As the U.S. economy continues to create over 150,000 jobs per month and basks in 4.4 percent unemployment, the consensus among recruiting professionals is that we are firmly in a candidate-driven market.
That’s certainly good news for the 160 million workers in the labor force, but it doesn’t make the task of filling any of the 5 million monthly job openings any easier. After another tough day of funneling candidate leads, even seasoned recruiters might conclude that the good ones are already taken or that they at least have their next career move already planned out.
Things were quite different just a few years ago. As the economy was recovering from the Great Recession, jobseekers had to contend with an employer-driven market. One of the keys to a successful job search during that time was researching employers online, targeting where one wanted to work and who could help open doors.
As the pendulum swung back in favor of candidates, online research has likewise become key for recruiters conducting candidate searches. Just as recession-era jobseekers used numerous business and professional databases to research their way into their next jobs, post-recession era recruiters can take advantage of vast improvements in resume database software to pipeline their next round of talent.
Evaluating Resume Database Software
Today’s resume database software should help you get smarter about the candidates you really want and how to target them.
Good resume database software enables recruiters to go beyond keyword search to use categories, classifications, and other meaningful identifiers to unearth more desirable candidates.
Resume database software can also facilitate searching holistically, where the functionality goes beyond just the one-to-one keyword matching between resume and job ad that ATS systems largely rely on. Similarly, resume database software should be intelligent, helping recruiters uncover candidates similar to those who’ve already been identified as promising, or ones that might be overlooked easily.
Finally, resume database software is as much a tool to be found as it is to find. If previous candidate searches are not yielding quality candidates, the problem more likely lies with you than any alleged talent shortage that employers love to blame. Resume database software can help you determine the language that the candidates you want to attract are really using, and what keywords authentically make up the profile of your target candidate.
With this knowledge you can craft job ads that will be more visible online to precisely the talent that has done their research and wants to find you.
Resume Database Software to Try
Taking the approach that timing is everything in successful recruiting, MightyRecruiter designed their end-to-end solution to make it easy both to find and engage talent quickly. Using the latest advances in AI, resumes from MightyRecruiter’s massive database are ranked by relevance to a specific job posting. Taking the next step with the candidate happens through a smartly designed UI, minimizing the amount of clicking while maximizing opportunities to bring the right candidates into the hiring funnel.
Designed for smaller businesses with limited HR budgets, JobScore is an attractive solution particularly for organizations that are in the process of formalizing their HR activities or establishing an HR department for the first time. Free access to the resume database software requires sharing resumes within their network. Yet JobScore users tend to regard such participation in the candidate sharing economy as a win-win.
For organizations ready to add high-end resume database software capabilities to their existing HCM system, TalentDrive offers TalentFilter, a powerful API that integrates with most existing ATS’s. Operating within a fully SaaS environment, TalentFilter is capable of rapidly searching all the major job boards and many hundreds of smaller ones as well. TalentDrive also gets high marks for flexible pricing and cost-effective customizability. This resume database software, however, is not available to direct users; ask your ATS representative if the tool can be hooked in through your system.
Renowned for the comprehensiveness of its solution and its social media capabilities, BrightMove powers its sourcing functionality by its resume database software, SourceJet. Offering a very broad range of search features, BrightMove tends to favor firmly established staffing operations. Yet even free users can take advantage of SourceJet’s powerful resume aggregation tools.
A comprehensive recruiting solution, SignalHire is making a name for itself particularly thanks to its HR analytics capabilities. SignalHire’s resume database software offers access to a very large collection of curated candidates, and its users praise its smooth integration with its CRM features. SignalHire tends to be best suited for busy recruiting agencies and HR departments in medium-sized organizations, especially those where achieving greater efficiency in their recruiting operations is top priority.
Described as “Google for talent,” HiringSolved seeks to replicate the crispness and efficacy of the Google search experience in the candidate search. It’s a tall order, but HiringSolved has achieved breakthroughs in both data aggregation across the entire web and smart searching. Recruiters can upload a resume that characterizes a highly desirable candidate and obtain matches for similar resumes or candidate profiles.
- Niche resume databases
All of the resume database software solutions discussed so far offer tremendous searching and selecting power. Yet sometimes resume database software designed for a particular niche affords a more appropriate place for recruiters and jobseekers to meet, especially those in certain fields.
For example, ArtStation, Behance, Carbonmade, DeviantArt, and Dribbble are among the most popular sites for the creative professions, such as architecture, design, visual arts, fashion, UX/UI, branding, digital arts, and game design.
For software developers and engineers Bitbucket and Github are prominent places to see and be seen, along with Sourcing.io, which is dedicated exclusively to maintaining a resume database and tools for effective sourcing. For companies interested in hiring both design and software talent, Hired is a top choice not only for the quality of candidates, but also their responsiveness to employers.
Finally, for freelance or remote work professionals, Flexjobs offers one of the most comprehensive and rigorously curated resume and jobs databases available.
Down on the Boulevard
The old chestnut that hiring is a two-way street is still as true as ever. But in 2017, that street has become a heavily trafficked, high speed boulevard. Thanks to online databases and the disciplining of a tough recession, talented candidates are much better informed, conditioned, and selective. Recruiters need to adapt their game to the one their top candidates have mastered over the last decade.
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