PCRecruiter, and we recently helped them finish the leap from paper-based to online recruiting. Here’s their story.

There’s a huge labor shortage in our area. The process we’re using now – thanks to PCRecruiter and our web-based platform – helps us extend our reach.

Mike Trent, Account Executive, All-In-Staffing 

Before going paperless, All-In-Staffing operated a recruiting model familiar to many firms. They stored their candidate records on paper files, including extensive handwritten notes on a front sheet. It was a flawed system, but it worked — to a point. After first signing on with PCRecruiter in 2016, the team began tracking their process in the ATS, which made the recruiters’ work much simpler. However, the recruiters still had to manage transferring paper application responses into the system by hand.

Attracting the right applicants

In 2023, All-In Staffing decided to pursue the complete digitization and optimization of their application process. They realized that this would improve the candidate experience, and consequently fill more roles for their clients.

Before pushing into online recruiting, applicants would physically come into the office and complete a 19-page paper application for the open positions. The form-filling cost everyone a lot of time, potentially up to an hour, and wasn’t great for the candidate experience. There was also no ‘job board’ as such, and applicants needed to make an in-person visit or call the office to find out what was available.

On paper, there’s just no connection. You can’t connect the data at all. You can reference it, but there’s a lot of back and forth. Going digital enabled us to put candidates in the right places, and set everyone up for success.

Mike Trent, Account Executive, All-In-Staffing 

As a staffing firm, improving the candidate experience has been key to staying competitive during an ongoing labor shortage. All-In-Staffing has worked to overcome applicants’ negative perceptions of staffing firms and the myth that they only give candidates access to temporary, short-term placements. Becoming more appealing to applicants and changing their perceptions required a new, more digital approach.

Applying from anywhere, anytime 

All-In Staffing’s Office Manager, Marissa Delgado, helped oversee the changes, training all the recruiters in the transition from paper to digital. She was well-placed to see the impact. 

Before going digital, many candidates were reluctant to go into the office, unwilling to waste gas or time on a position that wasn’t guaranteed. Online applications were fast becoming the norm, so All-In Staffing needed to meet candidates where they were. 

Working with a PCRecruiter consultant, Marissa and Mike reviewed their old on-paper forms and revised their data collection for the online world. They cut down on the work required of candidates, collecting only the necessary information.

Our online application now takes 20 minutes. Tops. Now applicants can do it from anywhere, as opposed to coming into our office. It saves them — and us — a lot of time.

Marissa Delgado, Office Manager, All-In Staffing

Not only has online recruiting made it easier for applicants, it’s also improved things from the recruiters’ standpoint as well. They can screen more candidates, and screen them before meeting in person, which saves everyone time. 

Making use of online recruiting data across locations

All-In Staffing found great efficiency improvements by eliminating the need for manual filing and the back and forth between the screen and a manual filing system. Not only do digital candidate records take up far less space than paper records, they’re also much easier to reference and share.

That’s especially important for All-In Staffing, who are distributed over three office locations. Regardless of where they’re based, their recruiters can now access every file without putting in a request to another office. Records are secure and centralized, which means they’re accessible and easy to update by everyone who needs them, when they need them.

Make a plan, make the change

Every firm and every recruiter has their own unique way of doing things, and going digital means change, which can be daunting. However, re-contextualizing a legacy paper-based process for the digital realm can also be a great opportunity to decide what information is actually needed at what step in the process.

Unlike a paper application, where everything must be collected at once, while the candidate is in the office or holding the paper, a digital format makes it easy to collect the minimum to get rolling and to augment the record via emailed questionnaires or other follow-ups if and when the extra details are required.

Going paperless means reimagining your processes and workflows in a whole new context. When done with forethought, expert guidance, and the right recruitment CRM / ATS, it benefits clients, candidates, and recruiters alike.

Discover how PCRecruiter can help digitize and optimize your recruitment processes. Book a demo

Britt Medical Search have been members of the National Association of Physician Recruiters (NAPR) since 2016. Their dedicated team has built up a network of nearly 500,000 physicians, helping to fill roles in critical access facilities, medical groups, and hospitals.

Co-founder and President, Spencer Britt, spoke to us about the challenges of recruiting in the medical space, his passion for serving the healthcare sector, and how the right recruitment tech helps support the process.

It’s a people business

For recruiters, healthcare is a complex industry to navigate. It takes knowledge, experience, and expertise to understand the needs of healthcare organizations and connect them with the best candidates for their open roles. That’s why Spencer’s background in the health industry and MBA in Healthcare Management are invaluable tools for getting the job done. He understands the needs of different healthcare settings, and the depth and breadth of roles and specialties. 

Like many recruiters in the medical space, Spencer and his team are dealing with high volumes. They have hundreds of thousands of physicians on their books, and around 4,000 open requisitions. That’s why they need recruitment software — an ATS with CRM functionality — that can handle high volumes of data. 

I’m all about simplicity, and I’m a relationships guy – someone who’s not getting worked up about Artificial Intelligence!

Spencer Britt, Co-founder And President, Britt Medical Search

The current talent shortage (partly caused by limited access to fellowship and residency programs) means qualified candidates can cherry-pick their roles. Recruiters need to work fast to get the best candidates in front of a hiring manager. For that reason, candidate databases need clean, up-to-date, and accurate records that are easily searchable.

When sourcing and placing candidates in the medical sector, there are additional factors to consider, from board certification and relevant qualifications to any record of malpractice. Having customizable fields makes sourcing and selecting suitable candidates much easier.

Britt Medical Search’s mission is to get the right medical expertise into healthcare organizations that need it. They do a lot of recruiting for critical access facilities — something Spencer is passionate about. After all, recruitment is a people business.

Balancing generality and specialty

Like any recruitment sector, there are different approaches to recruiting and retaining top talent in healthcare. Some firms niche-down on a specialty, whereas others — Britt Medical Search included — take a more generalist approach. A lot of that comes down to belief.

Spencer and his team have the relevant expertise and experience to provide a generalist service that covers the full range of candidates and clients. They’re confident in their ability to take on that responsibility and to deliver the best outcomes for all parties. They’ve been doing it now for over 6 years and counting, so they must be getting something right!

PCRecruiter is super simple and intuitive to use. The ability to create unlimited custom fields to hold our particular data points is really important for the work we do.

Spencer Britt, Co-founder & President, Britt Medical Search

One key factor is that healthcare is ever-evolving. Being a generalist enables Spencer and his team to provide recruitment support wherever it’s needed, from placing an orthopedic specialist in New York to filling open positions for a nurse practitioner and a pediatrician in Oregon. 

With an intuitive yet powerful and customizable ATS/CRM at the center of their tech stack, Britt Medical Search is empowered to serve a broad community of medical professionals. They’re able to strike the right balance between generality and specialty.

The value of human interaction

Spencer enjoys the diversity and variety of his role. Like most recruiters, he thrives on human interaction. At Britt Medical Search, he handles new and continuing client communications while other team members focus on key aspects of data management, and moving candidates along their uniquely configured pipeline toward a placement.

For Spencer, it’s important that recruitment tech is not overly engineered. It needs to support the process, not get in the way of it. That’s because collaboration is the key to success. Spencer’s team collaborate and communicate with each other, and clients, to achieve a simple end goal: to find a great healthcare provider who can support a local community.  

PCRecruiter offers all we need for all the volume we have, which says a lot. I can’t underscore that enough. It’s been a real cornerstone for our base of client customers.

Spencer Britt, Co-founder And President, Britt Medical Search

Human interaction lies at the core of Britt Medical Search. They believe in the fundamentals of human communication. They know their roles, and they know how all of their efforts can work synergistically toward their goals. 

