A RECRUITER S GUIDE TO APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEMS

Transcription

1 A RECRUITER S GUIDE TO APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEMS

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 INTRODUCTION 4 WHY AN ATS IS AN ESSENTIAL RECRUITING TOOL 5 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ATS AND A CRM 6 6 FEATURES THAT AN ATS SHOULD HAVE 7 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATIONS 8 4 STEPS TO IDENTIFY YOUR ORGANIZATION S ATS NEEDS 9 WHERE TO LOOK FOR AN ATS PROVIDER 10 QUESTIONS TO ASK AN ATS PROVIDER 12 KEY TAKEAWAYS, ABOUT CATS, ABOUT OUR ATS 2

3 INTRODUCTION Recruiting is rarely easy or simple. Often it is a time-consuming process, as it takes an average of 36 days to fill just one open position, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. For that reason, it is essential that recruiters utilize technology to help streamline their recruiting process to ensure that they can quickly and efficiently source top talent. Designed to automate the recruiting process as well as dramatically reduce the time-to-hire, the applicant tracking system (ATS) has become a cornerstone for many organizations recruiting. As it is such an important tool, it is essential that you choose an ATS that meets all of your organization s unique recruiting needs. This can be a daunting and stressful challenge; however, it doesn t have to be. This guide provides information to help empower you to choose the ATS that s right for you. 3

4 WHY AN ATS IS AN ESSENTIAL RECRUITING TOOL At times recruiting can appear to be organized chaos with resume tracking, detailed candidate notes, numerous appointments and interviews, and offers to manage. Trying to handle each of those responsibilities day-in and dayout can be taxing. Fortunately, applicant tracking systems were designed to ease that burden by automating timeconsuming repetitive tasks and dramatically reducing the time-to-fill. In addition, applicant tracking systems are able to provide your organization with the five following benefits: An ATS Helps You Be More Productive Each day, you most likely have numerous tasks that you need to complete in order for you to meet your needs as well as the needs of your clients. With an ATS, recruiters are able to automate manual and repetitive tasks, enabling them to spend more time establishing meaningful relationships with candidates. What s more, you are also able to keep track of each interaction you have with them, so you are able to continuously build rapport no matter how much time may pass between your interactions. An ATS Leads to a Better Quality of Hire Simply put, the goal of a recruiter is to quickly find the ideal candidate for their candidate. An ATS makes that process easier by enabling you to conduct granular searches within your databases for specific skills and experience levels. In addition, as your repetitive tasks will have been automated through the ATS, you will have more time to establish meaningful relationships with candidates, allowing you to learn who would be an ideal fit. An ATS Provides Greater Insight into Your Recruiting Efforts Each recruiter has their own unique process from sourting to placing. However, the success of your process process should not only be based on having a candidate progress through each step. Rather, the success of your process should be in how efficient each of its steps is. An ATS enables you to closely examine your process in order to identify methods and practices that are inefficient. After identifying any potential roadblocks, you are able to make the necessary changes to improve the efficiency of your recruiting process. An ATS Supports Scalability As an organization grows adding to the candidate database and acquiring more clients its needs will also change, and an ATS should accommodate as well as encourage that growth. No matter how large an organization may get, an ATS will enable it to integrate new tasks into its recruiting process, quickly search through the candidate database and connect with candidates without disrupting its established processes. An ATS Improves the Candidate Experience For as time-consuming and labor intensive as the recruiting process can be, the job hunting process can be just as involved and stressful for candidates. An ATS can make the experience as simple and painless for candidates as well by quickly parsing their resume into an application and sending them updates as to where they are within the hiring process. 4

5 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ATS AND A CRM Fostering meaningful relationships is one of the central tenets of recruiting. While an ATS enables you to fill out candidate profiles and keep detailed notes on them in a candidate database, it may not always be the most effective tool in building a lasting rapport with clients. For that reason, some recruiters also choose to use a customer relationship management (CRM) system. A CRM enables you to create a database of contacts, clients and companies to ensure that you are constantly aware of potential opportunities. Even though an ATS and CRM can exist independently of one another, they can sometime share key features. For example, a robust ATS can include some CRM features that would enable you to quickly search your candidate database for ideal candidates to fill available opportunities effectively allowing you to better manage your relationships with both candidates and clients. 5

