As a team of sixteen, Compass Tech International (CTI) is an agile recruiting solution that hones in on a niche client base — the automotive industry. They provide recruitment, staffing, and other process management solutions.
CTI is based in Dublin, Ohio and, although their clients are mostly automotive companies in the U.S., they do offer international services. We spoke to Cody Guyer, a technical recruiter at CTI to learn about the tools they use.
About Cody
As a technical recruiter for Compass Tech International, Cody Guyer’s job involves sourcing top talent to work in the automotive industry.
The majority of candidates Cody reaches out to on a daily basis are technicians, engineers, and analysts. The firm also fills senior executive roles. We asked Cody what software tools he uses to get the job done. Here’s what Cody had to say:
CTI’s Main HR Tool: Recruitment and Staffing Software
What is it called?
This is a recruiting and staffing application provided by Bullhorn. Recruiters may know it by its former name, AdaptUX. When it was called that, the software belonged to Bond.
CTI uses this tool to manage their database of candidates, as well as job orders from organizations. According to Cody “We put all of our sourced candidates into this database so that we can track our notes on them, know what process they are in with any applications they might be submitted for, and obviously we can go back and review notes about them from years past.” So Adapt functions as an applicant tracking system.
How long have you been using this tool?
CTI moved over to Adapt some years ago. “Knowing the owners, the reason for transferring [from a previous solution] is the capability extension offered by Adapt, and the old database probably being antiquated or not as user-friendly.”
Why did CTI choose this tool?
Adapt was the most cost-efficient. “I know we were juggling around the prices for some solutions, and [Adapt] made the most sense for the amount of capability it offered.”
“I do really like it. It’s got some great capabilities that I enjoy but I feel like there definitely is an opportunity for growth,” Cody remarked when asked what he thought of the tool.
What features of the tool do you like most?
“I really like the fact that I can look at a summary log of every single transaction that’s happened with a candidate. So I can see everything from when I initially entered them into the system, to any conversations that have been logged with the relevant notes, or a phone call. I can see if they were processed through any of their applications, if they were set up for an interview, if an offer was accepted or rejected, and all the notes that come along with that.”
Cody also highlighted the tool’s recall memory feature. “I can hover over the ‘people’ icon where I can search my database of candidates, but it also comes up with the latest people that I’ve been working with so I don’t have to look up their name every time.” This is a major time saver in Cody’s day.
Adapt has the capability to set up reminders that can be linked to Outlook which assist CTI’s recruiters with monthly candidate follow-ups. In addition to touching base with candidates, CTI checks in with recent hires after their start date to ask whether the person needs any support. Keeping track of multiple profiles with system reminders is therefore a key need.
Adapt itself gives a small dashboard reminder of these coms as well, but they’re not ideal. “It’s a tiny notification bar at the top of the screen that shows these notifications to do things. It’s not super organized in a way that I can edit the formatting of this, so it’s not as user-friendly from my standpoint. It’s a functionality that I like, but that can be improved upon”
What's the main benefit you find in using this tool?
“I really like the upload process for candidate info. I can import a resume, or if I’m on a job board and I forward myself twenty candidates at a time, I can highlight all of those emails in my inbox and import them directly into Adapt. The platform will identify that there’s an attached resume in each email and then import the data from each resume.”
Cody adds the AI that reads this information is probably not as robust as it could be, but it definitely gets the job done and saves him a ton of time in capturing candidate information, such as their name, contact details, and general expertise. “We get resumes written in different formats. It recognizes and reads people’s personally made CVs. I’ve even downloaded profiles from LinkedIn and it’s recognized that for the most part.”
Is there anything you think this tool can improve on?
“I wish there could be more ability to customize my reminders.” Although integration with Outlook is possible, Cody notes that it is quite a nuanced capability to set up.
“The system is intuitive to a sense, but I feel like there are functions that can be more user-friendly” He adds that “Something I'd have liked to be more robust is the automated candidate search capabilities. I’d say they’re not as user-friendly as they could be. For example, we have tons of candidates for plenty of different job orders. When we had new job orders pop up that were similar to existing ones, it would be nice if [Adapt] could automatically pull in candidates that are qualified for those jobs.”
Adapt can also export data in the form of an Excel sheet which is important to Cody’s workflow. “It doesn’t link to Excel but [the export function] is something I utilize to be able to do some separate tracking.”
