This year was all about technology for me – in business, in recruiting and, in some cases, the kitchen.
Running my own business affords me the opportunity to leverage 100 percent SaaS-based solutions for my daily operations. From Google Apps for Business to any number of others, I am an early adopter when it comes to new tools and products. But being quick to test doesn’t always make a user more proficient or productive.
Reflecting back on 2013, the biggest lesson I learned and continue to relearn reflects the same lesson I try to impart to my clients: technology will only work as well as your understanding of it. Embracing this lesson will help maximize technology investments as well as unlock the potential they can bring to your fingertips.
In June, I reviewed all of my paid business contracts with each of the system configurations in place, and I was astounded with the number of features and functions released that I hadn’t used. Even more eye opening, several of the features were ones I requested months back. Granted, each of the providers sent out notifications about the updates; I just didn’t pay attention. In fact, some of the best updates were still waiting for me to accept them.
I discovered new functions like voicemail to text, which is now a personal favorite. Realizing the number of functions and features I overlooked during the first half of the year, I decided to spend just 30 minutes to review the latest updates. This helped create huge efficiency gains and improved my performance.
As recruiters and talent acquisition professionals, we’re inundated with technology that supports the work we need to do. How often do we assume that a technology can’t do something simply because we haven’t paid enough attention?
Recently, we had a lengthy conversation with a client about a specific tracking action that was extremely administrative on the recruiters. The action was justified because the client thought the technology wasn’t capable of tracking. Asking one of my consultants to weigh in, they pointed out that the product did have that feature and could accomplish exactly what the client wanted.
The problem was that at some point during their past implementation, the tracking function had been turned off. It was a matter of changing one value from “No” to “Yes,” and the highly manual action was automated, saving the recruiters countless hours.
I now schedule 30 minutes of tech review twice each month to understand the latest updates and find one or two to implement right away. When was the last time you reviewed the updates provided by your tech vendors?
Tip No. 1: Take the time to schedule a review and implement any important updates. Keep it here for two more blog posts in this three-part series.
