Are you still managing your recruitment using your email inbox? Then stop! No matter how honed your process is, there’s a much better way: get an Applicant Tracking System! An ATS is a fantastic tool every recruiter or hiring manager should have and here’s why:
In the last few years the price for these systems has come down dramatically and there’s lots of options to choose from to suit your business, whatever the size.
Manage your jobs and the candidates who apply to them. As a minimum standard any ATS should have a user friendly job management interface making identification and switching from vacancy to vacancy easy.
Seeing and managing candidate communication and tracking candidates through the recruitment process are the bare minimums for any ATS system. The leading systems are taking this aspect to a new level with integrated emailing and SMS available so you can keep in constant communication with candidates and ensure a first class candidate experience for every candidate.
While most ATS systems include their own multi-poster software, some of the leading ones do integrate with other services, making job posting simple and very efficient. It’s worth checking the pricing on this before making your choice as some systems charge per vacancy and others offer user licence agreements.
The leading ATSs on the market allow candidate assessment to be seamlessly integrated with their system. The assessment tools which can be integrated include video interviewing, psychometric profiling, online skills testing, numeric and verbal reasoning tests, questionnaires and score-based multiple choice tests which are custom built for your requirements. All of these tests are designed to give you access to a much more evidence based recruitment process and can be easily managed.
One of the most valuable long term tools contained in most ATS systems is the ability to create your own candidate database or talent pool. This tool in the short term doesn’t hold much value but after a number of years building the database the number of candidates you can now search, communicate with and potentially hire builds to a point where it’s hugely valuable and will deliver recruitment results.
Candidates are the key to building a valuable employer brand and an ATS is an essential tool in helping build that brand. How many of you can honestly say you have communicated with every single candidate who has applied for one of your roles to let them know you received their application and then at the end of the process sent a ‘thanks but no thanks’. An ATS makes this level of basic communication easy as the more sophisticated systems will automate the process so you never have to worry about not letting candidates know the status of an application again.
There is always pressure to demonstrate the value of anything in business and effective reporting is the only way you can truly demonstrate the return on investment when it comes to recruitment. Modern ATS systems provide lots of reporting options but a minimum requirement is functionality to see the numbers of applicants and source where the candidate came from. Beyond this there are systems which report cost per hire, interviews per application and even review overall job board performance for specific industries. The options are endless but be sure to use a system that gives you access to the reporting tools you need.
We hope this is useful and you’re convinced to ditch those email folders and start using an ATS system. To compare all the ATS systems and help make your choice, you can visit SoftwareInsider. If you’re looking at ATS options, please also consider visiting us at staff-finda or calling 01962 676214 to discuss free access to our market leading ATS system which is included in the price of all of our packages. We even offer free trials to qualifying customers so you can use the ATS on a live job posted across all the leading job boards at no cost at all.
If you would like to speak to the Finda team about this topic or something else, please get in touch.
