IT: The Driving Force of your Business

As modern day recruiters it is hard to imagine a world of search and selection without the use of technology. How would we cope without being able to call or email our candidates, let alone use LinkedIn or other social media devices to source or attract candidates or clients? But beyond the bare basics, the essential tools that allow us to operate in our daily recruitment tasks, we are barely accessing a small percentage of IT’s capabilities, which is why several recruitment firms are growing and upgrading their IT functions and making them the driving force of the business on a strategic level.

Within the last few months, several fast growing recruitment businesses have briefed me looking for specialists with expert knowledge in maximising the potential of various CRM database systems, all of which have strong similarities with one another. We as recruitment consultants simply do not maximise the potential of all that CRM systems can do, merely using the software as an address book or a means of logging and tracking calls and emails. However, there is an endless limit to what we can do with such systems, which is why several organisations are creating the new role of CRM Database Manager or Business Analyst, as well as having these responsibilities under an all-encompassing IT Manager role.

Such individuals are streamlining the use of the database systems, maximising their efficiencies and ensuring that all data is of premium quality so that reports can be run effectively and accurately in order to provide authentic Market Intelligence information to senior stakeholders within the business, providing senior management with reliable metrics in order to optimise return on investment. Many Recruitment firms are now migrating to the cloud as well, which has several benefits to business functionality and performance. As Guy Deterding, an experienced CIO within the Recruitment sector argues, this migration has several benefits, including global access, security, flexibility and ease of implementation; all benefits that will inevitably improve efficiency as well as ROI.

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However, whilst lots of our IT is becoming cloud based, it is also critical to retain several key features in-house, with database management, systems alignment and data quality all pivotal to the monitoring and analysis of business performance. And with these roles come a strong degree of commercial awareness; an astute knowledge of what is going on in the market and an ability to suggest improvements in order to further increase the potential of the IT function, meaning that it is essential to still have someone within the organisation who can see the larger picture and think with a commercial mind.

All of these advancements in IT are a healthy sign of positive growth within the recruitment sector and are symbolic of the advancement of support functions within recruitment as well. Beyond being purely sales focused, businesses are being steered from an operational perspective, with the front and the back office growing in harmony. The use of IT is therefore no longer acting as a way of merely facilitating the work we do, but instead it is playing a vital role in maximising efficiency, streamlining processes and driving revenue and consequently, ROI. There is seemingly no limit to the benefits that IT can bring, and this constant evolution in knowledge and awareness within the market will only continue.

To have a look at our latest roles in IT, click here!