The Top Talent CRM Features You Need Now

Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) is a software solution that talent acquisition teams use to build, engage, and track talent pipelines. It is used to define and launch highly personalized nurture campaigns. It serves as a means to facilitate an end-to-end interview and hiring process. It affords in-depth analytics to assess the impact of TA efforts, enabling leaders to quantify return on time, effort, and expense. It should be capable of integrating with other HR technology solutions.

Who uses a talent CRM, and how?

After defining what a talent CRM is, Bogdanovich and Harrington went on to describe how it should serve the needs of various talent stakeholders – establishing which resources it is most critical for, and how each should be able to use it within their specific roles:

Sourcers use the talent CRM for building candidate pipelines through intelligent sourcing or manual searches. They use a talent CRM for talent pool engagement, relationship building, interview scheduling, and project management.

Recruiters benefit from the talent CRM throughout the entire recruitment cycle. They can source candidates, engage with them through custom campaigns and emails, and utilize automated tools for interview guides, scheduling, and evaluations. Additionally, they should be able to use the talent CRM to open requisitions and extend offers.

Recruitment/Talent Marketers leverage the talent CRM to enhance candidate engagement through custom campaigns and emails, ensuring a consistent brand message globally while personalizing interactions at scale. They also effectively manage recruiting events, from high-volume hiring events and information sessions to university recruiting.

Talent Acquisition Leaders use the talent CRM to ensure their teams have the tools and information needed to perform their roles efficiently. They evaluate the impact of their strategies through robust analytics and report on recruitment activities, demonstrating how work is getting done across the organization.

By addressing the unique needs of each stakeholder, a talent CRM system enhances recruitment processes, fosters better collaboration, and drives more strategic talent acquisition efforts.

Top automation use cases for the modern talent CRM

After detailing how a talent CRM should meet the needs and objectives of its users, the conversation turned to the most common use cases. As a longstanding and experienced talent acquisition professional, Bogdanovich has a solid pulse on the top use cases every modern talent CRM should be able to support. He went into depth on these based on his first-hand experience. 

Across each of these, the central theme was time. For example, how can repetitive tactical tasks be automated to reduce bottlenecks and save precious hours? How can data, context, and AI be leveraged to aid hiring managers and talent acquisition professionals in making better decisions, faster?

Intelligent Candidate Recommendations

One key area of focus is identifying and recommending candidates based on the specific requirements of a given position. The talent CRM should recommend candidates who are a strong fit in terms of skills, location, and experience, among other factors. This helps streamline the hiring process by quickly highlighting the top candidates for consideration.

Workflow automation also plays a crucial role in enhancing efficiency. Here are some specific areas where automation can make a significant impact:

• Scheduling and calendar management

• Resume screening and initial candidate filtering

• Coordinating interview availability

• Sending automated follow-up emails and status updates

• Gathering and organizing candidate information and feedback

Bogdanovich then went a bit deeper into his automation use case examples. Those that follow are those that he insisted every talent CRM should be able to support with.

Automating Interview Scheduling: When a candidate progresses to the interview stage, the system should automatically schedule interviews, proposing times for candidates to select their ideal slots. Additionally, it should handle renegotiations if the proposed times are not suitable for either the candidates or the hiring managers.

Engaging Candidates: Delays often occur between scheduling and completing interviews. To keep candidates engaged, the system can send relevant, hyper-personalized messages, enhancing the overall candidate experience.

Sending Reminders: The system should send reminders to hiring managers, providing a synopsis of the candidate, the role they are being considered for, and their key qualifications. Similarly, candidates should receive reminders about who they will be meeting with, details of the role, and any other pertinent information.

Enhancing the Interview Process: Automation can also streamline the interview process itself. This includes creating interview guides, recording interviews, and efficiently capturing candidate evaluations.

Generating Offer Letters: Generating and managing offer letters can be automated to ensure a smooth and timely transition from candidate selection to onboarding.

Above all, Bogdanovich reinforced that your talent CRM can create a more efficient, time-saving hiring process, allowing you and your team to focus on what truly matters — finding the right talent and making informed hiring decisions.

What makes intelligence a critical component of today’s talent CRM?

After use cases, Harrington and Bogdanovich transitioned to artificial intelligence (AI) and the critical role it plays. Today, organizations that are harnessing the advantages afforded by AI are revolutionizing the way their hiring process works and the impact it is creating.

 AI should be deeply embedded within the talent CRM and the talent processes it’s supporting — leveraging valuable context and insights to help hiring managers and talent acquisition professionals make more informed decisions.

