When it comes to recruiting, time is of paramount importance.
A LinkedIn study states that top candidates are typically off the market in 10 days. This leaves a small window for companies to attract talent before they are lost to competition.
In fact, a drawn-out recruitment process is a serious problem. It not only has a negative impact on business productivity and revenue but also on existing employees’ engagement and company reputation.
So, what can you do to speed up your hiring process?
Here, the Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) comes into the picture. It helps maintain and organize all aspects of the recruitment process, giving you better control over your hiring. Using an ATS, you can drastically reduce the time it takes to fill an open position.
In this blog, we will discuss how an ATS can streamline your hiring process and make you more competitive in the current hiring environment.
Let us first understand what exactly an applicant tracking system is.
What Is an Applicant Tracking System?
An applicant tracking system is an application used by companies to manage and convert their hiring into an efficient and scalable process. It is designed to automate the process of tracking job candidates, including receiving, reviewing, and storing resumes and applications.
ATS software can also help companies identify and track the most qualified candidates, schedule interviews, and manage communication with applicants.
How Does an ATS Streamline the Hiring Process?
ATS tool helps you improve your recruitment process by automating repetitive tasks and reducing manual efforts. The software makes it easier for HR teams to keep track of their open positions and applicants. It also helps recruitment teams to build a database of interested candidates. And those candidates further can be nurtured and onboarded for future requirements. With a streamlined engagement process, ATS prevents applicants from falling through the cracks.
This section highlights different ways an ATS can improve and accelerate your hiring process:
One-Click Job Posting
The applicant tracking software will save you all the time and effort you spend on posting your job ads. It lets you upload your job openings on various job boards and social media platforms with a single click. This not only broadens your reach but also assures that top talent sees your available positions wherever they are.
You also do not need to set it up manually by logging in to individual accounts on each social platform and posting the job. It also helps you track each applicant through each platform and the results generated from each post separately. The software will collect analytics from each platform and compile them for you.
Resume Screening
Everyone agrees that it is daunting for recruiters to manually screen every application for a new opening, given that each job offer receives on average 250 applications.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) automates the initial screening of all applications by employing resume parsing technology to match candidates to job requirements. Those that do not match the basic requirements are rejected, while the others are ranked based on qualification indications.
This helps recruiters avoid wasting time with candidates that do not match the basic criteria.
Centralized Database
Applicant tracking tools help recruiters stay organized. The software collects and stores resumes in a database and help the recruiters stay organized. It automatically creates a profile for each applicant, allowing recruiters to view, evaluate, and manage all applicants from a single dashboard.
The software also keeps track of candidates from various job boards and monitors new candidates. An ATS software keeps all this in a single location, which makes it simple to find what you are searching for in each candidate.
Interview Scheduling
Streamlining candidate communication is a crucial component of any effective hiring strategy. Maintaining communication with dozens of applicants usually becomes a headache. But with the help of an ATS, you can ensure that no candidate falls through the cracks.
An applicant tracking system software includes built-in features that will assist you in keeping track of communication records and organizing your calendar. You will be able to easily schedule interviews within the platform and send reminders to all participating parties. That means you do not have to worry about missing a call or leaving an applicant waiting when it comes to interviewing schedules. These powerful scheduling integrations keep everybody in the loop from beginning to end.
Team Collaboration
Applicant Tracking Systems come with amazing features that facilitate collaboration between HR, recruiting staff, and hiring managers. HR teams can easily and instantly share ratings and notes on every candidate and facilitate a collective decision-making process.
This can be enabled via real-time messaging, activity logs, workflows, and calendars so everyone, regardless of role, stays on track, is accountable, and stays informed and up to date.
Analytics and Reporting
Measuring your company’s recruitment process is time-consuming, especially if you manage the e ntire process manually. It becomes even more difficult if your company is still using old recruiting practices and technologies.
A modern ATS can provide an overview of all the metrics and KPIs for a recruiting program like time-to-hire, sourcing channel analysis, job position reports, and recruiting funnel status via a wide array of customized reports and enterprise-level dashboards.
Conclusion
Improving your company’s recruitment process and creating an incredible candidate experience has never been easier. But with the help of the ATS tool, you can hire the right talent at the right time. Applicant tracking systems are an important part of recruiting automation that companies need to adapt to enable better and faster hiring.
