Federated Search? Or does the Search Continue? – Recruitment

Blog for Global Recruiter by Toby Conibear, Business Development Director, Bond International Software:

Recruiters rely on multiple sources to find candidates to fill roles – from a variety of job boards to social media such as LinkedIn as well as the resident CRM / Applicant Tracking System (ATS). For the modern day recruiter, multiple sources of data are a necessity if you are going to remain competitive.

Recruitment is a naturally busy world; after all, time is money. Therefore surely there must be an easier way to be able to pull all candidate information from one single source and match it to the role in question without trawling through multiple jobsites, social media and relying on outdated processes?

Federated search offers recruiters the ability to search multiple sources of data from a single tool, speeding up workflow and creating new efficiencies. Federated search means that the recruiter has the ability to see all of the candidate’s information compared across multiple sources, as well as potentially being able to compare internal candidates already on the resident CRM/ATS system to those which are flagged through specific job boards, LinkedIn, etc.

This concept of federated search is a good one. Historically recruiters would rely upon the database alone for candidates; now via the search method, candidates can be sourced from multiple sources, saving the recruiter time, but does it work? Or should recruiters look at trying to cast their nets wider in terms of sourcing data and finding better matches?

While federated search goes some way in order to present the recruiter with vital information, there is an opinion that this search method is still not as good as individually searching the various sources and that the insight gained by doing this is far superior. There is also the additional task of moving the candidate’s details into the system if it isn’t in there already – a process which can be time consuming and can sometimes duplicate data.

However, in such a fast paced industry where information is vital the availability of a database which offers a single search and result can make the difference in generating or not generating revenue.

Every recruiter is always looking for the ‘next best thing’ to help with candidate matching,and while that will not change, the tools that help them to do this will continue to evolve. What delivers the greatest competitive advantage? Superior search and match capability is likely to become a prerequisite, and one which recruiters should keep at the forefront of their minds.

The Global Recruiter