Is Recruitment Data in your ATS (Applicant Tracking System) outdated? The answer is “yes” (or “yes, unfortunately”) for the vast majority of us. We also realize that updating the records would be beneficial, because:
- People with whom we were in touch or who applied in the past (those in our ATS) are more likely to respond if we contact them
- With the updated data, we will be finding more relevant results
It is also useful to populate, or “enrich”, our records with social profile links so that we have references to some (likely) up-to-date information anytime we access each record.
Yet there are always more urgent things to do for busy Recruiters than cleaning up the database; many of us keep going with outdated records. The outdated information slows us down, and refreshing is harder as the information gets outdated along with the systems that keep it. It is best to take care of updating your records sooner rather than later! We will cover the topic in detail in a webinar on data refreshing.
One type of tool to consider for massive updating is usually called bulk refreshing, primarily used in Email Marketing and Sales, and, I think, should be used in Recruiting more than it is. Tool examples include Clearbit, FullContact, Pipl, and Hunter.io. These tools offer APIs for use by Developers; however, non-coders can access mass-refreshing simply via uploading and downloading contact files in Excel.
Which tool fits someone’s particular needs (and budget), requires investigation and some trial runs. But regardless, enrichment tools can be of big help to us even before we order to refresh a list. This is due to “batch previews”, where we get to see some information about our lists. (This is a sourcing hack by the way, right here). We at Sourcing Certification especially like Clearbit Batch Preview that shows some characteristics of your list, seen in the screenshot below, for free (at which point you can decide whether to pay).
I would like to invite you to learn about tools, methods, and pitfalls of Recruitment Data Refreshing by studying our 90-minute webinar – you can find it at https://sourcingcertification.com/datarefresh/.
Comments 3
Timely article for many companies about to switch/upgrade their ATS!
Author
Thanks, Glenn!
Definitely attending this one! Your data is a goldmine-guarantee most companies are not digging in deep enough or refreshing data as much as they should. Looking forward to it!