Perry Ootsdam, CEO of Recruitee, predicts these trends in the recruiting industry.

1. CEO and Co-Founder of Recruitee Perry Ootsdam reveals his favorite features of the tool
2. And this is how Perry estimates the future of the recruiting industry

There are now thousands of SAAS companies on the market. Whether for e-mail marketing, accounting or customer service - there are tools for all areas. Recruiting software has also become increasingly popular in HR departments of companies in recent years. One of these solutions is called Recruitee. We spoke with the company's CEO, Perry Oostdam, and asked him how Recruitee works, where Perry sees the biggest challenges and trends in the industry and how application processes could change with regard to AI. Find out what the founder, consultant and investor thinks about it here in the interview.

CEO and Co-Founder of Recruitee Perry Ootsdam reveals his favorite features of the tool

OMR: Perry, what experiences led you to start Recruitee?

Perry: When I founded my first company, GeoRun, with my co-founder Paweł Smoczy, we quickly realized how complex it was to hire new employees and quickly scale teams. The recruiting tools available at the time did not really meet our needs. There were already tools for candidate management, but none of them provided a simple overview of the entire process. So we decided to develop our own collaborative recruiting software that would support our team in the future. This is how Recruitee was created in 2015.

OMR: If you had to describe Recruitee in 5 sentences: What would you say?

Perry: Recruitee is an intuitive, easy-to-use, collaborative recruitment software designed for teams of any size to grow together and achieve their hiring goals. The idea of collaborative recruiting and of Recruitee is to collaboratively shape the hiring process with teams consisting of colleagues, executives, and human resources personnel. These teams can manage the hiring process from beginning to end using Recruitee, keeping each other up to date and bringing equal input. Recruiters can structure pipelines with automated actions and templates, recruit effectively with multi-postings and referrals, simplify interviews with a calendar and video interview tools, and track progress with custom dashboards and reports. Comprehensive overviews of the status of job placements, updates from on the go with an easy-to-use mobile app, and multiple evaluation and communication tools for faster candidate hiring are all part of Recruitee. In addition, there is the possibility to manage role and visibility restrictions that HR managers can set for data protection and security.

OMR: What do you think is the most important feature that distinguishes Recruitee from the competition?

Perry: Definitely the easy-to-use features. Recruiters can, for example, move talent through the entire candidate pipeline with a simple drag & drop: from one phase of the recruiting process to another. Or they can use our no-code career page to present their employer brand appealingly with preset templates and visual elements. No extensive familiarization or comprehensive product training required.

OMR: What is/are your favorite feature(s) for Recruitee?

Perry: There are several I'd like to mention, but if I had to highlight one, it would be the referral portal. It's our newest product component that we're very proud of, because normally referrals are handled through additional external tools. With our referral portal, every employee can become a supportive and committed HR agent who supports their company in building talent pools via their personal network. All this happens in a single tool. This not only saves time and costs, but also makes the recruiting process more collaborative and guarantees a better fit of candidates for the team.

OMR: When you think of all the customer cases from you, which one do you remember the most?

Perry: INCLOUD comes to mind directly. INCLOUD develops cloud-native software and, with the most sought-after position as a software developer, has a particularly sharp applicant profile that's hard to find. Before the introduction of Recruitee, they used a project management tool for recruiting. This was okay to start with, but the bigger the team grew, the more challenging it became to map all the information from phone calls, mails, and agreements. It was also a high priority for them to include the recruiting teams - this is where you need really structured and intuitive access to information. As techies, they ultimately chose us because we offer an API interface, which made it easier for them to connect Recruitee to other applications.

OMR: What is the vision for Recruitee?

Perry: Our vision is to put collaboration at the center of the hiring process. We believe that close cooperation between HR and specialist departments means they are better able to withstand the increasingly fast-paced fight for talent, create a more positive candidate experience, and focus on their strategic priorities. Our goal is to equip teams with the best tools to jointly establish a better form of recruiting.

