Guest Post: 7 Essentials for the Virtual Recruiter

  Finding, identifying and employing skilled workers is one of the most overwhelming challenges organisations are faced with today.

Competition for eligible individuals is continually growing, and thus resulting in confined pools of talent and more struggles for available applicants. In the meantime, resources of HR departments are drained, and further complicate the task of finding, identifying and recruiting highly qualified candidates.

Here are seven essential tools which can assist virtual recruiters in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their work.

1. Recruiting Infrastructure

As a virtual recruiting contractor working from home, you need to have office space fully equipped with basic recruiting needs; a computer, high–speed internet connection, a professional email address, and a multifunctional scanner with faxing capabilities.

2. Applicant Tracking System

A virtual recruiting contractor also requires an applicant tracking system, which can actively manage full cycle recruitment. SendOuts Pro, SmartRecruiters, Chameleon I, Maxhire, BrightMove, andZoho are amongst the leading applicant tracking systems online. Many of these systems are free to use, whilst others give members a 30 day free trial.

3. Skype

Skype has become the most used and popular video chat application. It is an easy–to–use tool that is available on computers, TV, and even mobile phones to make voice and video communication possible. In addition it can be a great alternative to spending on a long distance phone plan as you can use it to interview applicants virtually.

4. Social Recruiting Tools

With the advent of cloud applications and social media networks, there are some great tools out there that can address the labour–intensive process involved in identifying and hiring suitable employees.

Some of the new guard of socially driven recruitment tools are; Resumator - a tool designed to help hiring managers keep real–time tabs on their job listings; RemarkableHire - a new cloud–based, talent–sourcing platform; and InternMatch - a recruiting tool exclusively focused on part–time and/or unpaid internships. Other useful social recruiting tools include: LinkedIn Talent Pro, BranchOut,Social Mention and many others.

5. Industry Research Tool

ZoomInfo – a site that compiles data on companies as well as potential passive candidates is among the top and most recognised industry research tools for virtual hiring contractors. Linkedin and other social networking websites are advantageous for people who use them for both networking and recruiting.

6. Screen Capture Tools for Recruiting

Tools such as Contact Capture, Evernote, Greenshot, Screenshot Captor, and Zscreen are great tools that can help virtual recruiters manage full cycle recruitment both on and offline.

7. Recruiting Productivity Tools

Finally, tools like Focus Booster, Gist, Any Meeting, Fefoo, and RecruitAlliance are all recruiting productivity tools designed with convenient platforms to help you manage your hiring tasks from the comfort of your own office space.

About the author

This article was written by Joe Linford from Office Genie, the UK based office space search engine.

Photo credit: NASA/James Blair