Here’s how AI should be leveraged via a talent CRM in various stages of the hiring process:

Resume and Application Analysis: Your talent CRM should be able to quickly scan resumes, cover letters, and application materials to identify key skills, experience, and qualifications that align with the job requirements. This speeds up the initial screening process and ensures that no relevant candidate is overlooked.

Candidate Screening and Scoring: You should be able to use AI-powered screening tools to assess candidates based on predetermined criteria, offering your hiring team objective, data-driven insights to supplement evaluations. This helps create a more balanced and fair assessment process.

Pre-Hire Assessments: With AI, hiring teams can administer and analyze psychometric tests and assessments, providing deeper insights into a candidate's personality, cognitive abilities, and cultural fit. This allows hiring teams to understand candidates beyond their resumes and interviews and assess candidate-job fit before a hiring decision is made. These ultimately help employers gauge whether employees will be successful in their role, and reduce costly churn.

Interview Analysis: AI can transcribe and analyze interview recordings, identifying patterns, keywords, and other cues that may not be readily apparent to human interviewers. This adds another layer of analysis to the interview process, helping to identify the best candidates more effectively.

Bias Mitigation: AI can help reduce the impact of unconscious biases by standardizing the evaluation process and focusing on objective, job-relevant criteria. This ensures that all candidates are evaluated fairly and consistently, promoting diversity and inclusion.

By leveraging AI, organizations can streamline their hiring processes, reduce time-to-fill, enhance candidate engagement, and improve overall organizational efficiency.

The modern talent CRM is open for integrations

Beyond AI and automation, Bogdanovich communicated that today’s talent CRM must be capable of integrating with commonly used HR tools and technology — for example, the applicant tracking system (ATS), calendar tools, email, and interview management tools. By leveraging the power of integrations, talent teams can streamline workflows, enhance the user experience, and boost overall efficiency.

ATS: Most companies use their ATS as their system of record. Ensuring seamless data flow between the ATS and the talent CRM is essential. This integration allows for synchronized data, reducing manual entry and ensuring that all relevant information is up-to-date and accessible in both systems.

Calendar for Interview Scheduling: Integrating with the most popular and commonly used calendar systems makes it possible to automate the interview scheduling process. This allows the system to propose interview times and book slots with minimal to no human intervention, saving time and reducing scheduling conflicts.

Email Integration: Connecting the talent CRM with your email system ensures that all communications with candidates and hiring managers are captured and recorded. This integration streamlines communication tracking and ensures that important information is centralized and easily accessible.

Interview Intelligence: By integrating Interview Intelligence with your talent CRM, you can enhance the interview process by gaining deeper insights and analytics. This integration ensures that all key hiring decision-makers have access to valuable data and insights, improving the overall interview experience and decision-making process.

The power of integrations enables talent CRM users to rely on a single system for most of their tasks, instead of taking a swivel-chair approach to their work. By minimizing the need to toggle between multiple systems, talent acquisition professionals can complete their work more efficiently and with fewer disruptions. 

While there may still be occasional needs to access the ATS directly, being able to schedule interviews, engage with candidates, and capture communications all within the talent CRM significantly enhances usability and convenience. Efficiency is greatly improved by minimizing the number of apps and systems users need to interact with. The fewer systems and clicks required to complete a task, the more streamlined and efficient the process becomes.

Navigating a successful talent tech transition

When organizations realize their existing talent CRM is not meeting current or future needs, Bogdanovich implied that it may be time to consider a talent tech transition. He went on to outline why customers typically migrate, what to look for in a vendor, and what a typical migration process involves.

Organizations often seek to migrate from their talent CRM for these reasons:

Fully Integrated Solutions: Far too many organizations have consolidation on their mind, as they are presently managing multiple vendors and seek a system that integrates seamlessly. They want a solution that functions cohesively within itself, while ensuring complete compatibility across all other arts of the tech stack.

Innovation and Adaptability: Organizations desire a system that is not only foundationally sound but also continues to innovate, evolve, and adapt to new challenges and opportunities.

Measurable Efficiency Returns: Teams need a system that delivers measurable efficiency gains without compromising the experience for candidates and hiring managers.

Partnership and Trust: A reliable vendor should act as a partner, valuing feedback to drive innovation. Trust in the system, partnership, and ongoing innovation is crucial for a successful relationship.

When selecting a new talent CRM system vendor, consider the following criteria:

Strong Innovation Culture: Look for a vendor that balances innovation with core values. They should draw inspiration from beyond their primary expertise; finding inspiration from customers across various geographies and industries, and finding ways to address the most common problems.