And this is how Perry estimates the future of the recruiting industry

OMR: When you look at the recruiting industry: What are currently the biggest challenges?

Perry: One of the biggest challenges we're seeing right now is how the industry is navigating the major changes in the working world. As we move between home office, remote work, and office deployments, these hybrid workplace models are making recruiting even more complex. The potential talent pools are becoming ever broader as more and more companies are opening up for virtual work models. This means that more candidates are landing in the pipeline, for which a well-thought-out candidate management strategy is needed to cope with the increased workload.

At the same time, the benefits around work flexibility - such as one day of home office - are no longer the exception, but the norm. Employers need to start thinking outside the box to attract corresponding high potentials and reconsider their previous talent strategies.

OMR: What trends do you see for the recruiting industry?

Perry: Flexible working conditions are the trend of the year 2021 and beyond. Twitter announced at the end of 2020 that it will allow its employees to "work remotely forever, if they wish." At the same time, other companies like Spotify are adopting a "Work From Anywhere" policy. This increases competition in the battle for talent, as everyone is able to choose the company that best fits their own lifestyle.

Another important trend revolves around creating more diverse and inclusive workplaces. This trend gained momentum in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement and remains a key focus. Companies are finally beginning to restructure their hiring processes to reduce bias in recruitment and actively combat it. This means that HR personnel are responsible for creating a greater diversity of candidates in the talent pool. HR teams are in the unique position to lead their companies in efforts towards inclusion and the prevailing awareness of diversity, equality and integration in the workplace.

OMR: What role will social media play in application processes or what role does social media already play?

Perry: The use of social media has massively increased in recent years. A study from 2020 showed that 86 percent of job seekers use social media in their job search and have viewed, searched, shared, and interacted with content from potential employers on social media.

That's a considerable percentage of talent using social media platforms for job searches and applications. More and more companies are also using the latest social media channels like TikTok to hire and hire talent. If companies want to remain competitive, they must optimally play the used social media platforms, especially as Gen Z is now entering the workforce - the generation that has been most active on social media so far.

OMR: How are application processes changing in terms of AI? Where do you see opportunities and risks?

Perry: More and more HR software developers are integrating AI functionalities into their solutions. AI can help automate routine processes and take some of the day-to-day work off the HR department. The use of AI offers clear opportunities to reduce workload, optimize the hiring process, and communicate with applicants.

Despite the optimization potential, each company must decide on a case-by-case basis where the use of AI is sensible and ethically justifiable. Ultimately, it should always be a person or a team of people making the decision, especially as personnel decisions have significant impact on the lives of employees and the entire company.

OMR: Almost philosophically: Recruiting has long been an extremely human topic. The right instinct was always important. Is that changing due to technology?

Perry: Digital tools can indeed take over tedious routine tasks, such as scheduling interviews or automatic rejections, but if you go too far with the technologicalization of the recruiting process, the experience can feel cold and distant for the candidates. It can indeed be challenging to convey a human touch in a digital world - but it is not impossible. Technology can certainly increase the efficiency of hiring processes and automate everyday tasks. However, we find that human contact is still of central importance to our hiring processes, and the same applies to our customers. A collaborative recruiting process, involving multiple stakeholders in the search, pre-selection, interviews, and final hiring, ensures that candidates are a good fit for the team and company culture. It also creates a better candidate experience and can relieve HR departments just as well.

Perry Ootsdam, CEO Recruitee

OMR: How has the pandemic changed application processes?

Perry: Due to the pandemic, more and more people are applying for a broader spectrum of positions than they had previously done. At the same time, the transition to a decentralized work mode for many companies has meant that location is no longer a limiting factor for recruiting top talent. While the search for the perfect candidates was once limited by relocation budgets and geographical conditions, companies now have the opportunity to tap into a virtually global talent pool. In addition, companies had to engage in virtual interviews and onboarding processes, which saves both sides time and money due to the cost and time savings.

More on the tool Recruitee and more applicant management software can be found on our software review platform OMR Reviews.