A lot of companies struggle with the process of hiring and running a successful recruitment business.
Recruiters in these companies are always in search of top talents but hiring being a complicated process can really make the job tougher than it already looks.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a basis if you want to run a successful recruiting process.
As a recruiter, you must be familiar with how an ATS basically works. It gets connected to all your hiring sources so that the candidates can automatically flow into your system.
What it allows the hiring team to do is easily accept all the interview requests and provide feedback on the candidates they are interviewing. However, these features of an ATS tend to differ with companies, the type of business they’re engaged in and what kind of interface or software they’re using.
For instance, there are software for recruitment agencies in the market that help recruiters in managing and visualising the candidates, has a powerful resume parser, lets you hotlist candidates in order to save time and for future references, helps in job management and so much more.
However, in case you’re not using an ATS for your recruitment agency and you’re facing the problems listed below, it’s high time you should consider switching things up.
10 signs that your company needs an applicant tracking system
Eliminate the need for paper forms, spreadsheets and save your time.
1. Your hiring is still reliant on email updates
Just like a mid-sized to a big company desperately requires an Applicant Tracking System, an outdated ATS can also serve as a huge problem. For instance, an ATS which was designed to be functional in the late 1990s will, of course, be obsolete in 2021.
Your hiring can’t be still reliant on email updates or any form of voice mails between you and other recruiters, hiring managers or interviewers in the company. If this is the case still going on then you’re supposedly going to lose out on efficiency.
It needs to be a collaborative effort and therefore here comes the role of an ATS. The ATS you’re using generally comes with both an app and a web version, thereby making it easier for communication.
It provides a social feed regarding all the hiring activities going on in separate parts of the funnel enabling feedbacks and ratings.
An ATS will make this job so much easier for you. In case you’re having a hard time gathering data from the various job and career sites including social media then you must understand that there’s an easier way to do this job.
If you get yourself an ATS it will make the job ten times easier for you. In that case, you don’t have to separately reach out to all the platforms to pool in data for your company.
All you need to do is specify your ATS to integrate with different job boards and career websites and you’re done!
3. Candidate data is all over the place
If you have no control whatsoever on candidate data and it is all over the place, then it’s time you reconsider everything you’re doing.
Using an Applicant Tracking System will basically make life easier for you as a recruiter. It will easily help you get applicants into your system so that you can rate, sort and share details with other team members. Always remember that teamwork is really important and you can’t be the only person dealing with everything.
Once you hire someone into your company, you don’t have to manually enter his or her details into the company records.
This is time-consuming and to outsiders might even look naive and unprofessional.
Don’t travel back and forth with information, rather have it in one place and make the job seem like a piece of cake for everybody involved.
Always remember that times have been changing and the recruiting market has become more candidate-centric. Candidate experience is really important in driving a recruitment process.
So when you start delivering a really modern and an easy process of hiring to your candidates then it automatically starts providing value to both your company and your applicants.
It makes the entire process smooth and organized. Through job posts, email communications, application forms and much more, it helps build upon your employer branding during a candidate’s journey.
5. There are interview blunders
If you commit blunders during an interview process, not only will it weaken your employer branding but also have a negative effect on your company’s image.
As a good recruiter, you need to be compliant with the company’s policies and any non-discriminatory laws.
So when you actually use an ATS it automatically helps keep interview blunders in check. Remember well that if interview blunders keep happening time and again it can lead to some serious trouble both for you and the company you’re working for.
Therefore the easier escape would be to use Applicant Tracking Systems as they are non-discriminatory by nature and can even help you with interview questions and job posting descriptions.
6. You can’t seem to manage time well
If more than half of your time you spend sorting out CVs and manually inputting all the data into spreadsheets, imagine the vast amount of time you’re actually wasting.
You would not like to hear from your boss that your time-management skills suck right?
In that case, use an ATS that is automated and imports data to your software platform saving all that sweet precious time.
Keep in mind that an ATS also has a pre-screening approach that usually separates the husk from the grain. In other words, it actually eliminates the unqualified candidates so that you don’t have to spare even a minute on them.
As a recruiter, you need to understand the importance of time-management. With all the time you’re actually saving you can utilize it for understanding in-depth about the generated performance reports.
7. You are unable to manage any lead generation, sourcing or relationship activities
As a recruiter, if you don’t know from which social platform or career sites candidates are responding the most and which sites are actually driving no engagement, then you remain highly inefficient in the job you’re doing.
With a recruiting agency software which has the feature of an ATS, you can easily understand the source of your candidates, which website is driving them to your job postings and also helps you find the best candidates for your hiring decision.
With easy management of all the lead generations, sourcing and relationship activities, it can get integrated directly into the HR employee base.
Always remember that an outdated ATS can also cause you similar problems to that of a company which doesn’t use one.
8. You are desperately searching for cost-effective measures
Did you know that the average hiring cost in a mid-sized US company is actually $3000-$4000?
This is actually quite high.
However, once you start using an ATS, this cost can be effectively reduced. So how exactly will you be saving up on money? Your company will save money on advertising including the cost of paying a recruiter or an employee for the time they are giving in sorting resumes.
Employee turnover is reduced when you start employing high-quality candidates satisfying both you and the other person. Thereby using an ATS can turn out to be an amazing cost-effective measure.
9. You can’t seem to thin out the candidate pool
An ATS is usually mobile-friendly. Apart from detecting live links as a virus it also reduces your workload by thinning out the candidate pool with a set of minimum requirements, work experience, relevant skills, cognitive assessments and so on.
Your pool of candidates can actually increase by 40-45% with the help of an ATS. A lot of candidates drop out on filling up application forms because of its length and you can actually reduce this drop-off rate by reducing the amount of time it takes to fill up an application form (i.e. less than 20 minutes).
If you can’t seem to wrap your head around thinning out the candidate pool then it’s about time to get yourself a recruitment agency software.
10. Productivity & efficiency is going down the drain
If productivity and efficiency are going down the drain then isn’t there something wrong going on? After all, what your boss wants you to do is be the above. As a recruiter, if you’re unable to make a proper hiring decision and can’t optimize the entire recruitment cycle, then you’re failing.
But using an ATS can solve this significantly. It helps you look into areas where you’re wasting time and where indeed you should be paying more heed. It positively affects you and your job and also promotes a collaborative process.
It is easy, quick, accessible and so much more right under your nose. In case you’re trying hard on improving productivity and efficiency then Application Tracking System is the way to go.
Applicant Tracking Systems have been known to make your life as a recruiter easier and more manageable.
Schedule a demo with Recruit CRM today!
Also, don’t forget to tell us in the comments if your company is also suffering from this crisis.
