To salespeople and other frontliners who have to interact with people outside of the organization regularly, the work of the Human Resources (HR) Department may seem less stressful and less fraught with problems. After all, they are only dealing with internal customers, right? But that perception can be the furthest from reality. The job of HR personnel can, in fact, be multi-faceted and quite demanding. They have to deal with a million and one details every day, such as developing ways to engage the workforce, strengthen relationships, train new employees, and find creative ways to retain talent. There is one area that can be exceptionally challenging, and that has to do with hiring the best people and matching them with the right jobs.
Fortunately, innovations in technology now enable HR teams to snag the best pool of talents through highly sophisticated applicant tracking systems. Today, more and more job seekers are applying for posts on company and freelance websites while data management platforms are increasing in popularity among HR personnel. If you have not gotten around to using applicant tracking systems, now would be a great time to do so. Learn these applicant tracking tips to get the best pool of talents.
But first, what is an Applicant Tracking System?
An applicant tracking system is a recruitment tool used by companies to efficiently scour the best candidates for a particular job by leveraging the power of data management platforms. When an applicant sends his resume, the applicant tracking system automatically incorporates that applicant’s CV into a database. For an applicant’s resume to be seen by a prospective employer, just like how content is found in the digital space, that resume has to be optimized for ATS algorithms.
The traditional recruitment and hiring system is a very tedious process that requires large investments of valuable company time, energy, and dollars. Recruitment personnel have to go through so many resumes, and then, using human judgment, they’ll call up the qualified candidates to schedule them for interviews, which can further take up more time. It is no wonder that it can take ages to complete even just a single hiring process. But all that has virtually changed with applicant tracking systems. Let’s explore how applicant tracking systems can revolutionize the recruitment and hiring process.
How is an Applicant Tracking System Beneficial?
With ATS, resumes are collected and then processed for viewing by hiring personnel. They can then either opt to scrutinize the visible applications individually or rely on the automated ATM analysis to pick out the best-fit pool of candidates. In just a matter of minutes, hiring teams can already find qualified candidates according to their specific criteria. Aside from ensuring great matches (based on the algorithms), previous company resources are saved. In addition, the risk of depending on managers who lack the necessary skills to make good hiring decisions is also minimized. With a better selection process, decisions are made faster. This likewise speeds up the onboarding process and enables successful candidates to be productive as soon as possible. What an ATS essentially does is to make the talent acquisition process more efficient, effective, organized, and transparent. Check out how you, too, can better leverage applicant tracking systems with the following tips.
Making the Most of Applicant Tracking Systems
1. Know the needs of the primary ATS users in your company
Before you go searching for an applicant tracking system, it is important to gather insights from the people who will use it the most—your own hiring managers and staff. Each business or company has its own specific must-haves and goals and also has different resources to work with. Getting the inputs of the right people, those who are actually on the ground, will help you identify from the start what issues and challenges they have faced with regard to recruiting people. Their feedback will be invaluable in helping you pinpoint those functionalities that may help address those issues. Perhaps, they desire a simpler, more direct process in sifting through the candidates. Or it may also be possible that they want to make the hiring process for executives more comprehensive, which will necessitate a more advanced applicant tracking platform. There may be HR teams that would prefer the speedy creation of jobs as they go along (to adapt to changing circumstances), which means you’ll need a platform that can easily add jobs and adjust approval hierarchies. Whatever platform you choose, make sure that it meets the needs and key performance metrics of your hiring team.
2. Invest in the training of your hiring team
Regardless of how high-performing an ATS is, if your hiring team is not equipped to make the most of it, you will not end up losing talent to companies that have more capable recruitment personnel.
Sufficient training will help your team make the most of all the features and functionalities of your chosen ATS. This will optimize search results and truly help you land the most qualified candidates for the job. What a waste it will be if the dashboards and other reporting tools that may be available in our selected ATS are not leveraged to find the most talented candidates.
3. Strengthen your company brand beyond the ATS platform
Remember that you also have to outpace the competition. Yes, it’s not just the candidates who are competing with each other. You and your company are also duking it out with other potential employers for the best talent. This means that it's not just the applicants who have to be careful about how to appear highly attractive and be highly visible to prospective employers. You also have to find the means to outshine other companies and establish yourself as the best possible employer to work for. Leverage the power of social media to be a top employer of choice. On your company website and through various social media platforms, advertise your unique strengths as well as the career opportunities you can offer.
4. Be the employer of choice on the ATS platform
To stand out from competition on the actual platform, you need to ensure that applicants have a positive experience of the recruitment process. Given all things equal, a candidate who has a better experience with one company over another will likely choose the former. Even if you don’t end up choosing the candidate or vice versa, if that candidate has had a favorable experience with you, they most likely will recommend you to other potential candidates both online and offline.
Heighten your visibility by creating captivating job descriptions. These have to be very clear and specific, so much so that the candidates will have an accurate idea of who you are as a company. Highlight in your company profile what you can offer by way of setting a highly desirable work environment, an enviable work culture, a strong set of values, competitive haygrades, and abundant advancement opportunities.
Thus, when chosen with care and in consultation with the right people, applicant tracking tips can save you from the repetitive and time-consuming ways of traditional recruitment. However, keep in mind that tools are only as useful as the people who use them. Take the time to train your team on how to make the most of applicant tracking systems. Lastly, ensure that you yourself employ strategies on and off these data management platforms to be seen as a highly desirable prospective employer. Only by effectively communicating that you are the best employer can you land the most talented candidates.