Taking it to the Cloud: Selecting the best for your recruitment company

Do you take the one size fits all approach with technology? No matter the size of your recruitment company, how you build your business environment can be the difference between success and failure.

With the recruitment industry as competitive as ever, agencies are continually looking for the most efficient ways to secure the best candidate for the job. The rise of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and Cloud technology has enabled recruiters to stay constantly plugged-in to the latest opportunities and potential candidates. Companies can now focus efforts on the important business goals, rather than the day-to-day technology concerns such as data control.

That said, with a wide variety of solutions and products available, recruiters should be asking what is best for the business before taking this critical technology decision.

Size doesn’t matter

Whether you are a small start-up or global enterprise company, there are a number of important factors to consider. Selecting the right provider will help to eliminate any concerns, such as security and continuity, both of which still remain at the top of the list for any business. The most important factor is finding a solution which works for you.

What’s next?

When thinking about implementing new or reviewing existing technology, here are some questions to consider:

• What are your considerations? If you are a recruitment manager, should the IT department be involved? How will the new technology fit with the overall IT strategy – and will the IT team provide a series of pre-requisites to ensure the new solution or product will fit within the current technology architecture? If you are in the IT team, do you need to get senior members of the executive team involved to help with company-wide roll-out?
• What is important to you? Understanding core business goals – whether that is to increase efficiencies, help reduce costs or improve remote working flexibility for employees – is essential. Determining and fine-tuning business pre-requisites will ensure the solution makes a valuable impact. Each business environment is unique, and making presumptions about priorities – rather than taking a step back and reviewing as a whole – could lead to confusion later in the process.
• What are your concerns? Do you require full ownership of business data, or want to retain control over back-ups off site? Is security a concern? Identifying and airing these issues now will help shape conversations with vendors, enabling you to address them head on. The solution you choose needs to be right for your business, and after investing time and budget, you don’t want to be left with an expensive contract that simply does not fit the bill.

Outlining answers to the above questions before approaching technology vendors or suppliers will help both refine requirements and stay focused. Getting your business environment right is important, and considering technology that works for you – rather than ticking a box – is one way to ensure the emphasis remains on what you are doing, not how you are going to do it.