Inside HR Departments, recruitment is one of the hardest tasks to master. Recruiting managers spend hours looking at resumes, making phone calls, and performing interviews in order to select the best candidates to join their company. They know better than anyone else the consequences a bad hire would bring to their company. The right applicant tracking system can help avoid this.
Making a bad hire can become a big expense (a bad developer can cost as much as $485,371.38). In other words, finding the right people can be crucial to the financial success of a company.
Applicant tracking systems help companies of all sizes find the right candidates
In order to minimize the possibility of hiring the wrong individual for a certain position, HR Managers are increasingly going beyond the traditional tools and methods to streamline and simplify their processes. This way they can attract and retain the best candidates and make the best hiring decisions. Some of the methods that are being used are applicant tracking systems (ATS). According to a report made by Capterra on the impact of recruiting software, 75% of recruiters and talent managers use some type of recruiting or applicant tracking software. It is no wonder then that Jobscan reveals that over 98% of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS.
Even though a large percentage of recruiters use ATS software, there are still those who believe this technology is only useful for big corporations that employ a large number of people. This couldn’t be further from the case.
ATSs can be used by both big and small companies, as they can be viable for even a small number of candidates. Why? All companies can benefit from automating information tracking, comparing candidates, and streamlining communication with applicants to provide a great candidate experience. It’s also a great way to save time in minimizing the time spent in small tasks, giving recruiters the time and the chance to better analyze the information and engage with the candidates. By using ATS software, recruiters can pay full attention to their candidates, assessing them in the best way possible
Technology makes recruitment easier
The recruitment industry has benefited from the current technological revolution. A large percentage of recruiters rely on modern tools and automation to streamline the way they recruit. Artificial Intelligence, for example, is gaining ground in the recruitment world, as it is one of the best ways to eliminate biased decisions and speed up the recruitment processes.
Some of the processes that are being automated are job postings, CV screening, and video interviews. By automating these processes, recruiters are relieved of their daily tasks, making their process more efficient.
Still not convinced? Here are 8 reasons why you should use an applicant tracking system to streamline your recruitment process:
1. An applicant tracking system saves you time
Count the hours you spend manually posting a job on a job board. Now add up the time you spend going through CV’s and emailing each candidate, even the ones you know that are not a good fit for the position you advertised. It starts to add up, doesn’t it?
With an ATS, all these time-consuming processes can be streamlined and automated, reducing hiring time up to as much as 20%. For example, with artificial intelligence, CV’s can be screened automatically, without bias, to filter through all the candidates. The right ATS will match all the applications you get against the job requirements you set. It will accept and reject candidates according to their suitability for the position they applied to.
2. An applicant tracking system boosts efficiency
With an ATS, recruiters can effectively manage candidates, easily tracking all the important information about them. This way, you can keep your applicant information organized so that the whole team can access it. With an ATS, you can search your own talent pool using your own desired requisites, like education, location, skills, or languages. This will make for an efficient recruitment process and data organization.
3. An applicant tracking system makes recruiters more productive
In the days before automation tools, the time spent on each task could add up to several hours, leading to fatigue and biased decisions. However, with an ATS, these repetitive tasks can be streamlined and automated. This relieves recruiters from hours of work that can be better spent engaging with the largest number of candidates in the best way possible. This will improve candidate experience and increase productivity within the team.
4. The right applicant tracking system improves the quality of hire
AI can bring many advantages to the recruitment process, one of them being removing bias from the decision process. An ATS with an AI system implemented can quickly spot the candidates that best match the job requirements and screen out the unqualified ones. This allows recruiters to focus their efforts on the top talent they find, improving the quality of hire, increasing the employee retention rate, and lowering turnover rates.
5. You can analyze data in new ways
A well equipped ATS provides analytical information to recruiters that help them monitor the most important recruitment metrics to improve their recruitment process. This can help with the identification of performance problems and key patterns that affect the processes.
Also, having access to data regarding their previous recruitment processes helps recruiters work faster at developing new recruitment processes, as they will know exactly what actions they should improve and avoid in the future.
6. Improves Candidate Experience
Candidate experience is one of the most important parts of a recruitment process and one that recruiters often tend to overlook and dismiss. Using an ATS helps recruiters improve the way they engage with candidates, keeping track of the stage of each applicant and helping recruiters communicate with applicants through integrated emailing systems.
7. Boost your employer branding
Customization and branding options are a must-have when choosing the right ATS. Candidates will feel more welcomed and engaged with your company if they apply through a page or portal that reflects the company’s image and values. This will boost candidates’ retention rate and prevent drop-outs by 40%, as applicants will feel like part of the company from the very first step of the process.
8. An applicant tracking system is effective even when you are not hiring
Using an applicant tracking system can be a great time saver even when you are not actively hiring. Instead of opening a new offer, you can search your own database upfront to see if you already have a potential candidate ready to be contacted. This will save you a lot of time, making the hiring process easier and faster for both the company and the candidate, as they were previously assessed.
The talent pool created within the software can also be very helpful in preventing turnover. With the right ATS, you can, on the one hand, reduce turnover rates by making sure you hire the right people. On the other hand, you will always be prepared to manage turnover situations, with previous candidates that you already assessed in your database.
About the Author
Cristiana Sousa is a Junior Content Writer at skeeled, a software company working in the fields of recruitment and Artificial Intelligence. As part of skeeled’s marketing team, Cristiana manages the brand’s blog and social media accounts.
Image credit: Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash
