What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?
How does an ATS system work?
An ATS (Applicant Tracking Software) helps you manage your end-to-end recruitment process from sourcing to hiring and helps automate your organization's recruiting and staffing operations. Here's a complete ATS recruitment overview for you to get started easily with the software and learn how to reduce your time to fill an open position.
Here's a simple overview of Zoho Recruit's ATS for recruiting agencies and corporate hiring. Source the best talent in real-time, track resumes, engage with candidates, interview efficiently, make data-driven decisions and never miss on a great hire.
Why people choose ATS system
Talent competition is fiercer than ever, and it’s never been more difficult for recruiters to find the right talent. Times like these call for hiring managers to adapt to a solution that completely streamlines the entire hiring process. Introducing the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), a software solution that helps source talent assess potential, track interview processes, evaluate performance, make offers, and hire. All of this, with the right set of report insights and analytics.
Applicant tracking system process
How to select the best Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
Finding the right Applicant Tracking Software can be mind-boggling even for the most organized and tech-savvy recruiter. Whether you're recruiting for your own company or multiple clients, choosing the wrong software can be detrimental to your brand, as well as a waste of time and money. Focus on these main points to select the best ATS for your organization:
Know your budget
Before selecting an ATS, keep in mind the purpose you're trying to solve. Are you getting the real value for a high-priced solution? Find out the basis on which the product is priced—the number of user licenses, job postings, and other candidate management details because these are the factors that ultimately impact your purchase decision.
Map out your workflow
No two businesses are the same, nor are their hiring needs. Every company has a unique way of moving applicants through its pipeline. Take time to understand your company's recruiting requirements before you sign up for a trial or demo. Read multiple product reviews for the registered site and product comparisons—there's never a single solution that fits all options, so choose carefully.
Evaluate Software
A lot of ATS companies claim their software to be easy to use, tailor-made solutions, but it's rarely the case. Take time and evaluate multiple recruiting software solutions. Make an ATS wishlist and determine what your solution is lacking. Take advantage of the free trials that most cloud-based software vendors offer.
Mobile Recruiting
Mobile recruiting is no longer a luxury, it's a requirement. With mobile recruiting, you can be away from your desk without being away from work. Make sure the ATS system you choose has a mobile version, so you can post jobs and connect with your candidates anytime.
Secure your data
Make sure your data is secure in the cloud. Recruitment software contains a lot of private and sensitive information for you and your company's eyes only. Make sure your ATS complies with the required Privacy Policy Framework. Also, encrypt your data using SSL or similar technologies.
Who uses an ATS system?
The current job market is as competitive as ever. For recruiters, this means jumping over several hurdles to get the job done. To meet the needs of this diverse industry, ATS cater to two markets:
Corporate HRs
As a Corporate HR, finding and retaining the best talent for your organization and crafting a good candidate experience is all that matters.
With a Corporate HR Software you can:
- Post job openings onto your own careers site
- Automate your job postings to free and premium job boards
- Use your existing workforce as a sourcing tool through employee referral
- Bring in candidates using a powerful resume parser
- Screen candidates with pre-defined assessments
- Filter applicants through skill-based candidate matching
- Run background checks
- Integrate with your HRIS system
Staffing Agencies
As a staffing agency, quickly and consistently filling job openings with the best candidates makes all the difference.
With a staffing agency software you can:
- Reach out to millions of applicants across the globe with job boards
- Parse thousands of resumes to your ATS database within few minutes
- Screen multiple applicants with pre-defined assessment techniques
- Skill-based candidate matching to find the best talent through the clutter
- Effective relationship with clients through client portal
- Send bulk emails to applicants automatically by setting triggers
- Generate reports instantly
Benefits of using an Applicant Tracking System
Discover the numerous advantages of utilizing an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to enhance your recruitment process. From speeding up hiring to improving candidate experience and reducing costs, an ATS empowers you with advanced features and capabilities. Explore the key benefits below:
Speed up your recruitment process for efficient hiring
Improve the quality of hires by leveraging ATS features
Elevate candidate experience with streamlined processes
Lower cost per hire with optimized resource allocation
Facilitate collaborative hiring through a centralized ATS platform
Boost employer brand by showcasing professionalism and efficiency
Redefine recruiting metrics with ATS analytics and reporting
Assist in finding top candidates with advanced search and filtering capabilities
Easy interview scheduling to save time and enhance candidate engagement
One-click job posting to multiple job boards for wider reach and visibility
Reduce time-to-fill positions and minimize downtime in recruitmen
Mitigate bias in the hiring process by standardizing evaluation criteria
With Zoho Recruit you get,
05
Source
boosters
55
Job boards &
aggregators
100
Pre-bundled reports
& dashboards
300
Custom fields
750
Active jobs
Key Features of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
Switching to the right recruitment system for my business.
