If your company isn’t using a recruitment management system yet, you’re probably wasting about 80% of the time you spend on hiring.
Find out why, and how to select a platform that grows with you, below.
Recruiting is one of the toughest jobs any organization faces. Yes, you have to find the best employee for the job, but you also need to create a candidate experience that engages and retains top talent on the level of a Cisco or a Hilton. A fumble in this process can undo weeks of work — and lead a candidate straight to your competitors.
A recruitment management system (RMS) streamlines the recruiting process, letting you automate tasks, reduce mistakes, and save hours of work. In the next three minutes, you’ll see why an RMS is so valuable, what must-have features to look for, and how to choose the right recruitment management tool for your team.
Meet with our hiring coaches today to see how AI can slash 90% of the time from your hiring process. Start filling jobs faster right away, with 10x higher quality people.
What Is A Recruitment Management System (RMS)?
A recruitment management system is a software tool that monitors and manages your recruiting pipeline. Most RMS systems serve as an all-in-one platform, allowing recruiters to review and advance promising candidates without needing to exit the software (or pull up an eyesore of a spreadsheet).
94% of hiring managers say using an ATS has improved their hiring process. See our article: 15 Benefits of Applicant Tracking Systems
How Does An RMS Work?
Recruitment management systems gather all your hiring data in a single personalized dashboard that’s easy to use and switch between candidates. You can quickly create and disseminate job ads to an incredibly wide talent pool with the skills that match your job openings.
From the same dashboard, you can view a list of candidates, resumes, recruiter notes, one-way-video interview recordings, and other vital data. You can also see candidate scores, letting the RMS tool float the top candidates to the top of the list, schedule interviews and conduct them, and even see data from automated reference checks.
RMS systems also use powerful integrations, syncing to your Outlook calendar or to Indeed job board postings, to eliminate the busy work from recruiting.
Benefits Of Recruitment Management Systems
Recruiting will always have its challenges, but an online recruitment management system takes so much of the time, effort, and cost out of the process from start to finish. Here are five benefits of using an RMS.
1. Consolidates Candidate Data
A recruiting management system gathers all important candidate details and makes them easy to access. When someone applies to your job ad, the RMS will automatically store their applications, resumes, cover letters, contact info, and even scores from pre-employment assessments all in one convenient profile. This smooth consolidation saves you from the digging, hunting, and back-and-forth that grinds manual recruitment systems to a screeching halt.
2. Reduces Time to Hire
The best recruitment management systems use pre-hire assessments to qualify your candidates automatically — before you even screen them. Not only does this reduce time wasted on bad candidates, but it ensures you interview and hire great candidates faster.
Pro Tip: Discovered is a leading RMS, respected by tens of thousands of top recruiters and hiring managers. Use our science-backed assessments to find “needle in a haystack” candidates, then use our powerful interview guides and performance management tools to hire and retain that talent.
3. Mitigates Potential Bias
Hiring biases are sadly alive and well. In a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers found that candidates with distinctively black names hear back from employers less frequently than those with distinctively white names.
By using a recruitment management system, you add objectivity to the recruiting and hiring process. It’s far harder to subconsciously turn down an applicant when the RMS indicates they meet (or exceed) your criteria. Let the data drive the process, and make better, fairer hires.
4. Improves Quality of Hire
An RMS automates the most time-consuming aspects of recruitment — from screening to interview scheduling. This lets recruiters spend more time assessing actual candidates and finding the right fit for the open role. The data speaks for itself: Per Capterra, 94% of HR teams say recruiting software has improved their hiring process.
5. Boosts New Hire Retention
Some recruitment management system software tools focus on talent acquisition, but the best ones also help with talent retention. These tools integrate with workforce platforms like ADP, ensuring new hires have all the materials they need to succeed on day one. By creating a strong onboarding process, you’ll improve retention by up to 82%, per Brandon Hall Group.
How To Choose A Recruitment Management System
Selecting the right RMS starts with intimate knowledge of your team’s recruiting needs. What are your must-have recruitment management system features? Which features will you never use? Read up on recruitment management system costs, then do a cost-benefit analysis to find the best value.
For example, let’s say you’ll hire for five positions per month this year, but you have a limited recruitment team.
You might prioritize an RMS that uses pre-screening AI, such as Discovered Performance Hiring Software. If you pay $250 per month for the tool, but save five human resources labor hours per role at a cost of $30 each, you’ve saved $500 by using the software.
(Because 5 x 5 x $30 = $750, and $750 - the $250 cost of the tool is a $500 savings.)
Features Of Recruitment Management Software
Wondering which recruitment management system features you need? Here are eight standouts:
Applicant tracking:
See exactly where applicants are in the hiring process (e.g., which candidates are currently interviewing, which ones need references, and which ones have completed their assessments). Filter and sort candidate information, and personalize your RMS dashboard to show only the information you care about.
Pre-hire assessments:
Send candidates pre-hire tests — ranging from cognitive ability to leadership and attention to detail — to predict on-the-job success. See assessment scores right in the RMS, and rank candidates from best to worst results.
Workflow management:
Cut down on menial tasks with powerful workflow tools. Send out candidate emails with the push of a button, automate interview scheduling, and share onboarding materials with ease.
Reference checking:
References are an invaluable way to identify red flags, but gathering those references can be a monumental chore. Use an RMS like Discovered to check references automatically, without spending one hour of HR labor time.
One-way video interviews:
Interview scheduling can be a hassle, especially when your hiring team is pressed for time. The best RMS tools let you capture one-way interviews, where candidates record answers to your custom questions that you can then review at your leisure.
Candidate scorecards:
Set your interview team up for success with standardized candidate scorecards. Build your scorecard from a list of predetermined qualities (e.g., independence or persistence), then have your interviewers rate candidates based on those factors.
Interview guides:
Interviews are a make-or-break point in the hiring process. Use a recruitment management system to generate custom interview guides, so you can ask relevant questions that will confirm candidate strengths and probe for potential issues.
Performance management:
Made a great hire? An RMS can ensure that they stay that way. Use a performance management tool to assess performance, provide timely feedback, and help your employees grow.
Made a great hire? An RMS can ensure that they stay that way. Use a performance management tool to assess performance, provide timely feedback, and help your employees grow.
Other Recruitment Management System Features:
- Screen resumes and applications
- Track candidates
- Write and manage candidate communication
- Schedule interviews
- Write and place job ads
- Manage onboarding
- Store data in a cloud-based system
- Send text messages
- Provide interview guides
- Create and manage career pages
- Automate workflows
- Fully customizable
Pro Tip: Discovered delivers on all the features above — and more.
Use Discovered to streamline your tracking data and attract high-quality candidates. Accelerate your hiring process with automated messaging and interview scheduling, and land the perfect hire for the role. Plus, see how Discovered’s AI integrations can slash your time-to-hire from weeks to minutes.
