A manifesto for better hiring software
We made Workable, because applicant tracking was, well, not workable. Our design manifesto was pretty straightforward.
Eliminate the frustrations that a hiring manager faces with old-school applicant tracking tools.
We wanted better hiring software, so we made our own.
- I should not be managing documents and emails. A computer should be collecting, organizing and showing me job candidates the way I browse people on LinkedIn or Facebook.
- I should not be decoding a million different resume styles that basically contain a few standardized pieces of information. A computer should show candidate facts to me in a readable, uniform manner.
- I should not be deciphering long documents to extract simple information such as “let’s add up this person’s years of work experience”. A computer should be calculating and summarizing these for me.
- I should not have to be fishing out answers to simple questions such as “does this person have a degree in a technology subject”. The applicant should be ticking my requirements when he applies.
- I should not be wasting time with irrelevant applicants. My applicant tracking software should show me the 3-4 most important things like current employment, highest education degree and keyword matches, in a compact way, so I can quickly discard the obvious negatives.
- I should not be jumping through hoops to get my job done. A pretty, uncomplicated interface should show me all I need to know about each candidate, alongside other candidates, and help me quickly screen with minimal effort.
- I should never again use email to share notes or discuss candidates with my colleagues. My hiring tool should let me add notes to candidates just like I put comments on Facebook or a forum. The same tool should show me a notification when someone mentions me in a comment or takes action on a candidate in my hiring pipeline.
- I should not be scoring, grading and categorizing. I should have simple options to reject or shortlist someone. I’m not here to assign relative values to people. I’m just choosing which ones I want and which ones I don’t. If there’s testing to be done, it should be automated. If it can’t be automated, it belongs to an interview.
- I should not suffer archaic interfaces and arcane options. It should be as easy to use as Facebook or LinkedIn. And pretty.
- In other words, I should be doing the clever bits, and software should do the tedious part.
Are you as frustrated as we were with some of the above? Maybe you should try out our Workable hiring software
