It’s a well-known fact that the first and most important step of getting a job interview is surviving the stage where the recruiter glances through a candidate’s resume and within a fraction of a second takes the decision of the capabilities and potential of the candidate. Most commonly known as the Resume Monitoring or Resume Filtering stage, which undoubtedly needs a lot of concentration and understanding. Talking about the companies following the conventional methods, recruiters go through each and every resume along with the applications closely, monitoring and analyzing each one, and then further streamline them and call selected candidates for personal interview. It is definitely a complicated task which requires immense analysis and a lot of time.
But since technology has evolved and is getting involved in each and every aspect of our lives since the last two decades, companies have developed a quick and efficient technological remedy for easing out the recruitment process too. Nowadays almost every company filters job applications and resumes using an Application Tracking System before a person actually goes through any resume.
What is an Application Tracking System?
An Application Tracking System is a software that basically handles the recruitment process electronically by filtering, organizing and streamlining the job applications. An Application Tracking System simply reduces the complexity of the recruitment process by providing a simple centralized platform to publish jobs on the paid and free job posting sites, view applicants, track their progress through the hiring process and filter based on their qualifications. The filtering of applications can be based on various criteria like:-
Keywords used
Skills needed
Former employers
Years of experience
Educational qualification
In today’s fast-paced world, digitization is eliminating the role and importance of pen and paper-based task which definitely saves a lot of time and various other relevant resources. ATS was basically designed to do the same for the hiring process.
So if you are a business owner, the leader of a company or an HR manager, here are 10 Undeniable reasons why having an ATS is a must-
1. Customizable
Every business has different needs when it comes to various important aspects of a candidate like qualifications, skills, ethics etc. Also, the methods and processes adopted by various business in different sectors differ in many ways.
An Application Tracking System provides a customizable and configurable platform to different business to make their individual hiring preferences and processes easy.
2. Better integration with an intuitive user interface
Application Tracking Systems can be specified to integrate with different job boards, career sites, and social media platforms. The integration with social media can also be used for content marketing strategies. A good ATS has a user-friendly interface which is quite easy to operate and use.
3. Enhanced candidate experience
Candidate experience is something which is important for establishing and maintaining the reputation of a company. Some of the recruitment issues that tend to drive potential candidates away are a long application process, zero engagement with the recruiters, absence of a mobile-friendly application etc.
4. The increased pool of relevant applications
The conventional recruitment methods included receiving tons of applications out of which some were not even relevant to the job posting. Since an ATS filters applications based on relevant keywords, when a job is posted the ATS automatically eliminates the applications which do not have the specific keywords mentioned in the job posting, saving a lot of precious time of the recruiter.
5. All hiring information and applicant’s data in one place
Managing the applicant’s data from different platforms is a difficult and time-consuming task. For instance, getting a job application as a mail and all the relevant qualification certificates in the form of hard copy, matching them and analyzing them takes up a lot of time.
With an ATS one can easily get, sort and rate applications or forms and further contact the candidates. All the data is gathered in one single place.
6. Make interviews a better experience
An interview is considered to be the most important step in any recruitment process. Since an ATS provided with a wide range of information about the candidate’s past, skills, likes dislike all in one single place, if he is to be called in for an interview, it becomes very easy to create a customizable interview format which can bring out the best in the candidates.
7. Saves you a lot of time
The main objective behind designing an ATS was to save the most valuable resource any company could have, that is, time. It took a lot of time to filter among the tons of resumes and applications manually and then make decisions accordingly. But ATS has made this whole process time efficient by focusing on applications that fulfill the vacancy criteria.
8. Cost-efficient
The hiring cost for any position in a company through various job portals and recruitment websites is massive. By implementing an ATS, a company can make its hiring process quite cost effective by saving money on various job portals, advertising for the job opening, or even paying to some recruiter.
9. Improve your company’s image
Usually, potential and talented candidates have a tendency to work for companies that are technologically advanced, updated and most importantly is efficient. Since an ATS allows recruiters to communicate with the candidates at every stage of the recruitment and increase understanding, therefore it helps to keep the candidates interested in the company and hence sets it apart from every other company out there.
10. Helps you get the perfect fit for a job
Getting the right person for the right job is a very basic requirement for the working system of any company. Having an ATS as a recruitment companion, the probability of getting this right person increases significantly. Having a right person, working in the right position can help boost employee retention.
