MAKATI, PHILIPPINES – Recruitography, a thought-leadership community put together by renowned business and thought leaders across the globe, talks to Sysgen CEO Jimmy Roa about the gambits and prospects of staffing.
Jimmy Roa, CEO of the 25-year-old IT staffing company Systems Generators (Sysgen) Philippines, discussed the evolution of staffing by relating it to the story that made Sysgen Philippines a success. Founded in 1991, Sysgen is one of the biggest and most renowned IT staffing companies in the Philippines to date.
Jimmy recalls how Sysgen started as a provider of customized software development. “We started our IT Staffing company in 1991 not as a pure staffing company but as provider of customized IT/software applications. It was our knowledge of how to find quality people that led our clients then to request for staffing support” Jimmy recalls. Eventually, Sysgen took the leap and became a full staffing business in 1996.
Technology is key
For Jimmy, the biggest bets in the staffing and recruitment industry are in technology and social media.
“Staffing has evolved into an IT enabled service. Job boards, social media sites, and Applicant Tracking Systems either currently run in the internet or the cloud. The ability to use Boolean strings to search candidates from various sourcing channels has greatly increased the productivity of recruiters. It has gone a long way from placing wanted ads and waiting for people to apply. We had no such luxury in the early 90s. . . .
There’s also the emergence of Referral programs and the wide usage of social media. Never in the history of staffing and recruiting have we had the ability to reach out to candidates and propagate information via social media tools.”
Recruiters are marketers
With the advent of technology and the benefits businesses can get from social media (e.g. brand awareness), Jimmy believes that the best recruiters are also marketers, “Employees, candidates, and customers can be used as your brand ambassadors wherein they can share positive feedback and stories about your firm. Give them an avenue to share their insights and for you to engage them with conversation. Let them speak for you.”
Read full transcript of the interview on Recruitography.