For Spencer, taking a human-centric approach to recruiting boils down to one thing: be easy to reach. It’s that ability to be responsive and contactable in and around people’s busy schedules that make the difference in a high-volume recruitment sector like healthcare. That, together with the right recruitment tech.

No matter what space you recruit in – whether you’re in permanent placement, contracting, or HR sourcing – PCRecruiter makes it easier to do more of what matters most: interacting with people. 

Book a demo

For the fourth year in a row, the Bowerman Group has been recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms. They’ve been using PCRecruiter for five years.

As a boutique search firm specializing in premium and luxury consumer brands, they’re experts in all things retail, ecommerce, and marketing. Not only that, they’ve got the workflow of internal split-desk recruitment down to a fine art.

We recently discussed the topic of internal splits and their value to the recruitment business with President, Rob Bowerman, and Executive Recruiter, Michelle Catucci, to discover more about how they power their process with internal splits.

What is a split placement?

A split placement occurs when a job order is handled by two separate parties — typically the lead recruiter and the researcher. Each party takes charge of a different aspect of the placement. 

The lead recruiter handles the client’s job order while the researcher supplies the candidates. When the placement is made, each person involved takes their cut of the fee. This can happen within a firm or between firms. 

How do internal splits work?

While there’s definitely a place for inter-agency splits, the way Bowerman Group does it (and does so highly effectively) is through internal splits. Here’s how internal splits work:

When a search comes in to a recruiter, both the lead recruiter and the researcher are (ideally) part of the kick-off meeting. This is particularly important for the researcher, who needs to gather as much information as possible about the role before seeking potential candidates.

Bowerman Group begin their search inside PCRecruiter, having built up a private database of quality candidates over the years, but additional, high-caliber candidates are also sought out externally and added to the list. PCRecruiter’s PCR Capture is a great advantage here because it allows the researcher to quickly generate records for potential candidates from online sources such as LinkedIn. 

All notes are kept inside the system, so previous correspondence or engagement with a particular candidate is instantly available. This is a time-saving advantage, as recently placed candidates or those who aren’t the right fit are easily dismissed, allowing engagement with the right ones more quickly. 

“Copious notes go into PCRecruiter. So when I’m making a new search, if one of my colleagues has touched this area in the last year – it keeps me from wasting time with candidates who aren’t the right fit.”

– Michelle Catucci, Executive Recruiter, Bowerman Group

Once a successful match is made, the candidate is turned over to the lead recruiter with all the information they need to make their presentations. Throughout the process, candidates are tracked by the software, from first contact through to offers accepted.

When a placement is completed, the split is entered into PCRecruiter, identifying the lead recruiter and the researcher. At the Bowerman Group, it’s acknowledged that this is not always clear-cut, especially when someone else — often a research assistant or another recruiter — has made a contribution to the placement. So whenever necessary, they also credit a third person in the split when sharing with the accounting team. Users of the PCR Analytics can also log and report on these split calculations across time, reporting on team and team member contributions to KPIs.

Internal splits add all-round value

For the Bowerman Group and their clients, offering a single point of contact is essential. Within that client relationship, the firm will perform a variety of searches. They’ll cover a variety of open roles, from a training manager to an executive.

“Our number one tip for making splits a success? Have a really good process. That’s the key. Sometimes it feels like it’s patented because we now have it down to a science!”

–  Rob Bowerman, President, Bowerman Group

Internally, responsibility for the research and screening will go to the person with the most relevant expertise, while the single point of contact is someone who knows the client and has built a relationship with them, This is maintained at all times. It’s hugely valuable because it means clients don’t feel as though they’re being ping-ponged from one person to another.

At the same time, this internal split means the lead recruiter can give the client access to the best possible expertise for a particular type of role. This helps to strengthen and increase the value of their relationship.

The Bowerman Group attributes much of their success to their process — something they’re worked hard to refine over the years. That includes a second screening with the lead recruiter, so they can confidently explain why someone is being presented as a good fit.

Making internal splits work for you

“I really enjoy digging into PCRecruiter and reformatting how we present candidates using a key points page, and resume page. The client can always see everything — there’s a link, so they can forward that link to anyone in the company who wants to look at it.”

– Michelle Catucci, Executive Recruiter, Bowerman Group

Internal splits allow recruiters to play to their strengths. It’s a collaborative model that also helps with economies of scale. At Bowerman Group, this model has evolved organically over time, with specialisms emerging based on background experience and personal preference. Those recruiters who thrive in frontend roles are given room to thrive, and those who enjoy the sourcing side are able to focus on their research efforts. 

There are more formalized ways of working out there — such as the pod system — but ultimately it’s about finding a process that works for you and your clients. A simple-to-use ATS / Candidate Relationship Management system can help support your process so you can find the information you need when you need it the most. 

PCRecruiter offers a visual and easy-to-follow pipeline that indicates every step of your process. Book a demo

Risks To Data In Remote Recruiting

More and more people are getting used to remote interactions as part of the recruitment process and efforts to attract the best talent with a view to hiring them. The risks to data privacy in recruitment are similar to many other professions.

Remote lawyers, accountants — even mobile engineers — need systems for keeping data safe. Hardware risks arise when users bring their own device as opposed to a company-issued one. This isn’t a major issue for large enterprises that supply employees with equipment, but it may be a concern for third-party recruiters and smaller recruiting firms.

Another obvious risk to data is when remote third-party recruiters work for multiple clients and potentially use data from one client to benefit another. For employers, there’s the inherent risk that an unscrupulous remote third-party recruiter, working on their behalf, might attempt to entice talent away to another client. This ethical (and possibly legal) problem is part of a more general challenge around the performance management of remote workers. This is especially relevant in recruitment niches where the key candidates and hiring authorities are well-known to major players.

Legal Implications

Remote recruiting often, but not always, aligns with recruiting across multiple jurisdictions with different employment and contracting laws. This too can create issues around compliance with different data privacy regulations – such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from the European Union (EU).

In the US, social security and financial account information are the only protected pieces of personal data. This is different in other parts of the world. At the same time, legal cases such as the commercial use of a subject’s data are constantly challenging what can and can’t be done with data. In short, recruiters need to be better informed about the candidates and companies they’re working with, and what the legal relationships are.   

The good news is that Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and CRM like CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE have always been suitable for remote work. That’s because users can be in different locations when they sign in, but the database is centrally and securely located in one place. 

9 Recruitment Data Security Considerations

If your team is going to be handling recruitment data remotely, here are nine key points you’ll want to bear in mind:

1. Technology: Getting your technology stack in order has to be the number one priority for all recruiters — not just those working remotely. This includes everything from communication platforms right through to trust and verification technology for managing performance metrics.
2. Legality: Alongside your tech stack, recruitment firms and in-house HR teams need to ensure clarity over legal requirements at local, national, and international levels. Ownership of the data is also important to fully understand — who owns it, who’s responsible for it, and which rules apply.
3. Form management: Another key consideration arises when your recruitment processes involves the distribution, management, and processing of forms. You’ll need to be certain that the data is securely transmitted, securely held, and be aware of who’s responsible for it.
4. Contractual obligations: Recruitment firms can also ensure that compensation for contractors or employees is dependent on their data compliance and classification. By making it a job requirement for data to be entered cleanly into the system, the sources and the audit trail are made transparent and complete.
5. Virtual Private Network (VPN): A core piece in remote security is the ability to lock down recruitment software within your company’s VPN and to and not store data like social security numbers unencrypted on a local device.
6. IP Restrictions: By imposing restrictions that only allow a specific range of IP addresses to access data, business owners can limit access. Using IP restrictions means that even a compromised password is cannot allow unauthorized users into the system. 
7. Remote desktop: Running your work desktop remotely via another connected device is another option for controlling access to data and monitoring its use. This is less common today thanks to browser-based software, but tools like Chrome Remote Desktop have also made it more convenient.
8. Control measures: Establishing what the appropriate permissions are for each user of your recruitment software — and each kind of remote worker — ensures recruiters only see what they need to see, and can only access data that’s relevant to their role. 
9. Data disposal: Different regulations exist determining record retention and destruction. Recruitment firms, as well as in-house teams, need to know how to store and destroy data accordingly. One example is the I9 form in the US, which must be kept for 3 years.

