Applicant Tracking System A to Z Guide for Employers
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What is an Applicant Tracking System?
What is an Applicant Tracking System? If you need an answer to this question, you've come to the right place!
An ATS is a platform that organizes your hiring process by filtering and routing applicant information.
It also serves as a database and stores all information about applicants who have applied for your open position.
For example, an ATS can store contact information, resumes, cover letters, etc. It can also help you plan interviews and follow-up.
An applicant management system offers questions to your potential applicants.
These questions often relate to level of education, knowledge of some programs, years of experience, and willingness to relocate.
You should have the ability to add keywords that will help your ATS select the most suitable applicants for your company.
After an applicant answers these questions, they can upload their resume and other work samples.
In short, if a candidate's resume matches the keywords you added, you'll receive a notification!
Applicant tracking software is an essential part of any hiring process.
That's why we created this simple ATS guide to answer all your applicant tracking system questions!
Do you need an ATS?
First, you should determine whether your company needs an ATS.
To help you with this task, we've created a handy checklist of 10 indicators that you should consider an applicant tracking system.
You can review the things on this list and see how many of them apply to your business.
If you can relate to most of the points listed, you are ready for an ATS!
ATS Benefits
Running a business is challenging. That’s a fact.
When you add the recruiting process to all that hustle and bustle, it can be confusing.
Many hiring managers report that at least 50% of applied candidates don’t meet the required job qualifications.
So, that means a large number of employers need to deal with irrelevant job applications.
Luckily, that’s where the applicant tracking system kicks in.
This software is programmed to scan numerous relevant candidate features.
For example, it can search for keywords, prior employment, college records, etc.
Here is a list of ATS benefits for you to get a better picture:
- Save time with automated job posting and pre-screening
- Help you reach out to better candidates
- Provide you access to a pipeline with quality applicants that applied in the past
- Keep your hiring process standardized
- Help you keep track of the hiring laws
- Give you better chances of employee retention
- Offer you a more personalized candidate experience
How to Choose an Applicant Tracking System?
Choosing an adequate applicant tracking system is essential for your business. So, it’s good to know what options are available.
The main question is do you want your ATS installed on your server or hosted.
So, here are two options.
SaaS
Today, most ATSs are overtaken by SaaS (Software as a Service), a cloud-based service.
There are various benefits of using this kind of approach.
- You can access it from anywhere where you have WiFi
- There are no rigid server expenses
- The vendor is responsible for the software update
- You don’t need an IT department
Open Source ATS
This is another applicant tracking system option.
The main advantages:
- It’s free
- You can manage it to your wishes
But, having an open-source ATS comes with a catch.
You would need to take complete care of the software, even rewriting it to adjust it to your company’s needs.
So, that requires tech savviness or an entire IT team on your side.
So, if you don’t know how to do everything by yourself, you would need to spend money to pay for assistance.
What All You Can Do With an ATS?
Manage Candidates
It’s not uncommon to feel a bit overwhelmed with a bunch of piled-up candidate applications.
But, one of the main benefits an applicant tracking system can bring to your company is candidate management.
So, this means you don’t have to bother with organizing your candidates within a spreadsheet or rummage through emails.
An ATS uses resume parsing technology and provides you with more specific candidate information, like work experience and education history.
The other handy candidate management perks are pre-screening questions.
This way, an applicant tracking system can offer you a list of qualified job applicants and filter out irrelevant ones.
Candidate management becomes much easier and more fun when using an ATS.
You won’t need to organize anything by yourself. A quality applicant tracking system keeps all the information in one place and accessible whenever you need it.
Manage Hiring Process
It doesn’t matter if you run a large or small-sized company.
You should manage and plan your hiring process.
With the help of an ATS, managing the hiring process shouldn’t be hard. Think of recruitment as a funnel. You often have a few steps that lead to a job offer.
Applicant tracking systems are designed to keep the hiring funnel going and make sure you don’t lose valuable candidates within it.
By having a clear vision of your hiring pipeline, you and your team can work in harmony.
That means you probably won’t need to search tons of emails and lose candidates’ feedback.
That’s handy!
Manage Interview Process
Interviews often come later in the hiring process, and they tend to be quite interesting.
But, they seem to be the least automated segment of recruitment which can lead to poor performance.
A good thing is that an ATS can help you out with this part of the recruitment too.
If you wonder how it can assist you, read on!
An applicant tracking system can help you organize your interviews by providing you with a wholesome view of the candidate. This means any company can have a more structured way of approaching an applicant.
Typically, most ATSs integrate with Gmail and Outlook calendars.
So, this way, candidates can be informed about the location and time of an interview promptly.
I like long hiring journeys – said no candidate ever.
One of the main issues regarding the interviewing process is prolonging the hiring cycle.
So, an ATS can help you create shorter hiring by providing you with a tool for quick response.
Plus, an applicant tracking system should inform you about the number of applicants in each hiring stage and warn you if some of them are left unnoticed for days.
Use Integrations
The significant ATS benefits are its integrations.
An advanced applicant tracking software often provides integrations with other programs.
So, that adds to the handy moment.
Besides adding your job postings to numerous job boards, you can gain a lot by using integrated apps.
For example, a quality applicant tracking system can ease your work by giving you an option to use popular programs such as:
- Slack
- Gmail
- Asana
- InvoiceBerry
- Mailchimp
- Typeform
- HubSpot
- Zoom
- IceHrm
What to Look for in an ATS?
Analytics
Having the proper recruitment strategy is essential.
But, to implement it correctly, you should use hiring analytics.
Applicant tracking systems can help you out track KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), such as:
- How much time to fill
- How much time to hire
- Number of qualified applicants per hire
- Number of interviews per hire
Performance
Before you opt for an ATS for your business, check out some reputable review sites, such as G2, Software Advice, GetApp, and Capterra.
Here, you can read real users’ reviews about software and get more in-depth information about your next applicant tracking system.
Also, you can check chosen ATS vendor’s social networks for some additional data.
Security
Security is an essential part when choosing your applicant tracking software.
So, before you opt for an ATS vendor, consider asking the following questions:
- Does the ATS have regular security testing by a well-known third party?
- Does the applicant tracking system provide a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?
- Is there any information about ATSs historical uptime percentage?
- Is there DDoS mitigation protection available for the ATS?
Data Control
Having data insight and ownership is crucial for any business.
So, before you choose an ATS, check the privacy policy/terms and conditions.
These can vary from vendor to vendor, so it’s essential to get into details before picking an applicant tracking software.
Also, check if there is an option to export your data if you change a vendor at some point.
Functionality
It’s good to check the functionality of your potential ATS.
This means ensuring you can search candidates by name, headline, tag, work experience, education, or skills.
Also, it would be good for search to collect information from resumes, cover letters, and summaries. It’s good to know what kind of search an ATS support offer.
Customization
As we previously mentioned, there are two main types of ATSs.
The SaaS (easy to use but lacks customization) and Open Source ( customizable but less user-friendly).
So, if you want a super-customizable applicant tracking system, you should consider Open Source. But, have in mind, that this often requires an in-house developer role.
But, whatever ATS type you opt for, try looking for ones that enable customization of:
- Job Description Templates
- Customizable Screening Questionnaires and Scorecards
- Email Templates
- Customizable Team Cultures
Applicant Tracking System Checklist
Having reliable applicant tracking software can save you a lot of time and money in the long run.
So, it’s essential to do detailed research before you choose an ATS for your business.
That’s why we created a handy checklist for you to compare your applicant tracking system options.
