As we’ve discussed in two previous articles, using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) helps driving a much more efficient recruitment process.
Companies that continue to manually manage and screen CVs are wasting precious time that should be spent in engaging with the best candidates in order to hire top talent. Centralising all the candidates’ information in one single platform and performing an initial screening of the incoming applications to signal the best prospective candidates are just some of the major benefits an ATS can offer.
Driving an efficient recruitment strategy highly depends on the ability of a company to implement more streamlined and agile processes that enable recruiters to focus and spend more time on what matters the most: engaging with top talent.
Having in mind that a job offer receives on average 250 applications, from which only 4 to 6 candidates move on to a face-to-face interview, it’s easy to understand why an ATS comes in handy. Here are some of its major benefits:
• Reduction of time spent with administrative tasks; • Better and Faster CV Screening; • Pre-Employment Assessment Integration; • Collaborative Hiring Facilitator; • Overall Improvement of Quality of Hire; • Recruitment Cycle Reduction; • Better Cost Management; • Employment Brand Boosting; • Candidate Experience Enhancement.
But when the time comes to choose and implement an Applicant Tracking System you may find yourself overawed by all the solutions out there in the market.
It’s important that you have a clear idea of which features you need to improve your recruitment process, so that you can choose wisely. In today’s article we help you with a list of the most added value features you should look for in an ATS.
Key Features for an Effective Recruitment
There are tools for automation of candidate categorising, ranking and communication, that any Applicant Tracking System should have. And then, there are some plus features that can really make the difference in your recruitment process’s results, that you'll only find in more advanced solutions.
- Job Posting to Multiple Job boards
Gone are the days when newspapers were the number one option for job advertising. Nowadays, job seekers look for job openings almost exclusively in the internet. Although it is easier for candidates to have access and apply to multiple offers, the truth is that it makes it way more difficult for employers to stand out from the competition. So, it’s really important to be able to publish job listings in the right places to target the right candidates. For that, you need to use an Applicant Tracking System that supports integration with the most suitable job boards and professional networks.
- Fully- Branded Career Page
To attract and engage more candidates you need a fully-branded, mobile-friendly, integrated Career Page where your job listing is automatically updated, and candidates can easily apply when and where they find it more convenient. This is not only a direct way of collecting job applications, but also a way to boost your employer brand and drive brand image consistency right from the beginning of the candidate journey.
Job boards aren’t the only place on the web where prospective talent looks for job openings. Social media is also a very good source of applicants. Thus, your company must choose an Applicant Tracking System that allows to leverage social media channels to attract more candidates.
- User and Mobile-Friendly Job Applications Forms
Most job seekers use mobile devices to search for and apply to a job, and value flexibility in the process. The easier you make it for candidates to apply, the more they’ll finish the application process. Thus, having mobile and user-friendly application forms is mandatory to attract more and better candidates.
- CV Parsing
Having a good CV parsing feature is a must, not only to help candidates apply faster, but also to organise and standardise candidates’ data on the ATS for the recruiters to review. It’s also important to allow candidates to directly upload a CV to the application form or to access and import a LinkedIn CV, for example.
- Automated Candidate Screening
It saves recruiters a huge amount of time to have an AI-based screening of all incoming applications. Applicants that don’t match minimum job requirements can be automatically screen out of the process and recruiters can focus on the best candidates. This AI- based process is more reliable and fast than manual screening.
- Personality Test
Pre-employment assessments are a great tool to help recruiters find the right candidate for a specific job, as it has been proven that personality greatly impacts an employee’s job performance. By using an Applicant Tracking System that provides an integrated personality test, recruiters can do an evidence-based recruitment, assessing each candidate’s core personality traits and whether he or she would be a good fit for your team.
- Pre-Recorded Interview
Pre-recorded video interviews also help recruiters identify in an early stage who the best candidates are, as it provides more relevant information than a screening call or a CV alone. By using a pre-defined set of questions, it’s possible to obtain structured and comparable interviews that provide a holistic view of candidates. Like the personality test, this is another add-on that allows to recruit candidates based on skills, and not CV only.
- Automated Email Communication
Candidate engagement is one of the biggest pain points in recruitment. Manually communicating with hundreds of applicants may be humanly impossible, but with an Applicant Tracking System, recruiters can send personalised mass emails to all candidates, in all the recruitment stages. This will provide better candidate experience and boost employer branding without exhausting recruiters’ time. Moreover, if you use a system that includes email templates for scheduling video or in-person interviews and provide application follow-up, you’ll save time and keep candidates continuously engaged until the end of the recruitment process.
- Custom Recruiting Workflows and Collaboration
Custom recruiting workflows and collaborative hiring processes can increase efficiency and quality to your recruitment process. So, it’s mandatory to use a customisable Applicant Tracking System that allows recruiters to set up the workflow for each job and have an easy overview of the job opening status (how many applicants received, Candidate ranking, Communication registry, etc). It’s also important that it includes collaborative features such as candidate profile rating, commenting and sharing, for the probability of making a good hire is higher when more opinions are taken into consideration.
- Candidate Database Search
Finding candidates in your own CV database is something you must demand from your Applicant Tracking System provider. Powerful searching and filtering features allow recruiters to easily do searches based on standard fields or keywords and custom tags added to the candidates’ profiles. This saves time and increases recruiters’ efficiency.
Finally, measuring recruiting activities is key to know how the recruitment process is performing and to get insightful data to help continuously assess and improve it. Hence, having a user-friendly analytics dashboard is a great recruitment management feature. Choose an Applicant Tracking System that offers a custom, interactive and real-time reports to have easy access to your numbers and deliver a first-class recruitment process.
Powering up your recruitment process to attract and secure top talent is an investment that brings an immense return. Nevertheless, you must analyse market options carefully before deciding to buy an Applicant Tracking System.
Skeeled offers you the perfect opportunity to bring innovation and digitalisation to your hiring. Check our website or our LinkedIn and Facebook pages for further information.
Thanks for reading and see you next time!
Your team here at skeeled