Considerations such as these need to be addressed at the contact stage between the customer and the vendor. That’s especially important when the data held is aggregated over an extended time period. A further consideration is the difference between data held online and data physically kept in disconnected cold storage.

The Security Features Recruiters Need

PCRecruiter’s built-in security functionality makes it the safe choice for remote recruiting. Here’s a list of some of the most popular security features:

• IP whitelisting, which means only trusted IP addresses can access your recruitment data.
• Permissions and preferences that enable you to impose limitations on a recruiter’s views and access to particular functions.
• IP-tagged action logs so you can monitor where and when users are accessing the system, as well as what major actions are being taken.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) helps provide assurance that the loss of a password doesn’t automatically compromise your recruiter’s account.
• Multi-database functionality allows you to keep datasets separate and secure from cross-contamination.
• Field-level encryption means you can protect sensitive data in particular fields.
• The ability to host PCRecruiter locally allows it to run on a private ‘air-gapped’ network where required.  

When it comes to keeping data safe, remote recruiting is not substantially different from other forms of remote sales. In fact, the nature of remote recruiting encourages companies to more carefully consider the security of their recruitment practices. 

These practices include the processes used to build and validate trust in remote workers. Of course, it also helps to choose a CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE vendor with highly-configurable security and remote features.  

Managing remote recruiters? PCRecruiter can help keep data safe. Speak to our sales team. Contact us.

In recent years, the United States has seen an increase in workers leaving and changing jobs — a phenomenon known as “The Great Resignation.” The reasons behind this trend are not yet entirely clear. Possible explanations include health and safety concerns, workers reevaluating their work-life balance, and the effects of remote work.

Some argue that “The Great Resignation” is merely a result of fluctuations in the business cycle. This trend is a reversal of the long-term decline in labor mobility that began in the 1980s and was reflected in various data, including the job-to-job transition rate and the number of hirings and separations. The ‘quits’ rate, which measures the proportion of jobs that workers quit in a given month, provides insight into labor mobility.

The Rising Rate of Quits

Until roughly 2017, the quits rate reflected the overall decline in labor mobility during this period, particularly during the Great Recession. The more recent pandemic-induced recession caused a sharp decline in job mobility, particularly in voluntary job changes. However, the quits rate has grown since that time, peaking at 3% and remaining comfortably above any pre-pandemic level.

The reasons for this sudden increase in labor mobility are disputed, with some arguing that it is temporary and others seeing it as a long-term trend. The potential benefits of increased mobility are significant, especially for young workers, but there are also concerns about increased uncertainty and inefficiency in the labor market.

Ultimately, economists will need to develop models and test them empirically to gain a rigorous and thoughtful understanding of what the current trend in labor mobility means for American workers. In other words, nobody knows what is currently driving or inhibiting labor mobility.

The Rising Rate of Mortgage Interest

Another wrinkle is the rise in interest rates over the past 18 months, leading to an increase in housing mortgage finance rates. This has resulted in homeowners being effectively locked into their mortgages.

A new paper by Professors Julia Fonseca and Lu Liu reveals that homeowners with mortgages in the US can only move to a different home after paying off their existing mortgage and then refinancing their home with a new mortgage. Those caught in a mortgage lock-in can only relocate by buying a cheaper home or increasing their earnings, in addition to covering the costs of moving and refinancing.

The paper’s authors build their case around the metric of the mortgage rate differential, which is the difference between the mortgage rate locked in at purchase and the current market rate. The paper found that a decline in mortgage rate differentials reduces moving rates, which could explain a decline in moving by around 25% between 2018 and the next 10 years.

Additionally, the study found that mortgage lock-in discourages labor mobility. Interestingly, the U.K. and Canada have a different mortgage market, where many more home loans are assumable and portable —i.e. the loan can follow an owner to a different dwelling. Such reforms in US practice could have a material effect on labor mobility.

The Rise of Remote Work

In our opinion at Main Sequence Technology, the ‘X factor’ in this situation is remote work and the increasing digitization of any business processes that’s amenable to virtual performance.

Recently released Census data shows that remote work has increased unevenly across the United States, with the highest rate of remote work being in Washington, DC, followed by San Francisco, CA, and Austin, TX. Remote work is clustered along coastal areas and mega-growth cities, but is also prevalent in a variety of other places.

The remote work share has rocketed from 5.6% in 2019 to 17.9% in 2021 to an estimated 33.5% for 2023 at the national level, meaning more than a third of all workers are able to do their jobs away from a fixed office at least part of the time. Remote work is related to occupation mix, higher education levels, longer commute times, and more expensive housing markets.

We assume that remote work will accelerate labor mobility velocity, while higher interest rates may inhibit labor mobility. It remains unknown, and unknowable, what effect future policy or social changes may have on labor mobility, as the pandemic emphatically demonstrated. Recruiting looks to benefit from current trends, as there is no sign of remote work or digitization slowing, even in the face of potential recession and already-felt rises in the real costs of borrowing.

Martin Snyder is a co-founder and Principal at Main Sequence Technology, Inc.

As of 2023, New York has legislated against ‘automated employment decision rules’. Other states are sure to follow. Clearly, the use of AI in recruitment isn’t quite there – yet. (When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment, you probably already know the story so far. If you don’t, then we highly recommend that you check out our blog post about the potential and the pitfalls.)

However, what these developments have done is help highlight how technology could be used to support diversity and inclusivity in recruitment. Let’s take a closer look.

Overcoming Historical Bias 

When recruitment AI takes historical hiring data, let’s say for software developers, it discovers a historical trend. In this example, the hiring trend leans towards white males of a certain age. So when the AI uses this data to potentially screen candidates for a software developer position – guess what? It screens out candidates who don’t fit the criteria. Therein lies the problem with using ‘automated employment decision rules’ – they’re susceptible to historical bias.

What recruitment AI has exposed is an inherent structural issue within the employment market where groups of people were not getting shortlisted, not getting interviewed, and not getting hired because of who they were as opposed to what they could do. What we’re seeing today is an adjustment to that inequality through a confluence of history and technology which enables recruiters to not only create a more inclusive workforce, but to proactively recruit talent from more diverse backgrounds. 

Offering distance-based roles is just one example of how employers and their recruiters can reach a wider and more diverse talent pool by looking beyond their city limits or state lines into previously overlooked communities or social groups. Similarly, ATS and CRM software can help recruiters specifically target a wider demographic of candidates, which simultaneously improves their chances of acquiring the right talent for the right role.

Facilitating Diversity Of Thought

As organizations actively seek to increase the diversity of their workforce and create more inclusive environments, it falls to recruiters to increase the appeal of open roles to a broader audience. That means positioning the company’s employer brand and job postings in a way that appeals to many different types of individuals, irrespective of their age, skin color, sexual orientation, or gender. Through their recruiting efforts, employers need to ensure that underrepresented groups become an integral part of their organization. Groups of people who have been overlooked in the past will need greater opportunity to not only get hired, but also progress into leadership roles.

One of the great things about increasing workforce diversity is that it brings in new ideas and perspectives. It’s healthy for organizations to encourage diversity of thought, and to openly welcome and facilitate a range of viewpoints, which can ultimately help to drive business forward. Instead of speaking with one voice, companies can embrace a range of different voices and therefore increase their appeal to people from different backgrounds.