Cody uses Excel parallel to Adapt to track two things:
- His candidates’ average salary ranges. He is building a remuneration database for the roles he typically needs to fill. Adapt doesn’t do this.
- To keep track of candidates in different stages of his pipeline. This helps him see who he needs to contact, who he has already contacted, etc. at a glance. Although this data is also kept in Adapt’s journal log, it is only visible by going into individual candidate profiles. “I kinda use Excel as a weekly to-do list for my outreach and follow-up communication.”
How well does the rest of your HR Tech stack integrate with this tool?
Besides the integration with Outlook, CTI doesn’t link Adapt to any other software.
Who in your organization is responsible for this tool?
“We’re all on it, but updates, reconsideration, and so forth lie with the owners.”
How would you rate this tool out of 5?
(1 = hate it, 3 = it gets the job done, 5 = I recommend it all the time)
2.5
To support his rating, Cody remarked “I wouldn’t say ‘holy cow this tool is incredible and I don’t think it can do things other programs couldn’t do. It's the middle of the road for me.”
CTI’s In-house Payroll Solution
What is it called?
As it is an easy payroll solution for smaller organizations, nearly 700,000 clients use Paychex to run their payroll. The vast majority of their users have less than 1,000 employees. Paychex is a market leader in this space.
Cody is an end-user of this tool. He only goes to it for pulling statements or viewing his accumulated PTO.
Why did CTI choose this tool?
“It’s fairly priced and effective.” At a previous firm Cody worked for, payroll was run via ADP, a payroll and HRIS solution that he noted has much more functionality and is easier to engage with by comparison.
Who in your organization is responsible for this tool?
The business manager at CTI takes care of this tool.
More About Your Candidate Funnel
Do you use a dedicated interview scheduling tool?
As a part of CTI’s service, they do a preliminary interview to screen candidates. “We’re not allowed to submit somebody for a role unless we call them first and have a conversion. We talk about what they’re looking for, why they’re looking [for work], and things like that.” Based on this, Cody matches candidates to roles and sets up job interviews for his clients.
Do you use a video interview platform?
“Most of the time we’re ‘cold calling’ [candidates], so these screening interviews are done by phone.”
CTI’s Sourcing Solutions
What is it called?
ZipRecruiter is a go-to job board with an extensive database of 36 million online resumes. Its AI-based candidate matching and ready-to-use job description templates speed up any sourcing process. Candidate data on ZipRecruiter is searchable according to keywords and phrases, for example, a specific skill.
How long have you been using this tool?
To date, CTI has only been using ZipRecruiter to post jobs. “The pricing hasn’t been in our favor to use it as a sourcing tool otherwise.” They’ve been using it this way for more than six years.
What features of the tool do you like most?
The AI is pretty impressive. Cody notes that, when posting on ZipRecruiter, the platform automatically recommends candidates based on the skills and experience listed. “They’re not always the greatest, depending on how specific the job post is. If the role is highly defined, the candidates are pretty good. Then it’s just like ‘Hey, do you want to shoot this person a copy of the job description”
What's the main benefit you find in using this tool?
“I can set up questionnaires at the beginning of an application to filter out candidates that answer incorrectly for what I’m looking for.” But as much as this is a benefit, it is also a downside. “I’ll never see the candidates that answered incorrectly.” Additionally, there is no functionality to notify candidates who do answer correctly that they’re not being considered.
Cody notes “I don’t have a functionality to reach out to these candidates and send them a ‘we’re not moving forward’ email. They’ve just entered an application into the void. I don’t even know if they get a notification if I close the job.”
Is there anything you think this tool can improve on?
Automation! In ZipRecruiter, you can give a candidate a thumbs up or thumbs down vote for categorization purposes. “It would be great if I could set up a pre-generated email that, if I didn’t like them, sends automatically so I don’t have to worry about telling them that we're moving forward with other candidates. It could also suggest other roles they could apply for.”
How well does the rest of your HR Tech stack integrate with this tool?
“It doesn’t integrate with anything else we use.”
How would you rate this tool out of 5?
(1 = hate it, 3 = it gets the job done, 5 = I recommend it all the time)
4.5
“It does a pretty good job. It’s very user-friendly and very intuitive.”
Do you have a tool/platform for running background checks?
