May 24, 2017

A Step-by-Step Guide to Hiring With Recruiting Software

Written by
Rachel Blakely
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As a recruiter, businesses hire you to source and attract strong candidates and fill open positions. Using recruiting software is an efficient way to find top talent before your competition does. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll take a closer look at recruiting software features and teach you how to manage the entire process from one system.

Recruiting Software Features

The goal of recruiting software is to organize and streamline the hiring process. Automation prevents you from spending hours on manual resume screening and candidate organization. Here are some of the features offered by most recruiting software products:

  • Job posting: Upload the job description to multiple job posting websites in order to source candidates.
  • Scheduling: Keep track of phone calls, emails, and interviews.
  • Email marketing: Send out emails to potential candidates to let them know about the open job, or source clients by emailing about your services.
  • Resume importing: When you receive resumes from candidates, load them directly into your software.
  • Resume parsing: The software extracts information from each resume and orders candidates from most to least qualified based on relevance to the job description.
  • Candidate tracking: Record which step of the hiring process each candidate is in. Track who advances to interviews, is offered the job, etc.
  • Boolean search: Once you have a candidate pool within the software, you can search for candidates by skill, education, location, or experience.

Many recruiting software products let multiple users access one recruiting database. For example, if you partner with another recruiter (i.e., they have a job order and you provide the candidates), you both can pull information from the same system.

ALSO READ: 4 Creative Ways to Use Your Applicant Tracking System

Recruiting Software Steps

Finding and placing job candidates through recruiting software is usually a three-step process:

  1. Post a job opening
  2. Collect candidate profiles
  3. Organize candidates

1. Post a job opening

When you receive a job order from your client, the first thing you need to do is let people know about the position. With recruiting software, you can post a job opening easily.

Add the job description to your software, then select the job sites where you want to publish. You can post to multiple job boards with one submission, although you might need to pay an additional fee for the software to post on your behalf.

You’ll need to include the position title and location, in addition to the job description.

2. Collect candidates

Aside from posting to job boards, you can also collect candidates from social media, networking, email marketing, and making split placements with other recruiters. As you source potential candidates, your recruiting software will keep track of them.

When you receive a resume from a job board, you can directly import it into your recruiting platform. If you receive emails from candidates with their resumes attached, you can import these manually. If you receive paper resumes, scan them into your computer and import the files.

3. Organize Candidates

Once you have candidates in your database, you can easily organize their information.

Resume parsing extracts key information from each resume, then adds the information to new candidate profiles. Since resumes are all different, this feature lets you compare skills, education, and experience without spending hours reading through them one at a time.

Once all candidate information is organized, the software ranks candidates from most to least qualified, based on keywords found in the job description. The more a candidate’s resume matches the job description, the higher they rank.

You can also organize candidates within the software based on their stage in the hiring process. For example, if your client is no longer considering a candidate for a position, mark them as “Not a fit” or “Not Qualified,” along with the date they were eliminated (i.e., second interview). You can also track which candidates receive and accept offers, tying your campaign efforts to final results.

Keep in mind, once a candidate is stored in your applicant tracking system, you have their information for the long haul. When you receive more job orders in the future, you can filter existing candidates in your database by profession or experience to see if any are a good fit. It’s much easier (and faster) to source candidates when you don’t have to start from scratch.

Choosing the Right Recruiting Software

As a recruiter, you have numerous clients, candidates, appointments, and responsibilities to manage. The right recruiting software will help you avoid administrative headaches and focus on connecting quality candidates with the right companies.

As you compare products, try to choose a recruiting or applicant tracking system that offers the features you need with a lower learning curve, so you don’t have to spend countless hours getting acclimated. Many of the cloud-based systems on the market today are inexpensive and easy to implement. Good luck!


Rachel Blakely is a content writer at the Patriot Software Company, which is the parent company of Top Echelon, LLC and Patriot Software, LLC. Top Echelon offers recruiting software with both an applicant tracking system and CRM to help recruiters make more job placements. Patriot Software provides affordable online accounting and payroll software for small businesses.

Top Applicant Tracking Software Recommendations

1 Manatal Recruitment Software

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Manatal is the next generation of recruitment software, built with the latest technologies and designed to streamline recruitment processes from sourcing to onboarding and beyond. Hire faster and funnel your recruitment channels into an intuitive platform. Leverage the social media enrichment and AI features, remote-manage your team, improve collaboration, access a full reporting suite, compliance tools and much more. Transform the way you recruit with Manatal's ultimate cloud-based hiring tool.

Learn more about Manatal Recruitment Software


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