The other benefit of having a diverse and inclusive workforce is that it makes everyone feel more welcome. In turn, this increases employee happiness. A happier workforce is usually a more productive one. A more productive workforce creates better business success and increased revenues. 

Technology As A Force For Good

Unfortunately, some employers might look at a stack of resumes and discount potential candidates based on their name alone. If the name didn’t sound “right,” if it wasn’t the sort of name that was perceived to traditionally fit with a certain role, it ended up in the ‘no’ pile. Studies as recent as 2021 have shown that name discrimination is still having an impact. This means some of the best, well-qualified talent may be out of the running even before the race has even begun.

These days, recruitment technology allows recruiters to proactively search for a more diverse range of candidates based on factors beyond their name. This needs to be carefully aligned with the recruiter’s fundamental purpose, which is to bring in the best talent for the role, whoever they may be. 

Ultimately, organizations need recruiting practices that ensure their workforce reflects the totality of the population they serve; while getting the best available talent. To that end, recruiters need an ATS with the ability to search for candidates based on a range of quantifiable skill sets. 

At the same time, the way in which recruiters source, track, and recruit individuals needs to be transparent and compliant with the laws of a city, state, or country. The right ATS and CRM platform can help recruiters ensure that a more diverse range of candidates make the cut, helping the organizations they serve to become more inclusive. 

PCRecruiter is a powerful recruitment platform which partners with a range of systems and services that provide cutting-edge recruitment tools. View our integrations and partners.

In the world of inbound recruiting and staffing, your job descriptions are your primary content, and writing them should be done with search engines in mind. How can recruiters use SEO techniques to improve the chances of their job descriptions being discovered and shared online? 

We spoke to Steve Gipson, Sales Manager at Recruiters Websites, and to PCRecruiter job board implementation guru Andrew Rothman, to find out more. 

What is a search engine optimized job description?

A search engine optimized job description is one which has been created using SEO best practices in order to increase its visibility on search results. This can help drive potential candidates to a recruiter’s website.

SEO is the practice of improving the visibility of websites and web pages in organic search engine results pages (SERP). While this can involve optimizing various aspects of the back-end, like the page title, meta title and meta description, the goal for the content on the front end is to provide the most relevant content for the user’s intent. 

User intent can be broken into three categories: informational, navigational and transactional. Put simply: know, go and do. It determines what sort of content users are looking for. Here are three common examples of user intent in recruitment content: 

A search engine optimized job description will incorporate SEO fundamentals, relevant on-page content, and specific keywords to make it more visible to prospective candidates searching for a specific role within a specific industry, and in a specific location.

The job description itself is informational content, but when it forms part of a job posting that sits on a company website it also needs to meet the needs of navigational users looking for that specific role, as well as transactional users who already know they want to apply for it. 

That’s why it’s important to include clear information with relevant industry and role keywords.

Why ‘search engine optimize’ a job description?

Studies show that 75% of people don’t go beyond the first page of the SERP. In other words, the majority of people won’t scroll past the first eight organic search results on Google. For job seekers, this means they largely end up on major sites like LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, or Indeed. No matter how good your SEO practices are, an independent company or recruiting firm’s job listings are unlikely to out-rank the big guys because Google knows those sites are the most-clicked results. However, you can still help to raise your jobs above others for more granular searches.

And that’s where search engine optimized job descriptions come in. If your job posting lives on a web page on a company or recruitment website, and it’s been correctly optimized, it stands a much better chance of getting picked up through organic search.

While it’s good recruitment practice to combine SEO with paid advertising, organic search is the equivalent of free advertising.

Even if the role advertised is not exactly what the candidate was looking for, this might be the first time a speculative jobseeker has stumbled across your organization and/or the first time they’ve visited your website. This gives you a chance to really showcase your brand, and start to build a relationship with them.   

Techniques for optimizing job descriptions

There are many tried and tested techniques for SEO. With almost 86% of the search market, Google is the go-to source for most web searchers. Google’s algorithms determine which organic content ranks highest (beneath paid ads), so it’s important to follow the best practices to maximize the visibility of your job descriptions. 

Here are nine techniques to help you optimize your job descriptions:

➀ Keep job titles clear and simple 

Putting the job title in the page title, and meta title of your page when possible, will help it get picked up by Google and give it a clear title when the page is shared. If you can, include the company name as well. The key here is to be clear and simple using common, unabbreviated industry terminology.  Use the title phrasing that your jobseekers are likely to use.

➁ Incorporate keywords and phrases

When describing a specific role, you’re naturally going to include keywords associated with that particular role and industry. If you want to be more precise with what to include, take a look at a competitor’s top ranking job description from the search results and scan it for relevant words.  Remember to use the phrases a job seeker might use when searching.

➂ Avoid ‘keyword stuffing’

Repetition of a keyword phrase is important, to a point, but Google is increasingly good at prioritizing natural-sounding content. After all, a search engine’s success relies on the quality of results it returns, and nobody wants to be taken to a page they can’t make sense of. Simply repeating the same keyword or phrase over and over again can be detrimental. At most, aim for three mentions for every 400-500 words. And never employ trickery like hiding keywords in white text on a white background.

➃ Use smaller chunks of text

Like most human readers, Google finds it easier to read easily-digestible chunks of text. So it’s essential to break up your text using clear headings (H2s and H3s in SEO-speak) and bullet points. Your HTML editor will have tools for adding Headings. Try to keep your job description text clear and concise. Use bullet points for things like required experience or workplace benefits, but keep them short and sweet. Five bullets at a time is ideal. If you’re approaching double figures, you’ve gone too far. 

➄ Avoid duplicate content

A search engine that returns link after link to the exact same content is not going to be very useful! Job descriptions are no different. When Google finds the same job on multiple sites, their algorithm has to decide which one is the ‘most important’ – that’s likely the direct-hire employer’s own website, or a major job board site. By making sure that your job description isn’t too similar to any other, you increase the chances of it being found. This also applies to jobs within your own job board! If you have multiple job postings that are identical aside from the title or location, search engines are apt to ignore them, and may even down-rank your entire job board as a source of low-quality content.

➅ Include geographical information 

Your prospective candidates are almost certainly using geographical location in their searches. By ensuring your job description contains relevant keywords such as the state, city, or county together with the job title, you’re in a much stronger position to be seen by candidates with a specific destination in mind. If you’re advertising a confidential opening, give as much location information as you can manage, or list the job with the nearest major city to get regional searchers.

➆ Use internal and external links

Making connections is as important to SEO as it is to recruitment. A search engine cannot index what it cannot find, so more connections to and between jobs is beneficial. If you can, include relevant links to other parts of your website or to other jobs in your job descriptions, and use job boards and social media shares to make your links discoverable outside of your site.

➇ Include relevant visual media

A job description is a job description, but by simply embedding a short relevant video — either about your company or the role — you not only enhance your SEO, but also provide more appealing and engaging content to potential candidates. If you are using the PCRecruiter Job Board, talk to a rep about adding YouTube or Vimeo links to custom fields for display on your postings.

Final thoughts on SEO optimized job descriptions

Ultimately, job postings are web content like any other page. When you think about it, a job description that’s been optimized for search engines is actually a job description optimized to properly engage potential hires. If you want your content to be appealing to Google, make it sure that it meets the user’s search intent.

PCRecruiter offers a flexible job board that you can use to easily frame your own positions inside of your website and to collect candidates directly into your talent pool. For larger volume job boards or more specific SEO requirements, talk to us about options for more advanced configurations.

Consequently, employers are faced with the challenges of conflicting motivations.

On the one hand, they need to reward loyalty. On the other hand, they need to attract the best talent. It’s a balancing act between making the right offer to secure the best talent today, and retaining top talent in the long term.

For this blog post, we once again spoke with industry expert Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO of Kaye / Bassman, to share his insights into the main factors impacting pay today.

