Recruiters have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. The successful recruiters have continually found ways to adopt technology to remain relevant, enterprising and unique in a congested environment.

A brief history of recruiters using the cloud

Historically, the recruitment industry was a paper-based trade. Staff used advertisements in the paper, Rolodex, letter writing, face to face interviews/meetings and smart suited appointments.

Then technology changed everything. The cutting-edge recruiters used email to contact more people and get their candidates details to clients quicker than the competition. The industry replaced Rolodex with on-premise CRM but sadly found that this left them open to internal theft. Many a recruitment company has been started with a USB stick full of data from your previous employer! Subsequently, a move to hosted CRM systems gave rise to a more secure platform to store and share data. The sector developed bespoke systems to increase security and capture competitive intelligence.

The introduction of job boards such as Monster revolutionised the industry. Many other sectors have never experienced such a transformation, yet recruiters saw the opportunity and ran with it. But this revolution didn’t last long – soon new technologies, new routes to markets, new ways to be the ‘best in the sector’ arose. LinkedIn is heavily utilised, Twitter, Facebook and other social selling sites keep recruiters well connected with their target market. Blogging, vlogging the list continues of how this fast-paced, dynamic sector has grabbed technology with both hands and driven its functionality forward in the business world.

What are the next technology opportunities for recruiters?

Evolving cloud applications: The application suite available through Microsoft Office 365 provides a dozen+ evergreen applications that offer multiple routes to market for less than a tenner per month.

Intelligent Data Analysis: “Data Scientist was the most in-demand job of 2016”. Understanding your data allows you to accurately predict how to spend your time, where to invest in your business and what trends work for your business.

The Internet of Things: Enterprising entrepreneurs are using the resources around them to capture data to drive their business.

How can I adopt these technologies?

Every IT company worth their salt are selling Microsoft Office 365 but the vast majority know very little about it other than reading a few FAQ pages on the tardis that is the Microsoft website. What you need is a partner who understands the technology and makes it their business to keep up to date with this fast-evolving technology. Many recruitment firms own 365 but most of them only use 20%. The other 80% is very valuable and most of your competitors are not using it!

How is your client behaving and changing? Who is going to be your next quarter’s worth of valuable candidates? What is the next growth market? Using data analysis that integrates with your CRM, social media and LinkedIn will become vital to your role. Microsoft have purchased LinkedIn so you need to understand how to use Power BI (their data analysis tool) to get the most out of LinkedIn.

The Azure platform is a powerful, secure and infinitely scalable platform that is being used by businesses, not just for IT but for core business functionality. Machine learning is allowing businesses to take everyday information and turn it into actionable outputs for business growth.

It is easier than it sounds

The vast majority of you have done this all before – you have adopted new technologies (often cloud technologies) and harnessed them to make more placements for your business. Utilising cloud applications, Power BI, the Azure platform are the latest developments in your exciting history of cloud adoption. Cloud Direct can help you on this journey by guiding the process, pointing out pitfalls and giving tips for success. Together we will trail blaze new ways to be fantastic recruiters and over-achieve targets in the meantime! Happy hunting.