In today’s market, the right Applicant Tracking System (ATS) has the power to streamline your recruitment process and improve both the quality and time to hire.
It’s a piece of software that combines a collection of digital tools onto a single platform that helps you manage all aspects of the recruitment cycle. From automating candidate emails and scheduling calls, to screening vast numbers of applications, maximising your talent pool and handling candidate documents and references. A good ATS has the power to overhaul your entire staffing operation into the most productive and profitable business it can be.
In many ways an ATS has a lot of similarities to your CRM and, depending on the software, can be used to not only store candidate information in a digital form but be used to automatically confirm that a candidates application has been received, keep them up to date on their application status, and prompt them to confirm an interview time. It is the perfect solution to automating your hiring process, freeing up your team so they have more time to focus on nurturing both candidate and client relations and enhancing your employer brand. If you’re looking to identify the Best Applicant Tracking System for your business, then be sure to check out our comprehensive guide to the Best Applicant Tracking Systems (2024).
If you’re thinking of investing in an applicant tracking system to help with your recruiting and talent acquisition efforts, or finding a new one that meets your growing hiring needs, here are 6 things you need to know about this type of software.
1. Candidates
When flooded with hundreds of applications, an ATS is the number one solution for identifying quality candidates amongst the masses. It uses automated intelligence to screen for the best, most qualified candidates and enables you to collect, organise and store valuable information on prospects based on their experience and skill set. This saves you so much time that would have been spent manually filtering through applications that aren’t suitable for the position.
The system acts as a database and enables your team to set up focused searches using keywords, tags and filters, with some ATS systems ranking candidates in order of suitability based on the skills you’re looking for decreasing your time to hire.
2. Communication
An ATS helps your team better manage their relationships with both candidates and clients. The system automatically logs all of your conversations, so nothing gets lost in transit and you don’t fall victim to ghosting. It is important to make your candidates feel valued during the recruitment process and deliver more of a modern and engaging experience.
An ATS will also enable your team to message candidates quickly and easily, asking any questions they need answers to or scheduling interviews and feedback. When you use an integrated scheduling tool, the ATS will automatically remind both you and the candidate before the interview starts so that you avoid no-shows, saving you time and frustration.
3. Job Distribution
When maximising your talent pool, getting your vacancy out to as many job boards as possible will naturally increase your reach and improve your chances of finding the perfect candidate. Many of the large recruitment sites such as Indeed have partnerships with Applicant Tracking Systems, meaning you can distribute your job posting to various sites with just a few clicks. It also lets you post your job ad to your social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
A good ATS will even automate this process for you, creating a post-ready version of your vacancy that you can quickly distribute to your own career pages and all the major third-party platforms at once. An ATS also has the ability to track which applicants are coming from where, so that you can adjust and hone your distribution strategy.
4. Collaboration
An ATS system enables your team to work together and easily collaborate on vacancies throughout the recruitment cycle. Using the software, you can easily assign roles to different members of the team and control who has access to what information. You can also customize workflows and add your own hiring stages, from screening through to the interview stages and all the way to making an offer and onboarding. At a glance, your team should be able to tell whether or not a candidate has been dropped during the recruitment process and at what stage.
This means your team has a clear view of the whole recruitment process and are able to streamline, collaborate and make the whole cycle more efficient.
5. Analytics
When analysing your existing talent acquisition strategy, an ATS is efficient in creating auto-generated detailed reports and identifying any holes in your process. This is done by collecting data from different parts of the recruitment process so whether you’re looking to track time to hire, job board ROI or the efficiency of your social platforms, the right ATS will deliver exportable reports and analytics so that you can adjust and enhance your future hiring strategy.
Depending on the software, you can even track your team’s performance, how many placements they’ve made along with a number of other KPIs that you may need to monitor in order to help your team grow and succeed.
6. Onboarding
The time-consuming yet significant onboarding process can be greatly simplified when you use a well-designed, capable ATS. The system is able to digitalise and store candidates’ personal details such as proof of address and identification whilst enabling online signing of employee contracts. They can also collaborate with your Payroll and/ or HR system and carry out tedious manual tasks for you and help organise all the paperwork.
Since the onboarding experience can impact factors like employee engagement, productivity, and turnover, an Applicant Tracking System’s ability to make the process as effective and efficient as possible will yield a notable return for your company.
How can we help?
Whether you’re looking to implement an Applicant Tracking System in your business for the first time, or you’re reviewing or renewing your current technologies, Rectec Compare is your unique opportunity to quickly and easily identify the vendors you should be talking to. If you’d like to find out more please get in touch today for a free, no obligation chat or pre-register for exclusive access to Rectec Compare by clicking here.
A quick, responsive process is what you need to attract and engage the best talent.
At Rectec we help organisations to find the best Applicant Tracking System or best Recruitment CRM to suit your needs, accompanied by our unique complimentary tech marketplace, to help you build the perfect recruitment tech stack for your business.
You can click here to register for Rectec Compare – and best of all, it’s completely free of charge.
Rob Green, Founder & Director, Rectec.
Changing the way that recruiters buy software…