A Talent Director’s Biggest Tips to Picking the Best Recruiting Software for Your Startup

Recruiting is a vital function of people management. An applicant tracking system, or an ATS, has become the standard for companies to help automate the hiring process.

Right now, 98% of Fortune 500 companies are using an ATS for their hiring pipeline, and with an increasing shift to remote work, more candidates are expecting to be onboarded through technology as well.

But when it comes to actually choosing which software is right for your startup, it can be daunting navigating the abundance of HR tech companies out there.

Diana Talesnick is Director of Talent Acquisition at the real-estate tech company Curbio.

She has over seven years of experience working in corporate recruiting and helped build Cubrio’s recruiting and human resources team from scratch as the company’s 30th employee and first talent acquisition hire.

She also has played a huge role in getting the D.C. area-based startup to 110 employees, and Talesnick says technology has been a huge lift in doing her job.

“In recruiting we use it every single day,” Talesnick told The Org.

1. Customization

Customizing how you structure reports, job descriptions and really any function you use technology for is absolutely essential in Talesnick’s book.

“Being able to customize the tool so that it fits within the pipeline and your hiring process makes a huge difference,” Talesnick says.

Thinking about how you can build out reports in ways you want to use it and not just with templates they provide is a good thing to ask when looking at how different software can be customized.

2. Service

Talesnick advises when picking a recruiting software to consider ones that have a dedicated person to help support your needs.

“Does the software offer a rep or an implementation manager to help you out?,” she said. “Somebody that is going to not only help you get off the ground, but who is continuously there to help you and help train other people or new hires in your company with that tool?”

Excellent customer service and personal relationships with sales reps can make or break the difference between choosing a tool.

3. Automation

Not only is it important to have a strong reporting tool that you can change, but the software should ideally be customizable overall so the tool fits within the pipeline and your hiring process.

This will save so much time and resources for your recruiting team in the long run.

“We use Lever,” Talesnick said. “One thing that I like about Lever is that they have built-in approvals that are very clear. So whenever you open up a job description or post a job, you also attach it to a requisition. Each step needs not only approvals, but then you’re layering in the hiring process and can be as specific as you want. It essentially automates it for you.”

4. Scalability

Is the software you are choosing able to adapt to your company as it grows? If not, it might be wise to consider something that does.

“We are currently using a tool that’s not working for us because it's not allowing us to scale,” Talesnick said. “ Every organization might have a focus or might have goals that you want to invest in separate tools.”

Talesnick said picking a software that allows the company to scale will help avoid picking too many different tools.

As for what’s coming up in the recruiting tech space for this year, Talesnick predicts more specialized tools added to each company’s HR stack.

“Investing in new resources to help us specialize and continue to maximize on our goal to be more diverse is a focus specific to us at Curbio,” Talesnick said. “Whatever that tool is, it’s not going to be in a basic ATS or HRIS.”