An applicant tracking system is an HR tool for businesses that are looking for an efficient method to improve the recruitment process of their company. It allows companies to automate and streamline their whole hiring process, especially for small to medium-sized businesses, where the biggest bottleneck can be finding and retaining ideal employees for various positions.
Features of Applicant Tracking System
- Quickly post job applications on multiple job boards. A good applicant tracking system will offer the ability to one-click post job requirements.
- An applicant tracking system allows you to store every applicant’s application in a centralized location. Misplacing resumes and applications will never be an issue again, which used to be common with traditional recruitment methods.
- It allows you to filter out the applicants that are least relevant for the position and offer you only the best matches.
- Your hiring managers will be able to schedule interviews easily.
- It offers automated email responses as well, which helps reduce the workload on your hiring managers. This is especially beneficial for organizations that receive a lot of applications from candidates.
- It offers detailed insights about your recruitment process with the help of analytics, which can be beneficial to hiring managers to determine the qualities of the process.
3 Major Benefits of Applicant Tracking System
Reduced Time
In general, a business can take up to 40 days to recruit an employee, from posting job requirements on various platforms to onboarding the employee. With traditional methods, there is no guarantee that you will find the ideal candidate during this period, which leads to businesses compromising on the quality of candidate for the position.
Since employees are the core part of any business, it is essential to choose the right employee for any position. With an applicant tracking system, the time to hire is significantly reduced, since most of the processes involved can be automated, such as job posting, filtering candidate applications, responding to an application, scheduling interviews, etc.
When most of the repetitive tasks are automated, your hiring managers will have a better time finding the right candidate in the shortest amount possible. Additionally, an applicant tracking system allows you to create talent pools, which saves time for your hiring managers to find an ideal candidate in future.
Reduces Cost
The next important aspect of the recruitment process is the cost spent on hiring a new employee. These costs refer to the amount spent on advertising on different platforms, recruiters, referrals etc.
Investing in an applicant tracking system allows you to reduce the overall cost per hire by automating repetitive tasks that would require multiple human hours to finish. More work hours would mean more time to complete the process and spending more money on the resources.
Since the applicant tracking system can help you maintain a talent pool, it reduces the time spent on finding ideal candidates the next time a position is open. You will also be able to identify the right location where your ideal candidates would hang out, which further reduces the overall time.
For example, if you know you will find the ideal candidate on LinkedIn, there is no point in posting job posts on other platforms or spending money on other job boards.
Quality Hire
A bad recruit can set your businesses back significantly. A bad performing employee can hurt the overall performance of the business. Not only will it reduce the performance of your business, but it will also increase the cost and time you will need to spend on finding a replacement for the position.
Have you ever thought about why it is so hard to hire a quality candidate? According to research by ERE, top candidates are gone within ten days. This is why you either need to speed up your overall recruitment process or invest in a tool that will do it for you.
Since the applicant tracking system reduces the time-per-hire, you will have a better chance of hiring top-quality candidates. Further, lack of communication can also be a significant factor in missing out on the right candidate. With an applicant tracking system, you can set up automated email responses which ensure better communication and candidate experience.
Closing
Should you invest in an applicant tracking system? The short answer is yes if you are facing challenges with your hiring process. Evaluate what hiring challenges your business is dealing with and invest in the best recruitment management software that every company should have.
