To help both candidates and clients as well and as quickly as possible, Regiodienst recently began using a new integration.
With this integration, the best match between candidate and company is automatically made and the first contact with the candidate is then made via an automated WhatsApp message. With this, the mediation agency sets a new standard when it comes to smart use of data and automation during the recruitment process. Nelson Jonker, partner at Regiodienst, talks about his expectations of this new integration.
Getting in touch with suitable candidates is a very time-consuming process. Textkernel’s Candidate Engagement helps with that.
Nelson Jonker – Partner at Regiodienst
The will to do things smarter
Regiodienst has been in the world of recruitment and selection for 12 years, helping candidates find their dream jobs in engineering. “With such a large database, we felt the need to do things smarter. So that we can work more efficiently and help more candidates. From that need came the desire to further automate the recruitment process. That’s how we ended up with a new integration of The Virtual Sales Recruiter, a combination of labor market data, matching techniques, and Candidate Engagement within our ATS Carerix.”
Roderik Visser, Senior Customer Success Manager at Carerix, sees this as a new opportunity and positive development for the recruitment process. “At Carerix we look at this integration with happy eyes. Especially for recruiters who were already using labor market data, the addition of automated matching and the use of Candidate Engagement automations to their workflow is a smart and logical next step.”
Let’s explain
The integration used by Regiodienst consists of two steps. The first step is finding suitable vacancies for candidates: making the match. With the deployment of The Virtual Sales Recruiter, recruiters immediately save a lot of time. This virtual assistant helps recruiters find matches within their ATS quickly and efficiently, with access to both internal and external candidate and job sources. Together, the matching options and the labor market and vacancy data provide optimal insight into the labor market.
Once The Virtual Sales Recruiter has made a suitable match, the second step is to contact the candidate at the right time. “Making contact with suitable candidates is a very time-consuming process,” Nelson said. Candidate Engagement from Textkernel helps with that. With fully automated conversations via WhatsApp, you reach candidates more easily and they themselves decide at what time they read and respond to the message.
Organize integration based on way of working
Regiodienst is currently testing the service in several steps. “You have to organize such an integration well based on your way of working and you can’t apply it overnight. You can think of it as a new way of recruiting. That requires a lot of testing in the initial phase. The first colleagues are now working on it and sharing their experiences within Regiodienst. Thanks to the labor market data, we have come into contact with new companies. This allows us to place more and more candidates. That used to be a lot more difficult. More and more people are working with The Virtual Sales Recruiter. But we are still in the testing phase.”
Adelbert Smal and Jan Govaerts, initiators of The Virtual Sales Recruiter, also see this as the next step in automating the recruitment process. Adelbert: “With The Virtual Sales Recruiter, Regiodienst is taking a huge step forward in working smarter with more time for the right candidates, matches and new clients. The most promising leads and candidates are automatically prepared for you.” Jan agrees: “With the developments in data and matching technology in the market, it is increasingly possible to set up this kind of end-to-end integration in your recruitment process, to save maximum time and no longer miss opportunities.”
This is where Candidate Engagement comes in
Once the match is made by The Virtual Sales Recruiter, the next challenge awaits: reaching the candidate. “At Regional Service we are on the phone a lot, but candidates in engineering are not always easy to reach by phone. They are often on the construction site and often are not in a position to answer the phone. Then it’s very convenient when you can use a WhatsApp automation through Textkernel’s Candidate Engagement,” Nelson says.
“With their automation, we send the candidate a message via WhatsApp with our job offerings. Candidates can view and respond to these job postings at a time that is most convenient for them.” Textkernel then automatically continues the conversation. “The purpose of the contact via WhatsApp is for the candidate to make an appointment with the recruiter. The candidate can schedule the appointment himself via WhatsApp, making it more accessible. It saves us an enormous amount of time. Time that we like to invest at the moment the appointment is made.”
More personal through automations
“Isn’t recruitment really a peoples business and shouldn’t you keep it personal?” That’s a question Textkernel’s Luuk van Neerven often gets. “With all the automation we are actually making the profession very personal. We can help the candidate much faster and invest more time in the personal conversation. It is also easier and more fun for the candidate, without old-fashioned job alerts via e-mail and endless searches on job sites.”
Nelson says the first successes for Regiodienst have already been achieved. “Using the labor market data, we have already been able to provide a number of candidates with wonderful new jobs. And we haven’t even used the entire integration yet. That bodes well for the future.”