Geographic Location 

Are you paying people based on the role that they’re providing, or paying them based on the context of their cost-of-living situation?

Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman

The pandemic was a catalyst for distance-based working. In sectors where it’s been successful, it’s created trends for greater flexibility in terms of working location. Remote-only and hybrid roles have become increasingly common. Due to regional differences in the cost of living, this has created a push-pull effect. 

When a company is based in an area with a high cost of living, and the work can be done remotely, employees can still command premium wages. They can also decide to relocate to an area with lower living costs.

At the same, by opening up distance-based roles, companies searching for the right hires can take their pick from a broader talent pool, searching beyond their city or state. If hiring locally is more expensive, they can acquire talent from an area with a lower cost of living and, in theory, pay them less. 

Of course, regardless of where a company’s headquarters are located, some organizations have to compete against each other irrespective of localized differences in the cost of living. In talent-driven markets, some companies are willing to do whatever it takes to bring the best talent on board. Likewise, local businesses which offer products or services within a particular city or state, need to pay their employees in line with the local cost of living to attract and retain the right talent, almost by default.

Company Cost Structures

Organizations based in areas with a higher cost of living either have lower margins or lower cost structures. One way to lower cost structure is through a geographically dispersed workforce.

Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman

Companies in certain fast-moving industries — particularly those in the technology sector — are changing their approach to office space. Where hybrid or distanced-based working is viable, companies can strategically cut down on square footage. One trend is for companies to open up smaller satellite offices, which provide smaller, more flexible working spaces. From decreasing the size of physical office space to becoming an entirely remote organization, some companies are leveraging distance-based working to cut costs.

There are other economic factors which impact overall company cost structures. In industries which are heavily backed by venture capitalists – such as technology – some companies have been given incredibly high valuations. To kick-start and sustain growth, they’ve invested heavily in recruitment, attracting talent with extremely competitive remuneration packages. But that can only continue for so long.*

Already we’re starting to see a plateau and normalization of wages in the face of potential economic downturn. But pay is impacted by multiple factors. Alongside macroeconomics, there’s where the talent is located, and above all else — supply and demand.

Hand It To Hiring Managers

What are companies doing to create an environment which attracts and retains the best talent, one that goes beyond where you can work and the benefits to you?

Jeff Kaye, Co-CEO, Kaye / Bassman

Regardless of the company location, the availability of talent, the compensation, or the opportunity for distance-based working – a great hiring manager can make the difference in getting the right talent through the door at the right price for both the employee and the company. 

The hiring manager is the coach. They create a culture that makes working for an organization desirable – and raise the level of engagement. Interestingly, some of the best companies to work for are also the most profitable. That’s because employees want to work for them, and so location and financial benefits are not the only determining factors.  

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – recruitment is a people business. See how PCRecruiter helps to keep it that way. Discover our tech.

* As a side note, Main Sequence Technology, the company behind PCRecruiter, has always been self-capitalized and owned/operated by its founders. This has led to a quarter-century of growth and stability.

NPAworldwide is a global recruitment network of 550 members operating in 42 countries. It spans multiple sectors, and includes specialist and generalist recruiters.

For this blog post, PCRecruiter spoke to the President of NPAworldwide, Dave Nerz, to get his inside perspective on the work from home (WFH) trend.

WFH Wednesday

WFH provides two different working environments. Places to get different kinds of work done. It makes the day go faster – and it’s really helpful for me.

Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide

WFH was around long before the pandemic, but lockdowns and social distancing meant more people experienced it than ever before. At that time, WFH became a necessity rather than a ‘nice to have’ option. But like many forward-thinking organizations, NPAworldwide was already testing the water with WFH. They employed remote staff, and Dave Nerz had introduced WFH Wednesday. So when the pandemic hit, they were ready. 

Employees were already set up at home. They had a space to work, and the right tools to get their work done, like a telephone, Internet services, office stationery, and computers. In fact, as a leader, Dave had been doing his own version of WFH for years. Every Wednesday afternoon, he’d set up in the local library to get things done without interruption. He’d switch off his phone and create a situation where he could focus on longer tasks like writing reports. 

Right now, Dave splits his working day between the office in the morning and home in the afternoon. He gets the best of both worlds. Face-to-face meetings and in-person work happens in the office. At home, he can schedule longer video calls, and focus on more complicated time-consuming tasks. His team also benefits. For example, parents can work around their childcare duties, and still get the job done to the benefit of the organization.  

Hybrid Working Arrangements 

As an industry, we’re going to have to figure out how to make more people available to us that would otherwise not be able to fill the roles.

Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide

It’s fair to say that certain jobs don’t currently work in a hybrid or remote model. For example, there are roles in manufacturing and engineering which have to be done on site — although with new technology, even that is slowly changing. When roles can be done remotely or hybrid, it opens up a much broader talent pool. That’s important on a global scale. Why? Many sectors are facing a demographic drought. In terms of age, their demographic looks like an inverted pyramid: many people are retiring and there’s not enough young talent coming through. 

Specifying a geographic location for roles which could be done remotely immediately shrinks the talent pool. Conversely, widening the search to a particular state — or even the entire country — adds depth and breadth. Hiring on home soil makes things like onboarding and communication easier. But there’s no doubt that in certain industries, such as software development, offshore is sometimes the only answer.

Timezones are also playing an increasingly important role. In the future, we’re likely to see a trend for employers searching for people who work on a certain slice of time, as opposed to being based in a particular city. In that respect, remote and hybrid working will help to close the skills gap.

Training For Success

WFH and remote working is going to help the industry solve some problems in the short term, while we figure out the long term.

Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide

As the boomer generation continues to retire, the skills gap widens. In the past, corporations had training programs which would give graduates the right skill sets to go out into an industry and launch their careers. 

Today, a lot of that has gone. Post 9/11 and financial crises, many companies cut costs by axing their training programs, instead searching for ready-made talent. The problem is there’s often not enough of it to go around. 

Bringing in talent from overseas can help. For recruiters and employers, geographic borders make relocating people — physical immigration — a complicated and time-consuming process. Virtual immigration opens up new possibilities. You can have trained talent from abroad work remotely in no time at all.  

The key challenge for employers taking on remote talent is how to ensure new recruits can be successfully onboarded and work effectively without stepping into an office. In the physical environment, you have managers and peers to support their training and development. With WFH, those opportunities don’t arise naturally. They have to be scheduled in. This might make it more challenging for those people who are purely remote. 

It also impacts career development. When someone’s remote-only, managers can see the end results, but they don’t necessarily have visibility over the process including the wins and the mistakes. Without seeing it, managers have to take a leap of faith based on results, which could affect an employee’s promotability. Remote working can also limit opportunities to discuss career advancement because there aren’t those live, face-to-face moments that you get from working in an office. 

Recruitment In A Remote-First World

We’re going to have to select people on the basis of how they demand to work. In some cases, as opposed to an option, WFH becomes a demand.

Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide

There’s no question that some work is better done in-person. Remote-first isn’t suitable to every sector. Take automotive engineers, for example. They need to be inside the company to see what’s being done, how it’s done, and what their impact is likely to be.

Even with roles that can potentially be done remotely — such as marketing or recruitment — in-person meetings are still important. People need to get together. Whether that’s casual interaction, or scheduled crossover with other workers and teams, companies need to figure out new ways of working. And recruiters have to be on board with that in order to sell it to prospective candidates. 

At the same time, remote and hybrid working is a matter of taste. Different people work best in different ways. We all have different styles. This is something that employers and recruiters can tap into. The question is: what can they do to attract and retain the right talent as well as optimize their performance? The answer is to offer flexibility that benefits both parties. 

Different demographics will have different demands. Couples with young children will have different needs than people approaching retirement. What it comes down to can be any number of factors, whether that’s style, convenience, or economics. 

