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Recruitment 2010 brings you the latest news and reviews of what's happening in the recruitment space. Issue #2 brings a review of the Recruiter App for iPhones. We spoke with Nik Burns from Burnsoft who launched the product as well as compiling some external product reviews. Does it get a heads up or a thumbs down? You decide by reading the short post.

So you’ve downloaded your carbon footprint calculator, got  your good food guide, linked up to your local weather reports, AA Autoroute and have tuned into your Sleep Cycle but which iPhone apps can you honestly say you’re using for work? Maybe Burnsoft’s Recruiter for iPhone fits the bill.

The Spin

Recruiter, which was developed by a former recruiter, is a Candidate and Client database for Recruitment Consultants / Resource Managers / HR Professionals from all business sectors. Recruiter allows users to record and maintain the Client and Candidate information they will access most frequently, wherever they are.

I spoke to Nik Burns, founder of Burnsoft the company that developed Recruiter for iPhone and he’s “really pleased with the way Recruiter has been received and with the level of feedback and suggestions that continue to arrive in our inbox.”
The main customers have been from GB and the US, accounting for roughly 80% of all purchases. (UK and Ireland, just over 40%, US, just under). The next largest users have been from Canada and Australia. European countries follow next with the main usage coming out of Germany, Netherlands, Greece and Italy. The rest of the world accounts for the smallest user base and we are proud to have active users in Brazil, Japan, Singapore and the Phillippines.

The Verdict

Well the really sad and ugly truth is that I’m not an iPhone user, I’m Nokia all the way so for the verdict I had to borrow a review of the first release from Jason Hall of iPhoneCTO last Autumn.

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.

Recruiter is now on its third version (1.3 went live in late March 2010 on the AppStore), adding in video tutorials and a much requested candidate search facility.

Furthermore, Conor Pope's PriceWatch, the economy conscious column in the Irish Times, recently reviewed the iPhone in the article entitled 'Can the iPhone save you money?' which is also worth checking out.