Attracting, hiring, and retaining talent is central to any business, and organizations are constantly searching for and adopting innovative strategies and technologies for optimizing their hiring process. An ATS can be an excellent asset for companies that want to optimize the talent management process and for efficient recruitment and obtaining the best talents. Now, most enterprises use ATS or an applicant tracking system to manage their staffing needs. So, before deciding to acquire one, let’s know what ATS is and what it can do for your organization.
What Is Applicant Tracking System
ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System. These user-friendly solutions are capable of tracking the top candidates who have applied for the open positions as well as passive prospects who the recruiters have engaged through the entire hiring process. Moreover, the software offers easy resume reviewing and interview scheduling opportunities for the recruiters. Many best-in-class Applicant tracking software possesses candidate relationship management (CRM) features and can be integrated with other systems for more comprehensive recruitment services.
The reasons these applications are getting highly popular are:
- Quicker shortlisting of candidates and better quality of hires
- Streamlining the Recruitment Process
- Less time spent on repetitive and administrative tasks
- Integration of HR, recruitment, payroll, and other processes
- Better candidate experience
- Improved Cost Per Hire
- Better hiring decisions and more
The Features of the leading Applicant Tracking System
Applicant tracking tools and systems are essential for converting premium prospects into new hires. But not all the applicant tracking solutions are the same. When looking to onboard such software, companies must consider their recruiting process carefully and select an applicant tracking tool that can support their recruiting team well.
Most companies look for the following features when investing in an applicant tracking software:
Intuitive and easy-to-use UI
An easy-to-navigate user interface is an essential feature for an applicant tracking solution. It enables recruiters to access the screens and information, using filters and other ATS features more quickly. In addition, it should instinctively guide the users to the options helping them to accomplish their tasks and duties faster. Also, visually compelling user UI helps to elevate the user experience.
Resume and application reviewing features
Recruiters often have to go through a pile of applicant resumes, and it is a tedious task to find the relevant profiles among them. But these applications can sort applicant resumes automatically, faster than the human recruiters, and find the most suitable candidates to hire. The selection of profiles is entirely free from human bias and errors. Also, it helps accelerate the hiring process and improves the quality of hires.
Posting Jobs to Job Boards
Applicant tracking software enables the recruiters to post their open positions on career portals and websites. The software can easily connect with the organizational website or the career portal and enable hiring professionals to post the jobs in a few simple clicks. Many of these solutions can also connect with popular job boards and allow their users to post their jobs directly on these job boards. Though not all but some applicant tracking software can integrate with third-party platforms. This includes LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and niche portals like Github, and AngelList, allowing their users to post their open positions on these portals.
Interview scheduling and application process tracking capabilities
Interview scheduling tasks are mostly automated with an applicant tracking system. Recruiters can arrange interviews and inform candidates and other stakeholders like interviewers easily through a single solution with a few clicks. In addition, recruiters will be able to send automated emails and alerts to the candidates and interviewers, and reminders can be generated through the applicant tracking solution.
Recruiting team can easily track each applicant and review hiring status anytime. Organizations can use the solution with all relevant information and documents in one place.
Analytics and Insights to track the entire recruitment funnel
Applicant tracking system dashboards display real-time progress and status of the recruitment process. The analytics reveals the growth hiring pipeline. It will help to review the state of the job listing, open requisitions, scheduled interviews, extended and accepted offers, and many more facets of the hiring process in real-time. Also, the software provides recruiting insights such as time to hire, cost per hire, time to fill, and many more. It helps the organizations review the current hiring process and formulate more effective hiring strategies and make data-driven hiring decisions. For example, recruiting insights might reveal that referred candidates tend to stay longer than those hired through other channels. Also, it must have the capability to export recruiting data and insights in various formats.
Candidate communication and candidate experience
Recruiting professionals must continuously communicate with their prospects throughout the recruiting process and connect well with the candidates. It is essential to bond with candidates to retain them during the hiring process and later when they join the organization. Application tracking solutions have mailing facilities with inbuilt email templates for different occasions. Recruiters can even email multiple applicants. Furthermore, the software can send automated emails, like interview invitations, generating offers, sending welcome emails after accepting the request, and other candidate communications. Many applicant tracking solutions also have facilities for digital documentation and collecting e-signatures of the candidates.
Customization and Integration with other tools
The applicant tracking solutions need to connect with key HR systems, and these solutions also need to integrate with other internal tools and applications seamlessly. Other systems should be able to access the recruiting data, and applicant tracking software should also be capable of accessing and utilizing the data from these systems. Also, these solutions must be customizable and scalable. It should be capable of accommodating the changing requirements of the organization swiftly.
Also, the applicant tracking system must be robust enough to manage the vast recruiting data and produce real-time analytics. Another major concern is security. So, it must be a reliable and secure solution that helps the organization acquire talents. So, before choosing your ATS, carefully assess the current needs and explore solutions to make an informed decision.
