We live in an on-demand world. You can order a pizza online and track, almost to the minute, its progress from confirmation to your doorstep. So how is it that we get better communication when ordering a pizza than when we are searching for our next career opportunity?

While applying for a job may be different than ordering dinner, today’s job-seekers are wanting to know why the staffing experience can’t be similar. Candidates are well aware that it is a candidate-driven market, and they’re tired of waiting around for staffing agencies to catch up. 

Good news for the industry: technology is catching up for you. 

To help us better understand how technology is transforming the staffing industry, we called on our partners and tech experts at Staffing Engine.

Staffing Engine and Recruiting Acceleration

Staffing Engine is all about helping staffing agencies move on from the old way of recruiting – a painfully slow, manual process approach – with recruiting acceleration. The key to recruiting acceleration is rapidly evolving artificial intelligence technology. 

At Parqa, we’re big fans of Staffing Engine because their AI is designed to help both sides of the staffing conversation:

• For job-seekers, that means delivering faster responses with more consistent, relevant communication and, overall, a vastly improved candidate experience.
• For recruiters, it allows them to become more efficient, as AI allows simple questions to be answered and even filters candidates, saving the recruiter time and busywork they’d normally spend following up on repetitive questions or non-qualified applications.

What’s wrong with staffing “the old way”

Staffing Engine is solving persistent industry problems – to name a few:

• A transactional recruiting model that treats candidates as a commodity, rather than the VIP.
• A 9-5 workweek where some applications could go days, or even a week before being answered.
• A slow and painfully laborious process of email qualification as recruiters sort through mounds of inquiries for the best applicants.
• Static web forms, instead of an instant AI bot, that actually sounds human and responds with relevant, valuable information. 
• Phone-tag, or swapping several emails before an interview is even set. 

For an industry that depends on communication, and the subsequent inconsistency of human communication, these advancements are nothing short of revolutionary. 

We were shocked to hear, Staffing Engine found it is actually not uncommon for a recruiter and a candidate to exchange 6 to 8 emails/texts back and forth just to get an interview scheduled! That’s not even mentioning what happens if the candidate sends an email late on a Friday. Chances are, that email is going to languish in the recruiter’s inbox over the weekend, and maybe even Monday as post-weekend meetings and resume qualification can eat up a whole day of productivity.

You get the idea. It’s not unlikely that emails could go four or even five days without a reply, sometimes even longer. And that can be for just one candidate. Imagine trying to scale that workload to the hundreds or thousands. 

It’s not difficult to imagine how many recruiters are strapped beyond capacity but are barely scratching the surface. Even your all-star recruiters who can send hundreds of replies a day are still inevitably seeing candidates or communication fall through the cracks.

The argument could be made that, if only they worked a little harder, they might have better success. Just imagine the glowing reception that advice will get from recruiters who are already working 50 hours a week or more.

We have a better idea. Rather than working harder, recruiters can work smarter. 

The Technology to Deliver “On-Demand Staffing”

It’s about time staffing and recruiting evolved to meet candidates where they’re at, at the pace they’re used to, rather than simply serving the staffing agency. It is  an added bonus, however, that AI technology like Staffing Engine’s is able to serve both employers and the job-seeker with a one-to-one, on-demand experience.

Here is what the present and (very near) future of staffing looks like:

• Visitors to your website are greeted and assisted in real-time, not several days later.
• Your bot sounds human and helpful.
• You’ve integrated your FAQ to help your bot help candidates more naturally, and provide more meaningful information.
• Every communication gets an immediate response. Down from anywhere between a day and a week, that’s an upgrade.
• AI helps delineate between unqualified and qualified candidates before a recruiter ever sees the resume.
• Once qualified, candidates have access to the recruiter or recruiting team calendar and can book a meeting in real-time, rather than having to wait for an invite.
• You’ll be able to track your resume just as you track a purchase on eBay and have additional opportunities presented to you just like Amazon.

Internal Operations Will Never Be The Same

The advancements this technology will make for the candidate experience are undeniable. But The benefits for the staffing agency are equally impressive.

Recruiters will have the benefit of a Chrome extension that gives them real-time notifications. They’ll be able to source candidates, contacts, and jobs directly from their browser while capturing information sourced from the web, directly into Bullhorn.

Recruiters will be able to optimize their internal processes with Slack and Bullhorn notifications, but not in a way that is overwhelming and actually allows for more team collaboration. When a candidate sends a notification, recruiters will be able to click a hyperlink to either initiate a conversation or monitor the candidate’s progress to, if needed, provide real help at any step of the process.

This is an exciting tool for staffing and recruiting, as the internal processes of the recruiter run parallel to the candidate experience. Essentially, this technology is helping recruiters who are buried in communication, while helplessly watching valuable candidates slip through the cracks.

It’s a win/win for today’s candidates who need a more human, on-demand staffing experience and for recruiters, who need to focus on points in the candidate journey that actually require human interaction. 

Sounds Great! But, What Next?

We love Staffing Engine because they’ve developed a product and a process that can help everyone, both staffing agencies and job seekers alike. 

As the digital transformation strategist for many leading staffing firms, of course we champion not only the adoption of this technology but highly encourage staffing agencies who want to live on the cutting edge to go all in.

Parqa is passionate about partnering with the most forward-thinking innovators in the market because together, we have the opportunity to drive long-term impact and change the industry as we know it!

Is your agency currently building out its tech stack? Reach out to Parqa, we can connect you with our partners in a meaningful way that can drive results for your company and provide a legendary candidate experience.