Applicant Tracking
Applicant tracking systems (ATS) and recruitment management software are becoming increasingly popular for larger organizations that hire and recruit many people for their company. Though it may be easy for some smaller and medium sized enterprises to keep track of their recruits, they too have found that ATS has helped increase their productivity and improve their organization.
ATS for Small Businesses
It is proven that even small businesses can benefit from using applicant tracking or recruitment management software. Many products on the market offer affordable hiring management solutions for organizations and companies that want a centralized recruiting process but do not have the needs or budget for a large and expensive talent management system. Though the management of resumes and other materials could be done by hand in a company that has less than 50 employees, hiring managers can still benefit from the saving time and eliminating risk of data entry error. Many providers of ATS software often offer affordable packages for smaller sized businesses, allowing them to tailor the features and tools offered by the software to best fit their needs.
ATS for Enterprises and Large Businesses
It is basically impossible for large-sized companies or enterprises to keep track of resumes, documents and information when they have hundreds of open positions throughout each year. With multiple interviews to hold and thousands of resumes to review each day, hiring managers and human resources staff can get overwhelmed with the amount of information being presented to them. Applicant tracking systems are so vital to the organization and efficiency of the recruitment and hiring practices of large businesses that they are essential to have in place. The software has the ability to organize files, scan documents for keywords or phrases, create email contact lists to keep in touch with applicants, and manage all extended offers and selected applicants for interviews.
Applicant Tracking and the Recruiting Process
The recruiting process can be a long and arduous task for human resource managers, and keeping track of all of the potential employees’ information requires great organizational skills. Some hiring managers find that their filing cabinets are overflowing with paperwork, their email inboxes are full of electronic resumes and documents, and they have an always increasing stack of papers on their desk. This makes it hard to keep organized and stay focused on bringing in the best applicants for an interview. ATS help simplify the recruitment management system so hiring managers can have time to thoroughly review each applicant’s qualifications.
Many of the data entry and record keeping tasks can be streamlined with the implementation of an applicant tracking system which can take care of everything from creating applicant profiles online to setting up a branded web page that lists all available positions within an organization. With this software in place, any and all applicants’ information and documents can be stored in this database and hiring managers can easily review and sort applications based on set minimum qualifications. Many ATS software packages come with tools that allow hiring managers to set up logs for non-selected applicants to keep their information in the database, logs for interviews and offers extended to applicants, or detailed reports that help improve hiring decisions. Staff in human resources can also set up automatic emails and notifications to be sent out to applicants as a follow-up, notice of materials received, or to say thank you for applying for a particular position. Many applicant tracking software systems also provides a search function, so that resumes that fit any profile can be easily extracted from the database and hiring managers can get in touch with prospective employees faster.
Saving time by utilizing the tools available on applicant tracking software can allow human resources personnel the opportunity to concentrate on other important aspects of their jobs. Hiring managers can set aside more time for interviews, so they can really get to know the applicant and see if they would be the best fit for their organization, or they can reserve more time to researching training and continuing education courses for their current employees. Applicant tracking is an important aspect of a hiring manager’s job, but it should not take up all of their time. With applicant tracking software, simple but time consuming tasks can be streamlined, allowing human resources staff to work more efficiently and productively.
Main Benefits of Applicant Tracking
- One central location for all documents, resumes and information to be stored.
For applicants, data is either collected from internal applications via the ATS front-end, located on the company website or is extracted from applicants on job boards and is stored in one database where hiring managers can view and track information.
- A lot of options for installation.
Many packages are available as open source or SaaS systems and also as a package service requiring physical installation.
- Powerful functions.
Some platforms have the ability to perform keyword searches so hiring managers can scan documents to find the most eligible applicants based on skills, qualifications, education, or geographic location.
- Modern outreach.
Social hiring with the increased use of job boards and social media such as Indeed, Simply Hired, Facebook, and Twitter, allows companies using ATS to publish jobs directly to these platforms, without having to manually input all of the data on each page.
- Constant contact.
Email blasts keep the human resources office in communication with applicants, but doing it manually can be very time consuming. With ATS, hiring managers can send updates and keep in touch with those interested in employment at their company.
