How to choose a candidate registration system for your agency
In short
Choose a candidate registration system by testing the whole journey: a candidate submits useful information, your team reviews it and an accepted record reaches the agreed destination. Compare your current recruitment system’s registration option, a website form and a separately scoped workflow. The right choice depends on the questions you ask, the checks your team performs and the access your existing systems allow.
Need help with this? Online candidate registration and digital forms
What is recruitment e-registration?
Recruitment e-registration means collecting a candidate’s initial details online. A registration system may also organise review, corrections and the hand-off into a recruitment database. Confirm which of those steps a supplier actually includes: a form, a candidate portal and an onboarding system describe different amounts of work.
This guide is for agencies choosing a process or supplier. Candidates looking for work should use the registration route on their chosen recruitment agency’s own website.
Compare three possible starting points
- Your recruitment system’s own registration route: check whether the available form, branding and review process suit your desks before commissioning another tool.
- A form on your existing website: assess this when the main need is initial contact, work preferences and a clear review destination. Ask how records are matched and how failures are surfaced.
- A dedicated registration and onboarding workflow: assess this when you need invited tasks, corrections, document review or different access for different teams. Confirm each feature in the proposal.
Use one sample journey to compare the options. A long feature list is less useful than seeing how a recruiter finds a new registration, corrects it and knows what to do next.
Run these checks during a supplier demonstration
- Complete a registration on a phone, including a CV upload if your process needs one. Ask for a route that still works when an upload fails.
- Submit incomplete information and check whether errors are clear and previous answers remain available.
- Show where the new registration appears and who is responsible for reviewing it.
- Register the same example candidate twice and ask how the potential duplicate is handled.
- Change one answer during review and check what the recruiter and candidate can see.
- Demonstrate an unavailable recruitment-system connection. Identify who is alerted, which record is kept and how a retry avoids another candidate record.
- Export an example record and ask what happens to files and history when the service ends.
Use invented candidate details and sample files for the demonstration. The purpose is to understand behaviour before sending real candidate information through a new process.
Write the integration brief before choosing software
List each field your recruiter needs, its destination and whether it belongs to general registration or a specific vacancy application. Decide which system holds the main record and which person resolves an incomplete or duplicate submission.
For Giig, check your account’s supported operations and permissions before assuming a website form can create or update a record. CV handling, application references and status information each need their own assessment. Recruitment Connected is not affiliated with or endorsed by Giig.
Keep the first registration focused
Agree why each question is needed at this stage. Contact details, work interests and availability may support an initial recruiter conversation. Payroll information and agreements have a different purpose and may belong to later tasks.
Document access, record review, deletion and export responsibilities with the people who own the process. Check current ICO guidance when deciding what personal information to collect. A software demonstration or registration submission does not establish that all required recruitment checks have been completed.
Make the mobile and accessible route part of acceptance
Test the actual form with a keyboard and a small screen. Check visible labels, instructions, file controls, error messages and the confirmation page. W3C’s form tutorials explain why controls need understandable, associated labels.
Ask a person unfamiliar with your process to complete the example. Note where they hesitate and whether they understand what will happen after submission. Include the correction and help routes in that test.
Compare costs and responsibilities together
- Initial setup: field mapping, content, branding, migration and testing.
- Continuing charges: hosting, software licences, usage limits and any separately priced support.
- Changes: who updates questions, approved document wording and connection settings.
- Operations: who monitors failed submissions, runs backups and resolves access requests.
- Exit: which records and files you can export, in what form and who helps move them.
Recruitment Connected scopes forms and workflow projects individually. Bring the form you use today and the step that causes the most chasing. Do not send completed candidate forms or private documents with an initial enquiry.