We’re pouring one out for recruiters at small businesses.
While comprising nearly half of all private employment, small businesses often don’t have the resources that larger companies have at their disposal, like an applicant tracking system (ATS).
That’s the case for Dana Bozich, an HR pro at the Maryland-based fire and safety protection company Relay Fire and Safety. Bozich, who joined the company in 2023, serves as its recruitment team of one. As the private equity-backed business plans to grow, Bozich will oversee hiring for all roles including for technicians, sales, and accounting—while handling nearly all of it by relying on just spreadsheets because her company doesn’t yet have an ATS.
“Pivot tables are my friend,” she joked.
It may seem surprising that there are still recruiters who aren’t relying on the systems that job seekers love to hate, but most small businesses don’t actually have an ATS. In Bozich’s case, in addition to spreadsheets, she also relies on candidate tracking mechanisms on sites like Indeed and LinkedIn. Prior to her joining, Relay Fire and Safety had no policies or standardizations in place for recruitment. That might be a daunting task for some, but it’s one Bozich is familiar with from past jobs and has actually grown fond of.
“I love it, because I’ve had to do this before,” she said. “When I got into recruiting, we didn’t have anything in place [either].”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?
I’m big on process improvements and streamlining. Here at Relay, I have created and run the recruiting efforts without an ATS. I have worked hard on creating spreadsheets and reports for candidate tracking.
I use the tools that I can. When you look at Indeed, [it has] a candidate tracking system built into it, which is nice, and also with LinkedIn, with sourcing on the back end. But pretty much, [I use] a spreadsheet…it’s a list of all the candidates I’m in contact with. It’s not perfect. For example, when it comes to sourcing, I only record the people who actually get back to me and say that if they’re interested in a position. Otherwise, it just would be too administratively heavy to keep track of everyone I’m contacting, sourcing, and otherwise. It just would be too much work.
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What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?
That recruiting is easy! People tend to think that it can't be that hard to read resumes and conduct interviews all day. It is very taxing and emotionally draining.
What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?
When I find the right candidate for the right job and they accept the offer! I have had hiring managers choose candidates I have sourced over candidates who were referred.
We were looking to hire a new controller in our accounting department, and our CFO, who came in, had this guy that he pretty much had picked out. We all thought that [the candidate] was going to be the first choice, and he’s going to offer the role to him, but he ended up offering the position to a candidate that I found on Indeed. To me, that was just a major win.
What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why?
Since I am a department of one, I rely on AI a lot to help me with everything from interview questions to job descriptions to ideas for LinkedIn posts. It is such a great, evolving tool.
I call ChatGPT my little virtual assistant. I use it pretty much every day. I use it for job postings, I use it for job descriptions. I use it for doing industry-specific research to help me find different numbers, like salary bands, or different hourly rates in different areas. [...] I use it a lot for LinkedIn posts to help me get a good idea for what I'm going to do there. And then also with generating images, [and] interview questions, screening questions. Anything I can think of, anything that can save me some time, I use my little virtual assistant for.
What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why?
The over utilization of AI in recruiting. There has been a lot of talk about how AI is coming for recruiters’ jobs—reviewing resumes, interviewing, etc. While I think AI is a great tool, it also has its limitations and will not always catch what the human eye and brain will.