6 6 FEATURES THAT AN ATS SHOULD HAVE An ATS is a long-term investment in how you intend to manage and grow your recruiting. As it is such a significant decision, you need to be confident that whichever ATS you choose will have a comprehensive set of features that will set you up for success and enable you to gain a competitive advantage. Automation In general, the process for recruiting a candidate for any position involves many tasks some of which need to be completed several times throughout the process. Handling each of those tasks for just one candidate can be time-consuming, but recruiters never have only one candidate to manage. And, with a full candidate database, completing all the necessary tasks for each candidate can leave you with little time to form meaningful relationships with them. For that reason, it is essential that an ATS is capable of automating time-consuming recurring tasks (such as scheduling interviews and meetings, and sending out s) to enable your recruiting process to be more efficient and help you build a rapport with your contacts. Customizability Even though every recruiter follows nearly the same general process, each one has their own unique methods of doing so. Often, these methods have been refined and honed to the point where they become almost like muscle memory. An ATS should complement and supplement those unique methods rather than force a recruiter to adopt unfamiliar methods, which could have a noticeable impact on their success. Customization helps to ensure that your process is quick, adaptable and effective providing you with a competitive advantage. Yet, while varying degrees of customization are often available in an ATS, few provide the ability for in-depth customization. For that reason, it is important to choose an ATS that can adapt to your unique process. Mobile Functionality Recruiters are often on the move and if an ATS is tied to their computer, it can be difficult to remain productive and informed while traveling. While recruiters may not always travel with a computer, they surely have their smartphone on them at all times. With mobile access to an ATS, recruiters are able to quickly respond to inquiries with up-to-date information and communicate with their team. Calendar Sync with a Meeting Scheduling Tool For most recruiters, their calendar is an invaluable tool that helps ensure that they are able to keep their commitments with clients and candidates. Yet, if an appointment is not in their calendar, it may as well not exist. Which can unfortunately happen if they get distracted between setting a time and date, and entering it into their calendar. For that reason, it is important that an ATS is capable of synching with your calendar, so that you can be sure that each of your appointments is recorded. However, some calendar sync features are more robust and enable you to share your calendar with candidates effectively eliminating the headache of the meeting scheduling process. Additionally, a meeting scheduler would enable you to complete several necessary tasks, including communicating with candidates, and scheduling meetings and interviews simultaneously. Sourcing Tools At times, finding the ideal candidate can feel almost as challenging as finding a needle in a haystack. However, with the proper tools, that challenge becomes much easier. For recruiters, these tools enable them to conduct granular searches across several different job boards to quickly identify specific skills and years of experience necessary for the position. Each ATS has its own collection of sourcing tools, so it s important to identify which ones it has, what they can do and how they could benefit your recruiting process. Browser Extension Filling your candidate database can be a time-consuming process, and if you re doing it manually one that is prone to mistakes caused by human error. However, an ATS can provide an easier and more efficient method. With a browser extension, you are able to quickly parse candidate and contact information directly from popular professional sites and social networks into your database. 6

7 THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATIONS An ATS should complement and strengthen your recruiting process, and that includes integrating with all your other necessary digital tools. By working with your other applications (such as , personal calendar and job boards), your ATS is able to further streamline and automate your recruiting process. That s why it is important to not only choose a robust ATS but one that is also capable of integrating with all the digital tools that you need to succeed. 7

8 4 STEPS TO IDENTIFY YOUR ORGANIZATION S ATS NEEDS Choosing an ATS that meets all of your organization s unique recruiting needs can be a daunting and stressful challenge. To make that process easier, follow these four steps: 1Review your current recruiting process and identify any weak areas. This could include tasks that you spend the most time on or that you still complete manually. 2Identify what ATS features that you would benefit the most from. In addition, consider what areas of your process could be automated. 3Set a budget, which should include the initial cost, recurring costs and the cost per user. 4Conduct research to identify which ATS most matches your recruiting needs and schedule a demo. 8

