5 reasons why Excel doesn’t work for recruitment

Recently a recruiter wrote to me: “I’m currently just using Excel (as part of Outlook) to track the information from candidates and CVs. I’m having huge difficulty keeping it all organised and finding information about candidates when I need it. Can your Applicant Tracking System help me to track and search candidate information?”

We want to take the opportunity to answer this question and to explain why Excel (used with email) is no longer a good enough standard for recruitment and doesn’t suit a modern recruiters’ needs.

Recruiting with Excel (recruitment pre-history)

For a long time spreadsheets (mainly Excel from the Microsoft Office suite) were the standard for data management in a company. For this reason recruiters began abandoning paper CVs and using Excel spreadsheets in their daily recruitment tasks. Together with Excel, email tools (usually Outlook) were used to handle both internal communication to the recruiting team and external communication to candidates.

Excel tables are a fantastic tool and were the first evolution of a fully-fledged recruitment management system because they responded well to basic needs. But it’s also fair to say they they’re part of a past era: recruitment pre-history. Over time the limits of using Excel for recruitment have come to the front and it’s become apparent that, at some point, this type of management creates more problems than advantages, and is unreliable.

The new era of recruiting (after the global economic crisis)
But why do some organisations continue to use Excel to do recruitment? The reason Excel has been used widely in recruitment is understandable: it is familiar and well known tool. The problem arises when an organisation begins to grow and the risk of human error increases exponentially.
There is another factor to consider: after the global economic crisis the business world has changed deeply, and with it also recruitment. The current scenario pushes working faster and more effectively. And who needs more speed and efficiency than a recruiter working in an SME or a multinational?
The economic crisis cut millions of jobs, forcing companies to handle more tasks with fewer people and economic resources. A recent survey showed that HR professionals are experiencing a dramatic 80% increase in stress levels. (Source: Human Resource Executive Survey). And why not, given they have to bring the results with much fewer resources available to use.

5 reasons why Excel doesn’t work for recruitment

Here are the five main reasons why Excel is no longer the standard and cannot respond to the needs of a modern recruiter. 

Lost time

When a company exceeds ten employees, has multiple offices and multiple vacancies open simultaneously, tracking and analysing data from multiple sources (such as CVs from different Job boards) is out of the range of management for Excel.
The problem becomes even more critical when looking for an applicant’s profile between several Excel spreadsheets, multiple tabs and dozens of emails. Simply too often the candidate cannot be found or the time spent is definitely in excess.
Recruiters end up spending 80% of their time in routine work instead of focusing on the high added value activities. In fact, research shows that “few HRs spend more than 10% of their time in strategic activities.” (Source: Gartside & Cutshall, 2010). How frustrating must it be to know you’re not focusing on the work that’s really important

Inaccuracies

Some studies have shown that using Excel tables can lead to errors in 91% of cases. (Source: Panko, R. 2006). Even if the number of errors in your company is fewer, the impact they can have is enormous when recruiting decisions are based on this data.

It is important that the data for people who are hired into companies is reliable, otherwise they are ineffective and at worst, damaging. The inaccuracy of the data can lead to mistakes, increased costs, and increased losses. (According to the US Department of Labor and Statistics a wrong hire can cost the company up to 30% of the first year of remuneration).

Inefficient reporting

Generating reports from Excel tables can take a lot of time: often hours, and in the worst case whole days. Even if you decide to invest the necessary time into generating a report from Excel, it’s often difficult to go beyond basic analysis without being an Excel guru (especially if you need to generate a report in a short time).

Lack of security

The HR department (and specifically recruitment) handle a large amount of sensitive data. An Excel table does not guarantee an acceptable level of security because it aggregates too much sensitive data in one place, and this data can be copied in seconds. Supporting this theory, the the US Federal Trade Commission estimates that 50% of identity theft occurs because employee and candidate data is not adequately protected (90% of corporate data comes from the HR department).
But the risk goes further: paper forms stored in desks, or CVs in digital files kept in one place, are likely to be destroyed in unforeseen circumstances (fires, floods or other natural disasters).

Lack of a standard

There is no standard in the recruiting sector for creating, organising and analysing data in Excel. Each recruiter uses Excel tables differently using completely different formulas, tables and files.
The overall coordination of a recruiting team that uses Excel can become really complicated, even when the spread sheets are really well organised. Not to mention when the HR manager (who designed the whole system) then leaves the company: when another professional comes in, it can take a long time to decode all the organisation’s data.

How much is it costing you to use Excel for recruitment?

Using Excel for recruitment could waste valuable time, burning money and opportunities. In addition the loss of sensitive data could cost your company thousands of pounds. If you are among the recruiters who are experiencing difficulties in organising their activities with Excel and email then you should be aware that there is a solution to help you better manage your tasks. The answer is to use a recruiting tool, a recruiting software (technically an Applicant Tracking System or ATS).
A company could save thousands of pounds by beginning to use recruitment software, since it have the ability to cut down on various administrative costs, enabling the recruiter to focus on activities that are real value-add: choosing the best candidate as quickly as possible.

How to retire from Excel and begin using an ATS for recruitment

It is typical within a business to use dedicated software to support the sales force (CRM), internal collaboration (Slack) and to support the marketing department (Marketing Automation Solutions) but still too often the recruitment department is managing their daily operations through a combination of Excel and email. Applicant Tracking Systems have been used since the early ‘90s. Initially they were only suitable for large multinational corporations but today they are increasingly used by SMEs interested in optimising their recruiting processes.
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THE SOLUTION: an Application Tracking System combines job posting and sharing (Multiposting) with the ability to track applications, build shortlists, schedule interviews and complete the search. An ATS should allow you to navigate between candidate profiles, compare them and allow you to collaborate with your recruiting team on a platform that facilitates tracking your notes, communications, feedback and metrics in one place. Information is entered directly from the applications so that you can use your time better.
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You no longer have to spend hours searching for information, when you need to access a candidate’s profile you can do it instantly without having to leave your desk, and without having to look desperately in tonnes of Excel files. If you work in a team, you can all access the information, interact with notes and free up thousands of emails.

Using one of the latest Applicant Tracking Systems there is no expensive software or hardware to buy (the system is web based). There is also no need for support from your IT department. And even better, you don’t need any long and complicated training sessions to learn how to use the software.
After experiencing a modern ATS like In-recruiting for 14 days, many recruiters call us to say “I thought that using recruitment software would be a good idea… but now I’m convinced that it’s indispensable for anyone working in recruitment.”