Recruitment Software for SMEs: the definitive guide to ATS for small and medium businesses

Recruitment software: is it suitable for an SME? As experts in recruitment technologies we help small to medium enterprises (SMEs) with their recruitment every day. Often these professionals are doing search and selection in a really limited time and with few resources available.

It’s not very straightforward and so often they ask us “.. so, is a recruitment software (ATS) suitable for small to medium businesses?” 

We’re always happy to help with this question because for us it’s an opportunity to talk about how the recruitment sector has changed in recent years: the 2008 global recession changed most industries and the way of working. To survive in the new environment, you must be able to work faster, leaner and more effectively. And who has a greater need for effectiveness and speed than the recruiter or HR manager of an SME?

Some small to medium businesses hesitate before investing in new recruitment software because they find it difficult to quantify the benefits that can be achieved solely by investing in a software that automates recruitment processes. We’ve created this guide to help those SMEs that have difficulty attracting and keeping high quality candidates, or for those who would like to improve their recruiting processes.
Here are some of the most common concerns of SME recruiters who are considering new technologies:

OBJECTION 1: “Using recruitment software seems like a good idea, but an ATS is only suitable for large, multinational companies with economic resource and IT departments that can provide the necessary support. It’s not for SMEs that have few technical staff and scarce economic resource.”
THE REALITY: It was traditionally believed that Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and other innovative HR technology were intended solely for large multinational companies. In fact the technological changes of recent years, in particular the cloud revolution, have made Applicant Tracking Systems even more flexible, convenient and suitable for managing recruitment within SMEs.
In 2016 recruitment software is no longer the choice exclusively of large companies: today nearly 60% of SMEs use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), a figure not far off the percentage for large companies (75%). In fact there’s even more reason for SME recruiters to use a recruitment platform than a multinational: according to recent studies, only 13% of SME recruiters rate their recruitment processes as positive. (Source: BrandonHall. “Talent Acquisition Benchmark Survey 2014”).
As written by the international recruitment technology expert Steve Boese:

OBJECTION 2: “Our HR department consists of just one person. We don’t have big budgets or IT experts to purchase and maintain expensive infrastructure. And I certainly don’t have time to learn complicated applications because that slows me down even more. Can’t I just outsource the selection process?”
THE REALITY: Unfortunately a recent study (i4cp, 2010) demonstrated that only 57% of companies that choose to outsource are in fact satisfied with the solution. Outsourcing a function like recruitment is very expensive and the return on investment is positive only in the case of searching for very complex vacancies. For SMEs in Italy it’s much more useful to manage recruitment of mid-low positions internally, with recruitment software, possibly in combination with outsourcing for the more complex and strategic vacancies.

OBJECTION 3: “I can manage our recruitment with email and Excel, I don’t need recruitment software.”
THE REALITY: In fact Excel is not an effective tool for recruitment, in many cases it increases the time taken to close a vacancy and this can result in a significant loss of time and therefore money.
Also, just five vacancies alone can attract up to 1,250 CVs that must be read and manually analysed by the recruiter. This is a challenge for any organisation, but even more so for an SME with just one recruiter who is organising recruitment for the whole business.
Recruitment ATS software is designed to automate the recruitment processes and is able to filter the applications by as much as 75% (Source: Staff.com). For a recruiter who works in an SME, this represents an enormous simplification and streamlining of their workload.
Today many SMEs use recruitment software to make their selection process faster and more reliable, from sourcing up to the final interviews. Even an SME that has only just started using an ATS experiences a return on investment very quickly.

OBJECTION 4: “We don’t recruit often. We don’t have someone in charge of full time recruitment.”
THE REALITY: SMEs represent the backbone of our economy, generating 67% of the added value and are the main source of employment, but they face many challenges. For a company that wants to be successful, having the best human resources is a key factor. Recruitment is important for any organisation, but even more so for SMEs, who must maximise their return on investments.
Many companies (73%) agree that an incorrect hire can be even more expensive than leaving a role unoccupied. (Source: CareerBuilder’s 2015 Candidate Behavior Study). For multinationals that employ hundreds or thousands it’s possible to continue a successful operation, even with some unproductive employees. For SMEs the situation is different: every employee is crucial and one bad hire can significantly lower productivity and overall company revenue.
An Applicant Tracking System allows you to analyse all the candidates using objective criteria and this helps to avoid common errors in the assessment by the recruiter (so called “cognitive bias”). After setting the criteria the software will evaluate all of the CVs on the same criteria and bring forwards (equally) the profiles that are most responsive to the search.

OBJECTION 5: “We don’t need a ‘work with us’ page on our site, we recruit with email. Employer Branding is only important for multinationals.”
THE REALITY: The statistics show that the majority of candidates prefer to send their application through a ‘work with us’ page on a company web site (Source: Potentialpark). And in some cases, 80% of the applicants actively use this section of the site to find information about the company and consequently, based on what they read, to decide whether or not to send their application. Superficial management of your ‘work with us’ page can drastically influence the number of applicants that you receive. (Source. “Recruiting marketing: fad or future?”).
Large companies often already have a well-known brand and can successfully attract the best candidates. However, an SME, usually has a little-known name and brand, which makes it harder to attract quality candidates. The most advanced recruitment platforms, like In-recruiting, allow SMEs to increase the visibility of their brand, through several features: automated publishing of job ads on Job boards (Multiposting), creating ‘work with us’ pages, integrating social recruiting, and referral management.

OBJECTION 6: “Being an SME we don’t have enough resource to invest into recruitment software.”
THE REALITY: As often happens, the reality can be counter-intuitive: it is estimated that a recruiter, between the manual analysis of CVs, and screening and elimination of non-appropriate candidates, uses at least five hours a week on routine tasks and data entry (Icims study). And this is even more apparent for SMEs: it is estimated that a company with just eight employees can save up to 9,000 euros after started to use recruitment software. (Source: recruitingdaily 2014).
Continuing to manage recruitment as you always have done could result in a significant and continued waste of resources, and even worse in cases where you’re looking for staff on an ongoing basis (which is the case with some businesses).
An Applicant Tracking System provides a solution to manage recruitment in SMEs allowing you to filter CVs and identify suitable candidates easily and quickly. This guarantees big savings, but it’s only a small piece of the puzzle: if you add up the fees paid to post classified job ads on paid for Job boards with the Recruitment Agency fee it’s easy to see how the cost of an Applicant Tracking System is comparably modest.
For all these reasons, an Applicant Tracking System can be an effective ally for search and selection in SMEs. In-recruiting is one of the most advanced recruiting platforms, and it’s expanding. we’ve developed our recruitment software with the aim of offering a reliable technological solution to SMEs so that they can attract, select and manage candidates in a simple, quick and cheap process. On of our key features is the focus on our clients: proven in the fact that 95% of companies that try In-recruiting carry on using it.
If you would also like to try In-recruiting then this is your chance to test our recruitment software for free for 14 days. TEST IN-RECRUITING NOW!