Episode 004: Real Talk on Talent | Breaking Down ATS and HRIS in Recruitment Technology

Hi, Dina. Hi, Hilary. Welcome back. Oh, welcome to you. Welcome to me. Welcome to the podcast. Oh, yeah, I know, good times. Remind me what we're talking about today. today we're gonna talk about technology. Technology? What is it? well, that's a good question. We're know it's not a quote from a movie or something I use. It is. Well, it's, Ali G throwback. Okay. For Sacha Baron Cohen. That's a whole thing. We can skip it if you know. You know, and you can. If you don't, you can Google it. But, boom. So it's a way to start this podcast. So we're talking about technology, but specifically we want to jump into like the core of a tech stack. Right. Yeah. And so when I say that what does that mean to you? So when I think of recruitment technology two things come to mind. An applicant tracking system. Yep. That's for sure. ATS human Resources Information system is this is a world of acronyms. So thank you for remembering to clarify that because we'll probably just say ATS and Nass through the end of this. Yeah. And into perpetuity. I think that would be a good use of time. Okay. But this is a great question is why those two items? Okay. So from a recruitment perspective and ATS is kind of a non-negotiable okay. It is the CRM. it's what a CRM is to sales acronym. Please clarify client relationship management tool. Yeah. Or manager. Yeah okay there we go. Which is not related to the to the tech stock conversation today okay. Correct. Okay. So sorry. Jump back okay. Applicant tracking rewind button. Boom. an ATS is the fundamental piece of technology for recruitment. It is what allows you to manage all of your candidates and manage all of your jobs. So if you are hiring more than, I don't know, five positions a year, you should have an applicant tracking system. Agreed. And from a marketing standpoint, an ATS is extremely critical because those are the technologies that are going to sync up or syndicate or integrate with any of your marketing tools. So email job boards, programmatic advertising, all of it's all going to be dubbed from that ATS technology. Yes. So it's kind of the gateway to the internet if you think of it that way. I think that's a great way to think of it. For your job. Yeah. so you have your ATS, Caitlin, before I jump into. Yes, you did say if you are hiring above a certain threshold, then you really should have an applicant tracking system. And I think that's a very important point of distinction. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So I think there becomes a decision point within an organization. When does it make sense to invest in an ATS? What I will say is ATS technology can be very expensive or can be very affordable. Yes, there is a huge spectrum of bells and whistles and sizes and complexities. Exactly, exactly. To me, the thing about the decision point is really based on, when you are hiring people, is it going to be at a pace that is, frequent enough where you are going to know how to consistently use the system that, yes. So it's worth your time to actually go through the change management and the integrations for your people side. Exactly. The process. Exactly. So, you know, nobody wants to set up technology that's not being adopted. so there does need to be an actual use case for the technology. And consistency needs to be part of that use case. I agree. And one thing I will say is there are ATS alternatives, like if you're a smaller organization, you need to hire five people a year. You can go. A lot of job boards are starting to offer that same functionality. There are limited options. Of course, if you're working on a job board, you're going to be stuck in that job boards ecosystem. and a standalone ATS is going to give you broader reach, but that is an option. But you mentioned the business case. That was a whole premise to get where I'm going is, if you are hiring a lot of the same roles. So if you're in a role where you know, you need to hire, I like I think about pest control. You always need to hire those technicians who are out there. And so when you invest in your own ATS, you now own that candidate data, which opens up opportunities down the road for more complex marketing, a decreased reliance on net new candidates every time. So I just wanted to call that out because it kind of ties together a couple of those things you were talking about in business case, ATS size, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think, a lot of small companies aren't wrong to simply post their jobs on indeed. Right. Get candidates that come. I purposely avoided job board names. But you are. I know you did, but it is the 800 pound gorilla. So I'm just going to go ahead and hundred pound gorilla on my back. There we go. Yes. So I think there's there's that can be an appropriate strategy. Yes. But there comes a point when a you probably don't need to spend the money and you really do want to own your candidate population. Yes. and we do have a lot of people will say, oh, but what's your ATS? And we'll go into it. And I'm like, that's not actually your ATS. That's their job board that you are advertising. Right. So lots of benefits to having your own system when the time is right I agree. All right. I think we kind of hit on all of the core ATS pieces because I stopped you before going into the purpose of an. Yeah. Is there anything else fundamentally on ATS that we should touch on before we go to ATS. You know. So I think we'll probably revisit this later. But I do think it's important for us at some point to discuss how do people know what ATS is right for them. yeah, I love I almost wonder if that's a whole episode, but let's see where the journey takes us, okay? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's go. All right. Yes. Okay. I think we did a pretty thorough assessment of the core concept of an ATS. Yeah, start us off on our asses. So really, what I think of when I think of an ass, what I think of as kind of your system of record. So this, in my mind, has less to do with recruitment and more to do with employment. and so this is where our, you are going to be able to look at who are all of your active employees, what departments are they and what are people's current pay rates, etc.? sometimes HRA systems have an ATS component, sometimes they don't. some organizations may not need a full system as they I think I was going to say some ATS is can cover the needs of a very basic foundational US program. Correct? Yep. Correct. So again, it goes back to a volume and a size perspective. At what size do you need to invest in that type of technology? Yeah, I kind of think of the core recruitment marketing tech stack or sorry, recruitment tech stack is immediately going to marketing. Your market is my world. the core of recruitment tech stack. You know, you said ATS and it's really kind of fit on the candidate funnel. Whereas like the ATS is that pre like employment and then the HR is everything after that conversion higher point. And so depending on what your process looks like depending on what your the different items that you offer to employees during their employment experience that will determine what that tech is. But they really are two sides of the same coin. It's just a different part of your relationship with that. That employee pre-employment during employment, that kind of thing. Great way to sum it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. where do people go wrong with this so people go wrong. Gosh, lots of different ways. Lots of different ways. So one of the most common errors I see is, selecting the right technology. Yeah. So how do you know what technology you need. and so and there's not one answer. No. So probably the most common question I get asked is, oh you what's the best ATS. What do you recommend? And I'm like, well I don't know. Tell me about your business. Yeah. What do you need. Which by the way I agree with. And it's so funny because there are certain ATS that are very popular. But when I look at the functionality of them from my standpoint, yeah, I'm like, is this a popular technology? But it's actually not the greatest use case. Yeah, it just has a great brand. Yeah, yeah. No, there are a lot of platforms out there like that. So then how do you avoid that? Keep going. So so first I think that there are the fundamentals that every system our kind of non-negotiables. Yeah. So if you are a corporate company and you are hiring for yourselves you need a system that, syndicates to job boards. Oh yeah. You need to know better. The point of an ATS is to get your jobs out there so that you can get candidates in. So it's easier for your recruiter to navigate that entire candidate experience. Exactly. And actually, my favorite ATS that I demoed, I would love to switch to it. It doesn't integrate with job boards workflows. My move back in to possibly be your favorite. Oh my gosh, I know it. Like the functionality is incredible, but it doesn't integrate with job boards. Blows my mind. And I want to make a quick plug in because that there's so many things we could sit here and talk about, but like this functionality is great. This one, you really need this one. It's up to you. But I think this all comes back to why we started with processes is because if you think about what your process is, who's involved, the technology needs to enable that. Yeah, it needs to have the functionality to say, what does your process look like? And then how do we make it easier, faster. And I would even say what kind of recruiting are you doing. Like what's your that's doing. That is you tell me your thoughts on that. Yeah. So I think that is probably the most important part. And figuring out what, what technology you need is who are your candidates, where do they live and how do you communicate with them that tells you what bells and whistles you need within a system. So, you know, a kind of a really black and white example. If you are doing high volume recruitment where you need to screen through a lot of candidates having, some built in AI that can do the screening for you at the front end is a great way to get through a lot of candidates, and that can either be a standard part of the ATS, or the ATS has some sort of partnership or integration where you could pull that in and have that tight end. Correct? Yes. Now, if you are in a, an organization where you are doing purely hard to fill sourcing type roles, probably doesn't make sense to focus so much on that AI front end candidate screening, because what you want is a recruiter on the phone with those people. That's true. However, what you may want to consider is let's say you're hiring for physicians. You're going to have a six, nine, 12, 18 month like hiring process. So you need to have something like a good nurture program. So how do you set up the correct email cadence with customization and being able to that CRM component to it. And oh no, I'm a client relationship manager. Yes. Yeah. Candidate relationship manager. So if you you need to