The process of searching, screening, and hiring candidates has transformed around internet search technology and Automation. Today, 76% of job seekers prefer to apply through a career site. With the entire workforce taking the online route to search for and apply to jobs, organizations need to stay in sync in terms of speed and efficiency.
When too many job-seekers apply for a job, sifting through their resumes and sorting out the best fit for the available role becomes a tedious and time-consuming task. While the process used to be manual in nature in the past decades, HR technology has evolved enormously. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) also referred to as Applicant Tracking Software, streamline the hiring process to a great extent. They offer numerous solutions for various recruiting goals and challenges. Needless to mention, the cost factor is also a motivator.
How Do The Market Leaders Define Applicant Tracking System
As TechTarget defines it, “An Applicant Tracking System is software that manages the recruiting and hiring process, including job postings and job applications. It organizes and makes searchable information about job seekers. As its name implies, an ATS tracks candidates through the hiring process. It helps schedule issues notification alerts and sends automated emails to candidates. But these systems are far more than organizers.”
Large companies such as Google receive about 75,000 job applications per week. Imagine the amount of work at the hands of HR managers and recruiters in the absence of a capable ATS.
Read more: 4 Compelling Reasons SMBs Must Invest in HR Technology
Source: Workable
As per Gartner, Applicant Tracking Systems automate the requisition-to-hire process. The Internet has provided vendors with the opportunity to expand solution functionality for candidate acquisition and self-service. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) model remains the preferred delivery model in this market. The market has matured, and the vendor landscape continues to consolidate.
Jobvite says, “An Applicant Tracking System is a technology that helps recruiters stay informed about their candidates’ progress through the application process. Superior ATS functionality includes the ability to centralize and track all candidate communications in a single place, as well as the ability to store, annotate, share, and search candidate profiles and resumes with ease.”
Jobvite’s ATS offering is called Jobvite Hire and, on an average, it sees its customers decrease their time-to-fill by 27%.
An ATS is a software that manages your entire hiring and recruitment process. It helps you to speed up candidate management and significantly reduce time-to-fill. From posting the job online to making the job offer an ATS keeps track of all the activity that takes place in the recruiting department – Zoho
Zoho Recruit, the ATS from Zoho HR, eliminates the task of manually entering details in the candidate database and automates recruitment process for recruiters.
An Applicant Tracking System, also sometimes called a Talent Management System, is a type of recruiting software that helps streamline the hiring process for an organization from beginning to end. It typically handles tasks such as posting job openings to multiple job boards, storing applicant data, and screening applications for potential matches. An ATS may also allow recruiters to comment on and rate applicants in a single database, so everyone involved in the hiring process can easily collaborate – BambooHR
BambooHR offers an integrated ATS as part of its cloud-based HR platform.
iCIMS, Indeed, CakeHR, and SAP SuccessFactors are some of the well-known Applicant Tracking Systems across the globe. Also, Workable is a perfect choice for small to medium scale companies with 1-1000 employees on-board.
Read More: What Is HRMS (Human Resources Management System)?
Why Use an Applicant Tracking System?
- Speeds up the recruiting process. The time to hire improves significantly.
- Reduces bias that would otherwise creep in if candidate profiles are sorted manually.
- Improves the quality of hire. It is so much easier to let the software screen the skills of the applicants from their resumes and select the most relevant candidates for the next round. Furthermore, quality hiring improves employee retention.
- Provides improved candidate experience across the entire recruitment cycle.
- Build a high-quality talent pool. The candidates who couldn’t make it to the next round for some reason may be suitable for a certain position arising sometime in the future.
- Allows advanced decision making by providing higher management with advanced reports.
- Smoothens HR communication and collaboration.
Features of an Applicant Tracking System – What to look for in an Ideal ATS
To make the job easier for recruiters and hiring managers, any ATS should offer the following features:
- Integration with other HR software
- Mobile recruiting options
- Automated resume screening and parsing
- One-click job posting option to various job boards and social media platforms
- Seamless collaboration and communication between team members
- An easily searchable database of applicants
- Easy interview scheduling
- Interview kits and assessment papers
- Automated e-mail/text templates
- Ready to use templates for various HR functions
- Detailed reports and HR Analytics
Every feature of an ATS is designed specifically to make the recruitment process smoother while providing a great candidate experience at the same time. It can help analyze and improve the hiring process for organizations of any size. It is debated that candidates may actually be put-off by the lack of human interaction in the first few steps of the process, but the stats speak otherwise. Investing in HR software is definitely a recommendation for modern-day hiring, and ATS forms the base of it.
Read more: What is HR Automation?