9 WHERE TO LOOK FOR AN ATS PROVIDER Investing in an ATS is a significant decision both financially and professionally, which is why you may find it beneficial to get a second opinion from your peers and industry professionals. However, ATS can be a broad category that includes software specifically designed for HR recruiters and review sites don t always clearly differentiate the types of recruiters that a particular ATS would serve. For that reason, it is important that you are as specific as possible when conducting your search. To help you find which ATS provider fits your needs, use the following review sites: Capterra - Provides free, thorough software comparisons G2 Crowd - A peer-to-peer software review site Software Advice - Provides research and user software reviews 9

10 QUESTIONS TO ASK AN ATS PROVIDER After you have identified one or more ATS providers that you would like to contact for more information, you should begin preparing a list of questions that you would like to ask them. These questions should provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the ATS provider and its product. While you don t have to ask all of these questions, consider choosing ones that you feel most strongly about. Questions About Existing Clients and Users How many active clients and users do you have? What is the average size of recruiting firm that uses your ATS? How many users do your top three clients have? Questions About the ATS How does your ATS compare to your competitors? Is your ATS customizable? If so, how is it customizable? Can you create custom workflows? What features do you plan on including in future updates? Questions About ATS Candidate Management Does your ATS provide a dashboard view? If so, what sort of widgets are available? How does your ATS track and record interactions with candidates? Can you schedule to receive specific notifications from your ATS? Can you have your ATS send candidates specific notifications? How safe and secure would my client and candidate data be in your ATS? Questions About Sourcing Candidates How easy is it to parse a candidate s resume? How does your ATS browser extension improve or streamline the sourcing process? What type of search does your ATS support boolean, keyword, fielded, etc? Would the ATS enable me to conduct job board searches? Can you describe the source tracking capabilities, including features such as tags and reporting? 10

11 Questions About ATS Features What features does your ATS offer? How often do you upgrade or add new features? When was the last time you added a new feature? What features are available with each plan? Questions About ATS Integrations What job boards does your ATS integrate with? Does your ATS have integration? Does your ATS have calendar integration? How often do you add new integrations? When was the last time you added a new integration? Questions About ATS Performance Can you describe how scalable your ATS is? How often do you roll out system updates? How are users notified? What browsers does your ATS support? Does your ATS have mobile functionality and/or access? Questions About Data Migration How much does the data migration process cost? Can you describe your data migration process? Is there any type of data that cannot be converted? How long does the average data conversion process take? Questions About Implementation Can you talk about your training process for how to use your ATS? Do you offer training on an ongoing basis? Can you talk about your support services? 11

12 KEY TAKEAWAYS Choosing an ATS is one of the most significant decisions that you may ever make for your recruiting and it should not be made quickly. After reviewing this guide, you should be able to successfully complete the following tasks: Review your recruiting process and identify areas that could be improved through the use of an ATS. Research ATS providers. Schedule a demo with ATS providers and ask them pointed questions. ABOUT CATS CATS is an applicant tracking system (ATS) designed for professional staffing agencies, search firms and internal recruiting teams. Founded in 2006 by recruiters, CATS provides nearly 6,000 professional recruiters in over 50 countries with a competitive advantage by enabling them to tailor the software and develop customized workflows to fit their unique hiring process through a clean, accessible user interface. ABOUT OUR ATS and calendar integration: On average, 56 percent of recruiters spend more than a full working day scheduling interviews for a single vacancy. CATS links to your existing and calendar to help eliminate all the headaches associated with scheduling. SMS capabilities: Send candidates text messages directly from the ATS. Marketing text messages have an open rate of 98 percent, while only has an open rate of 20 percent. Customizable workflows: Create custom statuses and assign prerequisites to any of them to ensure no step is missed in your unique hiring workflow. What s more, you can schedule events, create tasks, or send personalized s when a status changes. Browser extension: Source candidate information from popular professional sites and social networks such as LinkedIn, Monster and CareerBuilder directly into your candidate database CATS Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Visit catsone.com Call (952) sales@catsone.com