CTI runs candidate background checks via a 3rd party service provider called First Advantage.
CTI’s Preferred Job Boards
Cody relies mainly on four job boards to find talent:
- Monster
- CareerBuilder
- LinkedIn Xray - An extension of LinkedIn that allows you to search for profiles according to skills, not only names
- Handshake - Handshake is for talent straight out of college
Cody highlighted an unfortunate hiccup in trusting Monster’s user data. “When searching through candidates, you can filter for people who have updated or been on their profile within a certain amount of time, so you can see if they’ve been actively looking in the past month, for example.” In the case of both Monster and CareerBuilder, he notes, this function isn’t super accurate.
“I just sourced somebody from Monster, and I always filter for activity in 30 days or under. When I called them they said they hadn’t been on Monster in months. That’s a weird thing that keeps happening.”
Cody notes that the same disconnect happens when he searches for candidates based on years of experience. “I’ll filter to like 0-5 years experience, and then still get somebody who’s been working at the same job for ten years or has worked at 5 different jobs for 5 years, so their total experience is 25 years.”
A positive he highlights about Career Builder is that it’s possible to exclude profiles he had already viewed.
It can also save search criteria, which makes finding talent for similar roles more efficient. “We do a lot of bouillon searches, so we’ll get a job description and we’ll find keywords and criteria that candidates absolutely need to have or that we think would pull qualified people for that role. I do anything between one and thirty billion searches to narrow down candidates. I wish there was a way to manipulate all those searches [in Monster and CareerBuilder] so there are set ones for engineers, admin assistants, and so forth.”
Monster, on the other hand, has a great feature in that it can filter for people who are or are not willing to relocate. “That’s a common thing I use if I have to source outside the clients’ state. Career Builder doesn’t have this functionality, so I have to sift through profiles to see, or call candidates to find out if they are willing to relocate.”
CTI’s Performance Management Software
What is it called?
Microsoft Excel
“It’s what we use to keep track of how many submittals, interviews and offers we get per week. We input our information every week and that’s about it.”
The CTI team also uses Excel for time tracking. They input how much time they’ve worked so a formula can derive PTO owed to them.
Did you consider any other vendors?
“Adapt also has that capability, but it can be slightly nuanced.
For example, if we have four admin assistant roles open, and we apply the same candidate to all four, that would count as one submission for us because they can only fill one role. Where Adapt would count this as four submittals, it only counts as one for our performance.”
What features of the tool do you like most?
“Excel is my personal favorite software. It's amazing! The formula capabilities and visualization are perfect for stats analysis. I’m so acclimated to it, it is probably the software I’ve spent the most time with.”
What's the main benefit you find in using this tool?
Cody notes that everything is in one place and easily accessible on CTI’s shared Excel sheet. It’s their single source of workflow information.
Their data includes the average salary for roles, which they can also relay to their clients if an offer is below industry par.
Is there anything you think this tool can improve on?
The only negative Cody could highlight is the amount of processing power it pulls. “If the formulas become overpowering there should be a way to turn off some background functions.”
How well does the rest of your HR Tech stack integrate with this tool?
It doesn’t integrate, but we can export our database from Adapt directly into an Excel sheet.
How would you rate this tool out of 5?
(1 = hate it, 3 = it gets the job done, 5 = I recommend it all the time)
“Actually I’d give it 10 out of five!”
The Future of CTI’s HR Tech
If you could rebuild your HR Tech stack from scratch today, what would be different?
“I’d like one solution that does everything Adapt does, and that my Excel sheet does, and also offers integration with the various job boards we reach out to, as well my Outlook. So I’d see everything I need to do in my Outlook, but the platform does the tracking, sourcing etc. That would be great!
I’d also like a more robust tracking solution and higher automation ability.”
What are the software solutions CTI must prioritize in its next phase of growth?
“We need to look at consistency.” Although everyone at CTI uses Adapt, Cody notes that each recruiter uses it in a slightly different way. “We’re trying to formalize it a bit more.” He adds that an onboarding tool and learning management system would be useful in setting SOPs and sharing best practices.
“We have people that are just amazing at entering a bouillon search into a job board to find the candidates they’re looking for. So training on how to perfectly read a job description or, even better, deep dive into what [the client] is actually looking for, to search for the ideal candidates is the biggest challenge for our new hires.”
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