HR Tech: A Look At The Hiring Software Out There

Hiring, like every other aspect of our lives, has been hit with a new rash of technologies in the past few years. It is silly to discount these new technologies – if used correctly; they can all be very helpful. Instead, it is wise to understand what hiring challenges you face, and see if any of them can provide a solution.

So what hiring software is out there? Here are the major players:

Applicant Tracking Systems

ATSs are the most common software used in hiring today. While they do help track applicants, as the name implies, often they are seen as unwieldy for candidates to use and their many data-entry points can actually discourage people from hiring. While all that data is useful, sometimes less is more.

An important note here: if you have an ATS already, it doesn’t mean these other technologies aren’t for you. Almost all of the rest of the technologies listed can integrate into ATSs to help optimize the hiring process.

Video Interviews

There are many types of different video interviewing platforms. Some allow you to build an interview and send it out – often, though, you are limited to a few questions – and then have candidates take it at their convenience, aka a one-way interview. Others allow you to directly interview people, almost like Skype (aka a two-way interview), which is good as a substitute for in-person interviews for candidates who live far away.

Some disadvantages with video are that, as mentioned, often video platforms limit the amount of questions you can ask in one-way interviews and many people are uncomfortable taking them. Also, video interviews generally require hardware to download and are generally clunky for candidates to use. Lastly, often – particularly on one-way interviews – the focus on the hiring team is partly on the visual instead of the content of the candidate’s answers. In other words, biases – even subconscious biases – are a factor.

VoiceGlance

VoiceGlance is really the only hiring software of its kind. VoiceGlance allows hiring managers to build an interview, send it out to an unlimited amount of candidates and then it records and transcribes candidate answers. It is used in the initial screening of the candidates.

The advantages of VoiceGlance is that the transcripts are much faster to read through than watching video interviews while still gaining the insights of a first-round interview, making it ideal for screenings. Also, unlike video, VoiceGlance allows hiring teams to hide the names and the audio of the candidates so hiring teams just review the transcript, which does a nice job of eliminating biases. There also are no question limits.

Gamification

Gamification is when companies actually make a candidate play a game (or entice candidates by having them play a game) to see how they handle certain situations. As crazy as it sounds, it is becoming an increasingly popular way to screen candidates and research shows it is relatively effective.

The idea is that how the person plays the game reflects how they will be as an employee, essentially behavioral interviewing on steroids. The drawback is there is some real work here, as your company has to build a game or hire someone at a large cost to build a game that will work, and it is only effective for certain positions. Still, certainly interesting.

Bright Score

Bright Score is a system that scans the resumes of each candidate and then assigns each person a score. While it is a novel concept, it only factors what’s on the resume, which can be a very problematic approach.

ZipRecruiter

ZipRecruiter is essentially an end-to-end ATS that helps with screening. The screenings in ZipRecruiter have people fill out responses to questions online. This can be good, but there is no guarantee of their competencies and can actually discourage people to go through and interview. Still, a great benefit of ZipRecruiter is that it will post your job on many job sites for you for at a relatively low cost.

Conclusion

There are many more hiring software programs out there; it would have taken thousands of words to describe each one. But those are some of the major players.

A word of advice: don’t be afraid of these new technologies. Visit their websites, learn about them and figure out if they are right for you.