By Peter Weddle, Founder & CEO TAtech
Whether it’s a conversational AI solution or a CRM platform, an interview management solution or a sourcing platform, there is one metric that, more than any other, employers will use to assess the value of what they’ve purchased. Efficiency. They want to know that their return on investment enables their recruiting team to do more with less. That’s their definition of success for the talent technology they’ve acquired.
For solution providers, delivering that success is a three-fold challenge that involves:
• Integrating their product on the company’s tech stack
• Skilling recruiters so they use the product effectively
• Sustaining recruiter skills as staff exit and enter the organization.
Overcoming these challenges is the only way that a solution provider can ensure its product actually delivers the efficiency inherent in its design to the customer. Let’s look at each of them separately.
Integrating the Product
Most recruiting teams have to rely on their organization’s internal IT Department for the implementation of talent technology products. But, these teams have a dirty little secret. According to IDC, 25 percent of IT projects fail outright, 20 to 25 percent don’t provide the expected return on investment, and up to 50 percent require material rework in order for the organization to reach the goal for which a product was originally purchased.
Therefore, while the recruiting team is the solution provider’s customer, the IT Department is the gatekeeper to implementing the product. Bridges have to be built to its project team (without upsetting relations with the product’s champions among recruiters), and installation expertise conveyed without bruising the ego of those involved. While solution providers clearly recognize the importance of this step, not all of them give it the necessary priority. Indeed, creating a sense of technical partnership with the IT team is critical to their customer’s (and thus their own) success in bringing a product online effectively.
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Skilling Recruiters
Although they usually recognize the potential value of talent technology, the reality is that recruiters are rarely evaluated on their ability (or willingness) to adopt it. Instead, their report card is based on filling open reqs, so they have little time to learn how to use a new product or incentive to do so. For that reason, transferring the skills necessary to use a new product is not simply an exercise in education. It must also involve resetting priorities.
Even before the instruction begins, solution providers should work with the employer’s implementation project team to make sure sufficient time is set aside for recruiter training. In addition, recruiters must see that it’s in their interest to acquire the new skills, so solution providers should also help the team make the case internally to prioritize learning with incentives. These may involve a financial award for achieving competence with the new technology and/or including product competence in performance and salary reviews.
Sustaining Recruiter Skills
According to at least one report, it’s not uncommon for recruiters to change jobs every 1-3 years. That means the competence established among recruiters when a product is first introduced disappears or at least degrades within the same period of time. While the follow-on training to sustain competence can be seen as an employer responsibility, solution providers should also be involved as that will provide the foundation for selling upgrades and additional products in the future.
Offering training in the post-product implementation period need not be a cost sink, however. Instead, it can be offered as a warranty investment by the employer – a way of ensuring that the product continues to deliver its expected ROI – so the value of the training is recognized (and accepted) by the CFO. In addition, this follow-on role enables the solution provider to maintain and even reinforce its relationship with the employer and to position itself as a partner in the employer’s success.
An improvement in recruiter efficiency is an employer’s primary criterion when evaluating a talent technology product, yet that improvement is not simply a function of the technology itself. Instead, it also depends on how the product is introduced and supported over time, and the solution providers that recognize and work with that fact are those most likely to see their success rise with that of their customers.
Food for Thought,
Peter
Peter Weddle has authored or edited over two dozen books and been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He is the founder and CEO of TAtech: The Association for Talent Acquisition Solutions.