Proven Partnership Track Record: Choose a vendor known for being a true partner. Implementations can be complex and unpredictable, so a vendor with a history of successful partnerships will be better equipped to handle challenges.

The typical talent CRM migration process involves these key steps:

Discovery Period: After selecting a vendor, a discovery phase begins. Technical teams delve deeper into initial discussions to outline timelines and deliverables.

Clear Timelines and Expectations: It’s essential to set clear expectations regarding who owns which part of the process and the deadlines. Although delays are inevitable, unclear responsibilities can add unnecessary time to the overall implementation.

Simple and Flexible Data Transfer: The data transfer should be as simple and flexible as possible, utilizing API or file-based methods. It’s important to understand that these methods are not mutually exclusive; the choice depends on the type of data being transferred and the available formats.

During a migration, keep an eye on the following data points:

Jobs: Ensure a seamless transition for live jobs and applicants in process. The cutover time for jobs is critical to maintain continuity.

Candidates: Decide how far back to go with your candidate pool. Migrating data is an excellent opportunity to re-engage with candidates and update your system from a data privacy perspective.

Applicants: All current applicant data should migrate accurately to maintain the hiring process flow.

Data Privacy and Profile Retention: As you move to a new system, ensure compliance with data privacy regulations. New tools or functionalities might require candidates to opt in again.

In summary, transitioning to a new talent CRM is a significant step for any organization. By understanding the reasons for migration, choosing the right vendor, and meticulously planning the migration process, companies can achieve a seamless transition.

Making the business case to switch to a new talent CRM

After spelling out the common reasons why organizations will switch to a new talent CRM solution, Bogdanovich went further to describe how talent acquisition teams can make the business case internally to switch to a new alternative. Advocating for a best-of-breed solution requires a well-crafted business case, clear communication of timelines, and compelling, concrete data to support your proposal. 

Enhanced talent experiences: Emphasize how the new solution will improve the experience for all users, including HR, hiring managers, and candidates. Highlight specific pain points in the current system and how the new solution addresses them.

Implementation and migration timelines: Provide a clear understanding of the implementation and migration timelines for all stakeholders. Detail the time and effort required to transition from the existing talent CRM to the new one. This includes outlining steps for removing the old tech and integrating the new one. 

Bogdanovich also insisted that it’s essential to align closely with your HRIT team on the following expectations:

Clear timelines and responsibilities: Set realistic timelines for the migration process. Ensure all stakeholders understand their roles and responsibilities to avoid delays and miscommunication.

Resource allocation: Discuss the resources needed for a smooth transition, including personnel, time, and budget. Ensure that HRIT teams are prepared for the workload and have the necessary support.

Current system performance: Show how your current systems are performing and failing to meet business objectives. Using detailed input vs. output metrics, highlight areas where the current system is lacking and clarify where the new talent CRM will help in overcoming gaps.

Opportunity Cost: Illustrate the opportunity cost of sticking with the current system. Explain what the organization is missing out on by not adopting the new solution, such as improved efficiencies or enhanced talent experiences.

Efficiency Gains: Demonstrate where and how your organization will realize efficiencies using the new talent CRM. Leverage case studies, testimonials, or pilot results to show the tangible improvements in experience and productivity for all users.

By focusing on the benefits for all stakeholders and providing solid proof points, you can make a persuasive argument for transitioning to a more efficient and user-friendly system.

Considering a transition? You don’t have to go it alone

By focusing on the benefits for all stakeholders, setting realistic expectations with your HRIT team, and providing solid proof points, you can make a persuasive argument for transitioning to a more efficient and user-friendly system.

Harrington and Bogdanovich wrapped up the live event by detailing the next steps any organization can follow if they’re considering a talent tech transition.

To further support with your talent CRM migration efforts, we recommend exploring these valuable resources:

• Talent CRM Migration Conversation: Work directly with Phenom experts to uncover insights based on your current state, and comprise a comprehensive migration plan. Walk away with step-by-step guidance that can be followed to ensure a smooth transition.

• Talent CRM Migration Kit: Access a complete toolkit designed to simplify the entire talent CRM migration process. This kit includes practical tips and tricks plus prescriptive guidance that can be followed to successfully implement your new solution.

Using these resources, you can navigate the complexities of a talent CRM migration with confidence — ensuring a seamless transition that benefits your entire organization for years to come.

Take the steps to start your upgrade with The Talent CRM Migration Kit!