Recruiter for iPhone Brings Mobile Candidate & Client Management

by Jason Hall on 10/09/09 at 7:30 pm

Jason Hall is the head of Global Marketing for H3 Solutions. He is a Professional writer and Editor for iPhoneCTO.

Recruiters face a lot of challenges in their careers and not the least of which has to do with managing their list of candidates. Let’s face it, recruiting is a people business that takes time and patience in getting to know each candidate, their skills, current engagement and when they might become available for another opportunity. Many software company’s have sought to address these challenges with complex and expensive systems that are only useful from a desktop computer. Many recruiters, however, are rarely at their desks and therefore need easy access to the information to do their jobs.

Burnsoft Ltd, based in the UK, is seeking to solve this challenge with Recruiter

, an application to help recruiters manage candidates and clients from their iPhone. Working with the application for the first time can be a little overwhelming given the substantial amount of data fields that are available (a series of video tutorials are in development).

When first launching the Recruiter application you will be prompted to “Import Contacts from your Address Book”, “Ask at next launch” or “Never Import”. I chose to “ask at next launch” in order to get a feel for the application before attempting an import. A recruiter can further track candidates’ availability, rates and skills. All candidates and clients can be contacted from within the app and associated call notes can be attached and emailed. Recruiters can also see the number of contractors that are currently working and note when a resource is nearing completion of an engagement. Something I found particularly interesting – as well as an area of growth – is a reporting section that provides recruiters with a view of percentages and total weekly or average margin. These reports are calculated based on the recruiter’s input of the candidates pay rate and units per week. This function of the application could use some work as it can be confusing, but I definitely like the reporting concepts.

The Recruiting application for iPhone is a great concept and a good product for a first release so I was anxious to reach out and ask a few questions…

Nik, you clearly have a firm grasp on what it takes to be an effective recruiter, What were the primary motivations for you to offer this product?

The primary motivation behind the development of Recruiter was to simplify the production and updating of a typical recruiters ‘hot list’, namely those candidates constantly in-demand and most marketable as well as clients you have a relationship with.

Most recruiters will have a list of some kind, maybe its in the back of a diary, or a list kept in Excel, but if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch why wouldn’t you want this information with you at all times? This idea was the catalyst for Recruiter.

I think in its current form, Recruiter is most valuable to those recruiters who don’t have mobile access to their in-house ATS/Database. From the initial feedback I’ve received, there are a number of start-ups whose budgets don’t currently allow for this ability. Quick win situations can only be enhanced with access to up-to-date relevant information.

What are your design plans for backup? What happens when(if) the a “Remote Erase” is performed?

Currently they are the same as Apple’s, backup through the standard iTunes process. Should a remote wipe be performed, with frequent backups your Recruiter information will be available on a fresh install from backup.