Being Effective From Anywhere

I don’t see work in the office as going away. For many businesses and industries, it’s not feasible. It doesn’t make sense.

Dave Nerz, President, NPAworldwide

The bottom line is simple. Employers need the best talent to fill their open roles. Where and how the work gets done most effectively comes down to personal choice. Whether working from home or in the office, it’s personal situations which determine effectiveness. This means managers have to think much more creatively about how things get done.

Recruiters also need to go beyond simply listing WFH, remote, or hybrid as part of a job posting, and consider the wider implications for their target audience. Being able to offer more flexible working arrangements which work in both company and the candidate’s interest can be a win-win — if you get it right. 

Whether you’re a WFH, hybrid, or office-based recruiter, and no matter what type of recruitment you work in, the right ATS and CRM can streamline your day to day and help you make the right hires. Learn more about PCRecruiter. 

While many people might be happy to have AI make suggestions around which film to watch next, or to recommend other music they may enjoy, handing it responsibility for the selection process in their next job application can raise understandable concerns.

In this blog post, we take a closer look at the pitfalls and the potential of using AI in recruitment, and where it might add value rather than systemized bias.

Current Applications 

There’s no denying that in the modern world, AI has a lot of great uses. Across a range of industries, it’s being increasingly used to streamline workflows and cut costs. In fact, in the recruitment world, AI — and more specifically machine learning — has been used in various forms for some time now. 

Common applications include automated interviews, resume (or CV) screening, as well as administrative duties, such as identifying duplicate candidate records. But the truth is, there’s a lot we don’t know about how AI is being used in recruitment. And that’s a concern. 

Potential Benefits 

For the recruitment business, where AI can really shine is in crawling talent pools for potential candidates based on specific job criteria such as qualifications and experience. It can also learn broadly what kind of candidate is a good fit for a particular role. However, its real potential benefits come from automating some of the repetitive and time-consuming work which goes along with screening, assessing, and scheduling.

Even as far back as 2017, studies showed that hiring decision-makers saw the cost and time saving potential of AI, alongside its ability to deliver better candidate matches. Interestingly, 43% of decision makers also believed that it would remove human bias. And that’s exactly where AI has come unstuck: when it’s been used to replace human decision-making in an effort to speed up the hiring process.

Knowing The Pitfalls of AI in Recruitment

When we talk about AI in recruitment, we really mean machine learning — computer systems which can learn from statistical models and data sets. As Amazon discovered in 2015, using historical human data to inform AI decision models can come at a cost to both potential candidates and their future employers. Their experimental hiring tool which made use of machine learning was informed by ten years of resumes submitted to the company.

The issue was that the computer system was essentially given a decade of data revealing male dominance in the tech industry and adapted its algorithms accordingly. The result? Resumes containing the word ‘women’ were automatically downgraded. When this ‘algorithmic bias’ was discovered, interventions were made to ensure the system became gender-neutral, but it left lingering concerns that future unintended discrimination might occur, raising important questions around how to ensure that recruitment AI is transparent and fair. 

In fact, transparency over the use of AI in recruitment is one of the biggest challenges currently facing the industry. That’s where new legislation is playing a crucial role.

New Employment Laws

A game changer in terms of the use of AI in recruitment, New York City’s AI employment law restricts the use of ‘automated employment decision tools’ and requires recruiters to undergo an annual bias audit to alleviate potential bias in their systems. 

Recruiters will also have to be transparent about where AI has been used in the recruitment process, and to even provide candidates with alternative options for processing their applications. Undisclosed or biased use of AI in the hiring process will also be subjected to penalty fines. 

Taking effect from January, 1 2023, New York’s new law blazes the trail for further legislation to tackle the inherent bias and potential discrimination generated by machine learning algorithms.

Similar conversations are taking place in the European Union, where the AI Act is set to institute self-certification programs and government oversight. This law will create transparency requirements for AI systems that interact with people, and will attempt to ban a few “unacceptable” qualities of AI systems. Individuals or companies located within the European Union, placing an AI system on the market in the European Union, or using an AI system within the European Union would be subject to the regulation.

Future Possibilities

It’s easy to be dismissive of AI in recruitment. After all, it’s a people business. But there are some clear use cases where it can make trustworthy and time-saving improvements to the placement process. AI can also be trained to trawl records and match specific criteria. For more common roles requiring limited experience or technical skills there is perhaps wider scope for AI to assist with search and selection. The real danger arises when AI trained on imperfect data, and therefore inherently biased, is used for key decision-making.

Conceivably, AI could be used to handle the entire recruitment process — which perhaps less scrupulous recruiters might find appealing. But for most recruiters there’s a sense of professional pride, and a human aspect to hiring — building relationships with employers and candidates — which AI simply can’t replace. 

As an example, there could be three equally well-qualified candidates in the running for an open position. Their education, qualifications and experience all fit the bill, but what about their cultural fit? A good recruiter understands the importance of aligning the employer’s value proposition with the right candidates. AI can easily miss the subtle verbal and non-verbal nuances which influence human-decision making. Humans can also see beyond the data. Especially when you’re looking for someone with transferable skills from outside a particular industry. Good recruiters know that instinct, as much as anything else, comes into play when making the right hire.  

There’s also the candidate’s perspective to consider. They may have a (sometimes valid) suspicion of any technology used to influence the hiring process. For example, even though Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have been around for decades, you can still find plenty of blog posts and guides for ‘how to beat the ATS’. Fears run even deeper with undisclosed uses of AI, particularly when it comes to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. As the Amazon experiment revealed, machine learning opens up the potential for discriminatory algorithms, and runs the inherent risk of excluding candidates you really wanted, over the ones it thinks you want.

Accelerate Hiring Without AI

Although there are some tasks and activities which can be comfortably replaced by AI, when it comes to key decision-making, sourcing the right talent and identifying the best-fit candidate is best left in the hands of humans. But how can you speed up the time to hire without using AI?

Recruitment automations can take care of repetitive, and repeatable everyday tasks, and give recruiters more time to spend time with candidates and employers. It’s particularly helpful for keeping all parties updated through emails, form letters, and notifications, cutting down the time needed to manually create correspondence.

PCRecruiter is an ATS / CRM hybrid which offers recruiters a huge range of opportunities to automate certain aspects of their recruitment process, making workflows more streamlined and cost-effective. Tailored to specific workflows, it’s a seamless, customizable and powerful tool for handling your end-to-end talent sourcing and. 

Want to learn more about the benefits of using automation in recruitment? Read our blog post 5 Ways To Use Automation In Recruitment.

In this post, we explore ways that forward-thinking recruiters use automations to drive efficiency in their recruitment workflows. We’ll see how the right applicant tracking system (ATS) can help you hire faster. 

What is recruitment automation?

Recruitment automation is the use of technology to automate specific tasks within the recruitment process. It helps minimize the time to fill open roles, and reduces costs. This delivers a better overall experience for candidates, employers, and recruiters.

Automation covers both external and internal tasks. These can include things like notifications sent at specific stages of the hiring process or emails to candidates. Ultimately, the less time a recruiter spends logging information, the more time they have to spend working with clients and candidates. 

Recruitment automation can also include more strategic tasks, such as email campaigns, which help keep clients and candidates informed and engaged. Examples of time-saving automations include:

• Form letters to candidates 
• Notification prompts to administrators 
• Emails to clients regarding scheduled interviews

PCRecruiter’s own system for recruitment automation is essentially an open box. Wherever a communication is both repeated and repeatable, the opportunities for automations are endless. As recruiters spot more opportunities to refine workflows, there is less need for them to manually create and send correspondence. 

The great thing about automating via the ATS is that recruiters don’t need to spend time jumping between multiple tools. Doing more things from a single hub reduces friction, speeding up the placement and hiring processes.

