It’s Time To Blow Up Your Tech Stack & Start Wrapping!

If you’re looking to maximise your marketing ROI, then take a long hard look at your tech stack. Dig out those dusty tech contracts, understand what you’ve bought, why you bought it in the first place and ask yourself, ‘is it creating the solutions to the plethora of challenges you have daily’?

The recruitment sector is saturated with tech solutions, from AI-powered candidate sourcing and data analytics, that have reshaped recruitment operations, to CRMs full of marketing wizardry. 

Right, so what’s the problem? 

I hear a lot from my clients about their willingness to  invest in technology, but when it comes to integrating these technologies effectively, they hit a proverbial brick wall.

This, my recruitment friends, is called the 'magpie effect', where they are drawn to the latest shiny tech tools without fully considering their alignment with other tech and the specific business goals. 

Tech adoption is also a pitfall. Literally every client suffers from this and there’s an easy fix. We’re not talking about rocket science after all.

Let's explore a few fixes.

WRAP it!

W - Why does your business need this technology?
R - ROI - do you have an idea if it’s generating value and ultimately, revenue by creating cost efficiencies. 
A - Adoption - how, when and why are people using this technology?
P - Performance - is this being fine-tuned and monitored

IT seems to be a term not often used anymore. It’s all about digital transformation, but let’s face it, IT creates the mechanical engine that drives business performance. Your tech WRAP surrounds your CRM, and this CRM is your single source of truth, or it should be.

I have had some fantastic conversations with companies about incohesive tech stacks, inefficiencies and a diminished ROI. So, it's vital to take into account existing operations and identify specific pain points where technology can support operational processes.

Successful tech and data implementation

Technology in the right hands is incredibly powerful, but it's not a silver bullet. It never has been. Successful tech implementation requires human engagement, and user adoption is essential. So, find your champion, incentivise them to become an advocate of the technology and empower this person to share this knowledge with the rest of the business. Roll it out. Reinforce it and Reflect on its performance. I call this 3R Tech Learning - we do love an acronym in recruitment.

Data. The dirty work of recruitment and THE problem child of recruitment marketing. While many companies collect vast amounts of data, they often fail to use it effectively. Mitigating this by Investing in analytics tools that provide actionable insights into, for example, candidate behaviour, sourcing effectiveness, and time-to-hire metrics is essential. By analysing data, you can identify areas for improvement and make more informed decisions. Let's face it, if you don’t have clean data, what’s the point in doing anything with it? Not only that, if it’s not tagged properly and segmented to enable the execution of brilliant marketing campaigns, we may as well call for a cab.

Written in a shouty voice - CRM systems are paramount to success! Softer tone now -  but they can be rendered dead by sloppy data. So, audit your data every three to six months. 

Merging technology with processes

I’ve had so many conversations about the lack of understanding of what marketing is, and what it isn’t. Because your business invests a fiver, it doesn’t mean we can then turn that fiver into a £3 billion lottery win! The challenge marketers have is that often they are still deemed the less important function. If budgets need cutting, it’s marketing. This is a conversation I had only yesterday. “Well Joey, you know when things are tough, marketing is always one of the first things to go” - said the ex-colleague I worked with 15 years ago. The good news is that companies like this are on the back foot. They are light years behind those companies who have weathered the economic downturn and have created a degree of protection around their brand because they’re trailblazing. They’re investing in areas of marketing that competitors haven’t even thought about. This is the type of business that we love to work with. They see marketing as a part of their Avengers Assemble team and they adopt a more cohesive approach. This is why it works. Because they blow things up, see how the dust settles and rebuilds a tech WRAP, supported by the most powerful marketing methods that are effective today.

To summarise:

1. Create your tech WRAP
2. Sort your dirty data out. If you think it’s clean, stress-test it to be sure
3. Sort your sales and marketing processes out - this should be a happy marriage, not an acrimonious divorce.
   Do some process mapping, simple
4. Technology is only as effective as the processes it supports. However, more often than not, recruitment processes are weak and disorganised 

The technology landscape is constantly developing, and understanding new trends and emerging technologies will help you stay relevant and competitive. That's why continuous learning and development is absolutely critical to success. 

Remember, technologies should complement each other, and every platform should solve a problem. By understanding the benefits of each technology, you can streamline your processes and supercharge your operations.

Cutting-edge technology is essential but human expertise and relationship building will always be crucial in the recruitment sector. By embracing a holistic approach to technology adoption, recruiters can overcome the challenges they face and unlock new opportunities, transform their operations and deliver exceptional value for their clients and candidates.

Good luck!