Traditional methods of recruitment ATS are tiring and time-consuming. Advanced online applicant tracking systems have been conceptualized to meet the ends of your hiring process without juggling too many tasks. An ATS must be effective in sourcing candidates from the latest avenues that have a huge candidate pool of active and passive job seekers.
- Social Media
- Diverse Job Boards
- Everything Mobile
- Easy to apply
Having a prominent social presence
63% of candidates are actively looking for jobs on social media. This calls for having an active social media presence to constantly engage with candidates. Your applicant tracking software must be integrated with LinkedIN and Facebook so you can track and process applications from these sources.
Premium and niche job boards
Having job board integrations that are effective in fetching the right talent for the right job is a significant function of any candidate applicant tracking system. Thereby, reducing the workload of recruiters by allowing multiple job postings and tracking their progress from just one platform.
ATS that works on the go
Having a mobile application is a prerequisite, so ensure the ATS you pick has one so you get work done, even while away from your desk. Not just that, your candidates today want everything mobile, be it job hunting or application. Your ATS should have a candidate portal that helps applicants can track their job statuses.
Application process simplified
Lengthy and complicated application forms are often demotivating for candidates. Break down your forms into simple and mandatory fields, avoid asking details that would anyway be available on their resume attachments, and allow them to auto populate details from their LinkedIn profiles.
Get ahead of your competition with AI powered features
Your web-based candidate tracking system must help you identify talent by mapping their skillset and behavioural assessments, and select people that best suit your business. Artificial Intelligence is the future, and your ATS should be equipped with features that focus on candidate experience and improve the quality of hires.
- Semantic matching
- Powerful parsing
- Smart Search
Reduce time-to-hire. Increase search accuracy.
Built-in algorithms must be powered to matche key criteria outlined in job descriptions within milliseconds, no matter how expansive your candidate database is and get a complete list of suggested candidates in seconds.
Reduce manual resume segregation
Resume Parser Mapping powered by AI and proprietary algorithms helps you standardize and align the parsed resume structure to the form supported by your organization. It should allow you to map the respective fields in the parsed resume to your ATS. Reduce manual resume segregation with powerful resume parsing.
A search that is smart and refined
Being recruiters, you have to deal with huge chunks of data on a daily basis. And sifting for a particular profile through this would be a challenging task. Your ATS must be able to provide you with a search that matches keywords with records across modules and display corresponding results.
Does it pass your mandatory ATS checklist?
Choosing the right recruiting software for your business could come a long way in reducing manual work for your hiring team, help automate tasks, find better hires, ultimately reduce time-to-fill.
- Easy-to-use
- Efficient
- Economic
No surprises. Only functionalities.
Your ATS must be easy to set up, easy to understand, have guided product walkthroughs and associated user guides.
Completely reliable and fast.
Your ATS should be customizable, should seamlessly integrate with most essential applications, automate hiring workflows, without compromising on the operational efficiency.
Complete value for money.
Your ATS should not burn a hole in the pocket. Always assess your free applicant tracking system, try their trial edition and only then decide. A good software solution at an affordable price is a significant factor to be considered.
Best practices of Implementing Applicant tracking system (ATS)
So, you've decided that it's time to implement an ATS, and you have chosen a provider. What's next? The following best practices will help you find the best hire for your company or client and ensure you use your ATS successfully.
Think beyond job boards
While job boards are great for finding active job applicants, reaching out to passive candidates via employee referrals and social networks will help you establish a respected employment brand.
Keep the lines of communication open
Candidates are always a great source for referrals. Stay in constant contact with potential hires all through the recruitment process.
Use Your Website for Recruiting
Your website portrays your vision, mission, values, goals, and products. It is also effective for recruiting employees who resonate with how you represent yourself on your site.
Use automation for repetitive tasks
Automated recruiting tasks and workflows increase recruiter productivity, accelerate time-to-fill, reduce cost-per-hire, and improve the overall talent profile of your company.
Improve your search accuracy
Search thousands of resumes from your database using matching algorithms within a few seconds. Select the most relevant candidates for each job opening matching the job description and skillset of the applicants.
Start growing your team with Zoho Recruit
Zoho Recruit is both a powerful recruiting application and a cutting-edge applicant tracking system that streamlines your hiring process. Source the best talent faster, track resumes and interviews efficiently, and never miss out on a great hire.