How to use automation in recruitment 

Think more strategically about your own recruiting workflows. You’ll see almost any recruitment process presents potential for automation. Everything from the initial job posting to interview scheduling to following up post-hire is an opportunity to streamline.

For most recruiters, their bane is technology that interferes with their work or slows them down. That being so, the best approach to implementing automations is to identify opportunities in existing processes. Look for points where automation might help recruiters to be more efficient and productive. By automating repetitive and repeatable tasks, recruiters free-up more time to focus on their core activities.

Here are five ways to use automation in recruitment: 

Applicant Tracking 

Applicant tracking is the backbone of any recruiter’s day-to-day. A whiteboard or spreadsheet solution might cut it in the early days. However, when you start handling multiple placements and hundreds of candidates these tools become inefficient and unwieldy.

No matter how many candidates in your database, or how many employers you’re dealing with, an applicant tracking system (ATS) like PCRecruiter scales with you. Because the software tracks candidates from end to end, you’ll never lose track of potential hires along the way. Candidates you couldn’t place remain ready for next time a suitable role opens up.

PCRecruiter users can modify fields and forms to suit existing workflows — this includes adding custom automations. For example, triggering behaviors when records containing specific information, such as a location or industry, are entered. 

Job Postings

When it comes to job postings, there’s an administrative burden on recruiters to make the information visible. Whether on recruitment websites or your own company’s careers page, it can become complicated to track and manage multiple postings. Automation can help you create once and publish anywhere.

The great thing about PCRecruiter’s integrated job board is that it can be implemented into practically any website. This saves duplication of effort and potential errors that come from managing a website’s job board separately. In addition, leveraging job feeds and integrations helps to advertise the opening on other sites, saving time and effort.

Social Recruiting 

In a world where 70% of the workforce consists of passive talent and 82% of Americans have a social media profile, it makes sense to reach potential candidates via their favorite social hangouts. Recruiters can leverage the potential reach of both personal and professional networks via social recruiting. This is accomplished through a combination of posting links to new job postings, and strategic employer branding.

What if every time you published a new position, your marketing team received a notification with all the relevant details? What if the job could be posted to social networks automatically? This could then be easily incorporated in and around other content promoting your employer brand and its values. PCRecruiter’s built-in automation features as well as integrations with services like Paiger and Zapier make these workflows easy to implement.

Process Sequencing 

Process sequencing plays a vital role in helping support reps respond to customer inquiries quickly and efficiently. It provides standardized workflows and even scripting. 

The same approach can be applied to recruitment. Sequences provide the recruiter with a clear and standardized series of tasks. These can be customized to suit different roles or industries. This creates the potential to create and apply automations at specific stages of the process. 

PCRecruiter’s own sequencing tool enables recruiters to create their own workflows, with manual or automatic tasks. Tasks can include phone calls, prompts to connect on LinkedIn, or an automatic email confirming review of a resume. More quickly completing tasks and leveraging automating steps means recruiters can make more placements with less effort.

When it comes to onboarding new recruiters (or helping to keep current ones more effective), sequencing simplifies training. Making every step a clear and straightforward task guides users and informs them what the result of each action will be.

For example, after marking a completing a call, a contact is moved to the next step. The prebuilt sequence defines what that step is. For instance, if you have to leave a voicemail, the next step could be an automatic SMS confirming the message. If the call was connected, the next step may be a follow-up email with a form to complete.

Personalized Communication 

In most competitive industries, there’s an increasing customer expectation of regular, relevant, and anticipated communication. People want more personalized and hassle-free experiences, and they expect regular notifications and updates as a matter of course. Just think of all the notifications you received the last time you placed an online order; you’re told when it’s been received, when it’s shipped, that it’s with the carrier, and so on.  

Automations don’t just streamline existing processes. They can also help recruiters to do more than they would have been able to otherwise. Leveraging relevant data makes communication with candidates and clients can more personal. You’ll improve engagement by using their name, roles applied for, and even other roles they might be interested in. This creates a closer relationship, even if the placement is unsuccessful, that can return value in future placement efforts. This kind of personalized communication could take many forms. PCRecruiter can handle a variety of notifications:

• Text messages (SMS) 
• Email notifications
• Pop-up notifications within PCR
• Push notifications (via the mobile app)

Making strategic use of recruitment automations

Any attempt to save time and cost through automation works best when it adds value and efficiency to existing processes. Look to automate aspects of your recruitment process with that in mind.

At the end of the day, most recruiters are people people, not tech people. That’s why it’s important to make workflows as streamlined and intuitive as possible. The software solution needs to fit their way of working and not the other way around.

PCRecruiter’s training team on-boards users by taking time to understand their daily flow. They get to know what your process looks like and how it works. By mapping out the process, they can identify where the software can solve pain points. Recruiting is already a challenging role — why add another layer of unnecessary complexity? 

Once set up, automations in PCRecruiter enable you to do what you would do without it, only much faster. To learn how you can make placements with less administrative hassle, book a free consultation today. 

As we move into the latter part of 2022, what are some of the key hiring recruitment trends for the staffing industry, permanent placement recruiters, and HR professionals?

Working Remotely Is Here To Stay

We live in a world where flexible working – greater freedom in when and where we work – is now an integral part of the employment landscape, particularly in knowledge-based industries. In fact, 80% of people are likely to recommend remote working to a friend. To that end, potential hires expect absolute clarity around remote and hybrid practices within companies. And for recruiters, remote working has advantages on both sides of the hiring process. 

On one hand, candidates now expect remote or hybrid working models as the norm. With proven benefits in terms of employee job satisfaction and morale, the best candidates can demand their ideal working conditions. Many people prefer remote working to cut travel costs, reduce their carbon footprint, and the time they spend commuting. For that reason, putting together a personalized package of flexible working arrangements can help to differentiate your offer – and even become a deal-closer – when the right candidate has multiple offers on the table. 

On the other side of the coin, remote recruitment practices are enabling recruiters to make the right hire faster. From access to a deeper and wider talent pool to streamlining the early stages of the recruitment process, through to things like online interviews or screening, remote hiring offers recruiters a competitive advantage in terms of time-saved and reduced costs. Find more strategies for reducing your time to hire, by reading our blog post on 10 tips to help you hire faster. 

It’s Still A Jobseekers Market

Never mind artificial intelligence (AI) and robots taking human jobs, according to a recent study by Korn Ferry, the biggest threat facing recruiters will actually be a shortage of suitably skilled humans. In fact, it’s predicted that by 2030 there will be a global talent shortage of around 85 million people. The competition for recruiting and retaining top talent is heating up.

With more open positions than candidates, the best talent has the most power in the current job market. As the demand for talent continues to outstrip supply, companies are adopting evermore proactive hiring strategies in an effort to optimize their talent pipelines. Developing an appealing employer brand, deploying proven marketing tactics, and engaging with potential candidates via social media are fast-becoming a necessity in many sectors. 

For instance, being present on the right social media platform for your target audience is a way to build relationships with potential candidates, especially as a growing number of digital natives begin filling up the talent pool. Learn more about social recruiting, and how to implement it, with our blog post on how to use social media in recruiting.

Employer Branding Is A Key Differentiator 

Whether you choose to leverage it or not, the second an employer makes a hire, they have an employer brand. Like a company’s “traditional” brand, it embodies your mission, vision, and core values. For many organizations, an effective employer brand helps them to connect with the right candidates, attract the best talent, and retain that talent once they’re inside the organization. 

As with a company brand, you need consistency across every touchpoint, creating a candidate experience which leads to positive word of mouth, and clearly sets out your value proposition as an employer or recruiter. In addition, the right employer brand and candidate experience will continue to make your company an attractive proposition to potential candidates who didn’t quite make it this time around. The other benefit of employer branding is its impact on retention, with one study indicating that it could lead to a 28% reduction in staff turnover. Take a more in-depth look at employer branding with our blog post on the topic. 