consider those elements that go in and how you hold your candidate or your, recruiters accountable to that process, like all of those things are going to help you determined what's useful. What's not useful. Yeah. And I think, I think you're framing up how you figure out what the technology is. So first it is understanding your process. Yep. Like we talked about ad nauseum. AD nauseum. and then it's understanding your candidates. Where do they live. How do you engage them. And that understanding. What do you want the candidate journey to look like? And who is responsible for what parts of the candidate journey? Yeah, if you can map all of that out with appropriate attributions, you can figure out what system is going to best match your needs. Completely agree. Because one thing that I often see and I'm and we talked about this in our very first podcast, there's some really cool technologies out there that I've done demos, I've gone to their conferences like I there are a lot of technologies out there that do that applicant tracking system functionality, the and then they have the post-employment functionality like the HR. But they think about it in such a sophisticated way that you're like, that is amazing. It offers all of these like bells and whistles around that, that enable retention and skill building and all of everything you could possibly want in a to or an HR team. And it's way too much. It's too big, it's too much because just from individual's day to day life as a recruiter or as like an HR business partner, you can only do so much in a day. And if you have a technology that allows you to do 75 things, you're not going to do 75 things, and you are, but you're not going to do them properly, right? Or at the maximum level. And the change management for that. Oh yeah. So I think that's you have to be really honest about saying what really is essential today. You do want to leave room for growth, like if you're a high vault, like if you're a company that's growing and you pick a very basic ATS, you're going to grow out of it relatively quickly. So you do need to think down the road, you know, five years, but you don't want to be thinking so far into ideal, like ideal state that it's unusable. Yeah. Or it's expensive and you don't use it. So I think I think you nailed it. And I think that people do have to accept that you will need to change your ATS system. Yes. If you were not going to pick the right one, the right one day one and stay in that same system for 15 years. And I want to clarify, you can pick the right system day one for what you need, for what you need. But if you're a company that's growing or you are expanding the number of recruiters, number of people in the hiring process, whatever that may be, you're going to grow out of it. and you know what? This makes me think about Hillary. One of our favorite topics is, the talent acquisition maturity cycle. Yes. Talk through this. So Deloitte, created the talent acquisition maturity cycle, which are basically, kind of where different organizations are in there to function and what that means in terms of tactical behaviors. Yeah, it's like six phases and it starts it. Well, the first phase we actually created, oh did we add on to it. So we added nascent because there are so many companies that just don't have anything. So we thought let's represent them. So we I love I didn't even know that I've been giving Deloitte credit for you. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. So it's Dena Lloyd do you. No no, no. I'm sorry. You're not wrong. No. Dina has officially started her own consulting company. Dena Lloyd. I am sure there'll be no legal problems with that name. Okay. So. Nation. Yeah, but it goes all the way up to. It's like, five stages. And what was the most advanced? You know, I know now you're putting me on the spot. I'm sorry. I don't remember. Oh, you only remember the. So like that. It is a data. It's an integrative, data driven approach that's kind of like the end game there. Proact is it proactive? It is where correction section. Oh, you know what part we're gonna have to. Yes. The point being there are 5 to 6 stages depending on how busy Dina has been. Yeah. And and it refers to the different levels of complexity, proactivity. Strategic. Right? Correct. Okay. Sorry. yeah. So, I mean, I think it is it's really helpful to look at that and figure out where are you as an organization now? and where do you need to be five years from now? Often what we see is people saying, oh my gosh, I want to get all the way up into the right, right. You don't need to be there on day one, and you may not need to be there on day three. So, you know, everybody likes to move up into the right, but it's about figuring out what's the appropriate pace and technology and resources to get you where you need to be. Yeah. so you want to match your resources to your organization's need and size and journey. I couldn't have said any better. Wow. I think that's great. I tell you, I thought it was fantastic. You nailed it. Yeah. All right. Thank you. I don't think. Do we have any correction sections today? I do not believe so. We nailed it last time. Beautiful. But we are excited for hot takes on hot topics. Oh. I'm ready. I have to say, this Deloitte thing. I mean, it's kind of a graphic t shirt. Yeah. Oh this is oh. Should we tell people about our t shirts? We have no, no okay. We'd like to give a shout out to somebody who made us very funny t shirts with our names on them. It's all we're going to say. Podcast. Yes. Joe