Hiring the right candidates with the right skills is the primary goal of all HR managers. Sorting through bundles of resumes can be tedious which is why switching to application tracking systems (ATS) can help centralise and highlight which candidates are most suitable for any vacant positions. ATSs help recruiters narrow their applicant pool down to the top talent available. From advertising vacant positions to scheduling candidate interviews, an ATS solution streamlines the entire hiring process from scheduling interviews to testing applicants, managing background verifications and executing the onboarding processes.
With numerous options available in the market, it is easy to get lost in the feature lists of each platform. All hiring solutions streamline the recruiting process and remove tedious time-consuming tasks. Instead of looking at each system’s features, think about the specific processes you are trying to optimise. Discuss pitfalls and pain points in your current hiring process with your hiring managers and executives. Choose a solution to address these problems.
Below are four key areas of the candidate hiring process to consider when you look for an ATS solution.
1. Promoting Jobs and Increasing Candidate Applications
Technology has altered the way people search for and apply for jobs. Many people look and apply for jobs on their smartphones.
Integrations to the Leading Job Portals
With the diversification of job networks through job sites, career pages and social networks, candidates can now find and apply for your open positions with only a few clicks. Check whether your ATS solution supports career site integrations. Some advanced solutions will enable you to push the job posting directly onto leading job portals.
Beyond posting jobs, an ATS system should also have job promotion and spend management capabilities within the solution to help you budget for future job promotions on popular career sites. Promoted jobs drive more clicks and can lead to higher conversion rates of qualified and skilled candidates.
Employee Referral Programs
Research conducted by Glassdoor revealed that more than 70% of job seekers use a social media platform for their job search. ATS solutions with social recruiting capabilities help you find the best candidates on social platforms while also helping you leverage and create relationships on those social channels.Consider transforming your employees into brand ambassadors to attract new, qualified candidates through an employee referral program. Studies show that referred candidates will be faster at time-to-hire with overall higher retention rates and come at a fraction of the cost.
Mobile-Optimised Job Applications
Pushing your job postings in front of the right candidates may not lead to more applications. Actively drive those candidates to send in an application. Currently, about 80% of job seekers are searching for new employment opportunities using their smartphones. If your job application process is not optimised for smart devices, you will miss out. Along with mobile capabilities, job seekers also expect a short, simple application process. Research studies have revealed a lengthy application process leads to higher candidate drop-off rates.
50-60% of job applicants do not complete lengthy job applications. An ATS software solution provides key features such as resume parsing and the ability to create customizable job applications. This allows job seekers to apply for jobs in only a few simple steps.
Integrating Careers Pages
All candidates applying for a job will have to go through your website’s career page.
More than 60% of candidates rated the company’s career page as the most valuable resource in the job search process. The ATS solution you are considering and ultimately going to purchase should provide you with an integrated, responsive career landing page. Investing in a solution which offers plenty of features and specific options for displaying jobs by department, locations, technology, experience level. This will help you secure more qualified applicants, with better retention rates.
2. Job Seeker Engagement & Management
Research conducted by SHRM showed that most job applicants become frustrated due to the lack of communication throughout the application process. Around 50% of those candidates did not receive updates regarding the status of their job application. However, you can improve overall communication with candidates using an advanced application tracking software solution.
Automated Email Communication
Respond promptly to every application you receive. Even if it is simply to state the application has been received. However, this is where most communication ends. Qualified candidates are a scarce and precious resource and should be treated accordingly. Communicating with every job applicant through the traditional manual processes is time-consuming. ATS software provides email templates and allows you to customise the emails based on the specific candidate, position or the stage in the application process.
Investing in a solution to automate the creation and management of these emails will save your company many hours. Some examples of the most frequently used email templates are customisable thank you emails, interview feedback surveys and interview detail templates.
Candidate Search
The data you collect from each applicant during the application and interview process is the intellectual property of your business. You need to secure the data against theft or unauthorised access for future use. Manually keeping track of, storing, sorting and identifying data from thousands of applicants is cumbersome. ATS software with specific search parameter capabilities such as experience, salary history, commute radius, interview feedback, comments and more will help you quickly find the best candidate based on their captured information.
3. Built-in Recruiting Workflows
Recruiting is a linear process. Bottlenecks at any stage affect subsequent stages and slow down the whole process. An ideal recruiting pipeline is characterised by the activities that push applicants through all these stages. Select software that streamlines those core activities and keeps your candidates moving through the recruiting pipeline.
Smart Recruiting Workflows
While evaluating the various ATS solutions available, ask the vendor for a full demonstration of each workflow the software offers. Don’t choose software that requires you to build new workflows yourself. Make sure the software you purchase has a workflow which falls in line with how you do your job. Furthermore, the software should also include customised email-based commands and approval processes to include your HR managers in the candidate hiring process.
Interview Scheduling & Feedback
In the recruiting process, sorting candidate profiles and scheduling interviews is beyond painful with multiple schedules to adhere to. A robust application tracking software will automatically schedule candidates interviews, so you no longer need to spend your valuable time aligning the scattered availabilities of interviewers and candidates. ATS solutions will pull in the availability of all parties and schedule interviews through integrations with scheduling applications like Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, and more.
4. Reporting & Analytics
The right application tracking system lets you track the actions you have taken over time with each candidate. The tracking and reporting feature of a software holds significant implications for both analytics and compliance. You should be able to effectively break down the recruiting metrics into digestible segments to understand and report them back to leadership. Most ATS solutions will provide employers with the visibility they require to gain valuable insights into the hiring process.
In Conclusion
Research the pitfalls of your existing hiring process and discover which features you will need to address them. Make a list of all the solutions that offer features to meet your needs and requirements. Then schedule a demo of those solutions to check whether the software suits your business Finally, invest in an ATS solution that best suits your present and future requirements to improve productivity and achieve business objectives.
“The opinions expressed by BizWitty Contributors are their own, not those of BizCover and should not be relied upon in place of appropriate professional advice. Please read our full disclaimer."