Hard-To-Fill Roles In Tech And Marketing

In part, the talent shortage is due to demographics, with the majority of the boomer generation expected to exit the global workforce by 2030. As work becomes increasingly tech-based, many businesses are facing up to the reality of a deficit of the right talent. According to a study by Korn Ferry, without an influx of skilled, high-tech workers, the US could potentially miss out on $162 billion worth of annual revenues. 

Contrary to what you might think, despite the global reach of digital recruitment channels, from job posting sites and careers pages to social media, filling roles in tech and digital marketing is becoming increasingly challenging. This is largely due to the uptake of digital technologies in the wake of the global pandemic, and the trend for digital transformation – the adoption of new technologies to drive efficiencies. Put simply, technology is moving at such a fast pace, when it comes to front-end developers and software architects, there just isn’t enough expertise to go around.

This shortage of talent is especially true of digital marketing and the expert use of ‘martech’ (marketing technology). Comparing Scott Brinker’s MarTech Map from 2011 and 2022 shows an increase from 150 solutions to over 9,000 in 2022. That’s 6,521% growth in just 11 years. No one can be expert in every digital marketing tool, and this illustrates the challenge facing recruiters looking to hire the finest and most up-to-date marketing minds. Whether they’re looking for a marketing automation specialist or a search engine optimization (SEO) strategist, it can be difficult to find the right talent because the technology is so new. Smart recruiters are even employing SEO techniques to improve the online visibility of their job postings.

Recruitment Trends Round-Up

Whether you’re competing for the best candidate in a shallow talent pool, exploring new channels for networking with potential hires, improving your overall candidate experience, or trying to fill open roles in a highly-specialized market, the right applicant tracking software (ATS) can help. 

PCRecruiter has been helping people hire since 1998. The technology might have changed, but our dedication to providing intuitive and time-saving solutions for sourcing, tracking, and recruiting candidates remains the same. 

Find out how PCRecruiter can help streamline your recruitment efforts, by booking a demo.

For any type of recruiter, from permanent placement through to internal HR departments, the right applicant tracking system / software (ATS) can help you manage large quantities of applicants and candidates and make your recruitment process more efficient and effective. 

In this blog post, Stacy Racutt, PCRecruiter Training Manager, explores the basics behind applicant tracking software, and how the right solution can streamline workflows to enable you to make the right hires, faster. 

What is an applicant tracking system (ATS)?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a type of software which enables recruiters and employers to track applicants and candidates through the recruiting and hiring process.

Functionality is typically broad, covering everything from a candidate database to email and SMS integrations which help to streamline and automate communication between candidates, employers, and recruitment professionals.

The right ATS can facilitate the standardization and improvement of processes and workflows to achieve the bottom line: finding the best candidate for the role.

How an ATS works

Once a company’s job descriptions have been created, they’re typically posted on a job board on a website. This gives active candidates a window into what’s available, allowing them to view open positions, and apply for suitable roles. 

After completing and submitting an online application, often uploading their resume or curriculum vitae (CV), applicant information is then captured and added to a database on the ATS. Once a candidate is in the system, recruiters can then interact with, and track, the progress of candidates throughout the recruitment process.

With PCRecruiter (PCR), any activity around a specific candidate can be tracked across the full range of communication channels including emails, SMS, and calls. This helps recruiters build a clear history of their relationship with a candidate. With every communication in a single, centralized record, it’s easily accessible, and highly visible to recruiters and their managers.

Passive candidates take a slightly different path into the ATS. These people are not actively seeking a specific position, but may be open to the right opportunity. The PCR Capture tool enables employers and recruiters to parse candidate contact information from popular social media and professional websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Indeed to create a record for them. 

Why use an Applicant Tracking System?

From a candidate application on a job board through to the final interview, some system to track the sourcing and placement process is a recruiting necessity. However, for many smaller-scale search firms, or recruiters who are just starting out, it’s not uncommon for workflows to include manual processes, which are inefficient and vulnerable to human errors. 

Over time, and with an ever-growing talent pool, it can become increasingly challenging to keep track of top talent and MPCs. They may lose out to competitors, have to settle for second best, or not make a placement at all. While sticky notes on a whiteboard or a series of Excel sheets might be a workable solution in the early days, the need for applicant tracking software quickly becomes obvious. 

Digitally transformed recruitment

Digitization of manual recruitment processes usually leads to the use of spreadsheets to track candidate progress. If you’re dealing with a very small data set and a narrow set of needs, a spreadsheet can do the job, up to a point. There may be nothing inherently wrong with a spreadsheet, but it wasn’t designed with recruitment in mind, and it’s not a searchable database of resumes or CVs, or a convenient way to track a process over specific dates and times. 

A spreadsheet was built for numbers and data, and there comes a point when it’s not the right tool for getting the job of recruitment done. On the other hand, digitalization represents a step on from simply transferring an existing paper-based system to a digital one. Digitalization of your recruitment process requires the use of cutting edge recruitment technology to add value and drive efficiencies to your day-to-day operations. Digitalization gives you the opportunity to improve your existing workflows by leveraging the potential of digital tools and their functionality. 

For newer, scaling recruiters, the next logical step is to track and monitor candidates through an online recruitment platform. This acts like an ATS, but the information isn’t unique to them. Essentially, it grants access to a shared talent pool, which is being mined by multiple firms. It isn’t a private bank of contacts and resumes/CVs with a communication history that’s ready and waiting when it’s next needed for a potential hire.

History Matters

This history is really important. Why? If you have multiple recruiters in the same office, working in the same industry, it’s important they’re aware of each candidate’s history with your organization. Has anyone else interviewed them previously? Is someone else currently trying to place them elsewhere? 

Without a reliable ATS, it can be hard to tell. 

Having a complete history of a person, even including feedback from a client, on file and at hand, immediately provides a head start and avoids crossover with other recruiters going after the same talent.

Furthermore, all of your own notes and actions regarding a candidate can make them easier to identify for future searches. Searching across the open web or paid candidate sources may only turn up those who are actively on the market, or may only provide partial information, whereas your private talent pool may contain that perfect candidate that has been in your roster all along, and who may not be accessible to anyone else.

And this is to say nothing of the benefits of keeping your job openings and client information on file in the same database with your candidates, allowing you to efficiently cross-reference, promote, and communicate.

How an ATS benefits recruiters and employers

There’s no question that in a highly competitive job market, making effective use of the right ATS can give employers and recruiters the edge on their rivals when trying to acquire the best candidates. Here are five reasons to invest in an ATS: 

1. Speed-up search by building a pool of talent which contains historical data, and personal details, which can come into play at any given moment in a future placement.  

2. Centralize all communication, including calls, SMS, and email in one repository so that everything you know about a candidate is available with a just few clicks.

3. Greater visibility over your processes can help you refine and evolve workflows by creating automations, finding spots where you can drive efficiencies by eliminating repetitive, routine tasks.

4. Save time by creating re-usable templates for things like resumes, forms, and questionnaires. Upload online job postings quickly and efficiently to multiple sites.

5. Quickly identify passive candidates through your ever-growing, searchable library of candidate records, including all your previous interactions with them. 

Choosing the right ATS

When a spreadsheet of contact information is no longer meeting your recruitment needs, and is actually slowing you down, an ATS gives you a lot more capability, versatility, and functionality. The right ATS allows you to do more with your data.

PCRecruiter is a fully customizable ATS and CRM designed to meet your specific recruitment needs, and works with your existing processes, evolving as you do. Pick the core and premium functionality that’s right for you, and discover new ways to speed up your placement process, from scheduling call plans to capturing data from online sources.

See PCRecruiter in action. Book a demo today.