Marino, you're amazing. Thanks, Joe. So we're going to talk about AI since I thought it was an appropriate topic for the technology episode. according to G2, at least 73% of companies are investing in recruitment automation to optimize their talent acquisition efforts. However, there is a significant worry that since AI tools rely on data sets that reflect existing societal biases, that they'll perpetuate these biases in their decision making. So what advice do you have for HR leaders to avoid that bias? whoa. I'm going to just start by saying we're going to do a whole episode on AI. Yeah, we absolutely have to. Oh no, we definitely probably have multiple. Yes. are you noodling this one? There are so many ways to go about this. there's some very tactical answers to this. I want to start by just saying that I think that especially in HR, you have to be extremely skeptical of new technology. and specifically technology that is going to be making decisions and technology that could be engaging with individuals in a way that you're giving up control. And I love the idea of AI removing like busywork and allowing a recruiter to be able to focus on relationships and the people side of it. But if all of a sudden you're using AI to not engage in those people focused points of contact, I think there's just I, I think that's a potential concern. to the point of bias that Whitney brings up. I just I think it's I'm trying really hard to not go down on my, like, get up on my soapbox or down in a rabbit hole, either one. But I think you need to be very skeptical on what's the purpose of this is it to make your recruitment team more efficient so they can work on making the correct strategic decisions? or are you doing this to try and remove the human decision points or the human elements of your process? That's where I think that you need to just be very critical to say what is the right thing for your recruiters, but also for the your business. Because if you're not bringing in the right people, not doing the work correctly to find the best candidates from a broad talent pool, then you've outsourced your job as a strategic to leader to a brand new technology that is that has issues. Yeah, yeah. So I think you've said that wonderfully. the fact is, is that AI has biases, biases, biases, biases. I think it's an accent thing. Okay. We're going to go with that from new Jersey. Does that does that count here. So I think we have to recognize that that is an inherent flaw with the technology. Yep. what I will say is you need to keep the people in recruitment. And I am a fan of leveraging AI for recruiter efficiency. And like you said, to get rid of the administrative work. But I do not want AI selecting candidates for me. Now, I wouldn't mind if I goes out to the world and searches for resumes and, you know, adds to the talent pool or the candidate funnel, but what I don't want them doing is making decisions unless told by me about disqualifying or moving candidates forward in a process. Humans need to be making the decisions about the progression of candidates within the recruitment process. Unless it is very clear black and white answers that can be delegated to technology. I agree with that. I will say this because I do like the idea of AI, surfacing resumes. Like let's say you have a an ATS with a giant candidate like database as a recruiter doesn't possibly have time to get into it. You can do boolean searches, you can, you know, use folders and flags and, all the things to help with that. I do like the idea of the system being intelligent enough to say, let's look at the nuances of your job description and let's source some unexpected candidates, because I think that could actually open up your database and your, your talent pool in a very different way. but the original question was based off of the idea of that being done in a biased way. Yeah. Do you have the right goals in place to say, what is our hiring goal? Do we want to have increased representation from different backgrounds or different experiences? are we holding ourselves accountable to having a diverse slate in general? Yeah. So it's not just a bunch of Hillary's and Dino sitting there. And in that case, you are using the technology efficiently, but you're using that human. You're holding your humans accountable to saying, where is the technology failing me and the job that I'm doing for this business? And you've already set forth a strategy at that point. So technology. Yeah, helping you get towards the strategy. Technology is not dictating the outcomes. It's helping you work towards predetermined outcomes that okay, I think we need to end on this because that is actually such a good thing. You said I should not drive your strategy. It should be something that is helping you reach your strategy more efficiently, because you cannot automate that decision or that thought process. I'll say, yeah, but if that happens, we're out of job, so it doesn't matter, you know, full time podcasters available or Deloitte. I keep the people in recruiting. There we go. awesome. Dena, this has been amazing. Oh, it's a pleasure. Oh. Next time. Yes. Oh, this is I want to say it. Hilary, what are we talking about? Next time we're talking about marketing. I love marketing, so I'm super excited. You're going to have to keep me under control, because otherwise. No, I'm. I'm not going to say anything. Listen, I love when you talk marketing, so I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be great. Wonderful. Awesome. All right. Bye, Nina.