What is an Application Tracking System (ATS) And Why Do You Need One?

1. What is an Application Tracking System (ATS) And Why Do You Need One?

3. “ ATS services do all the sifting and sorting work for you, so you can avoid the feeling of resume overload. You set up your application for potential candidates to fill out and the software will scan and separate them using a grading system that identifies the top candidates. -Mashable “

4. What is an ATS? An ATS or Applicant Tracking System is a software that assists internal HR departments of companies, recruitment agencies or individual placement consultants in optimizing and tracking their recruitment process, finding talented candidates and close more jobs. ATS helps in streamlining the job openings and the number of applications that a recruiter receives. This can be intimidating when parsing through innumerable applications manually, for a particular job opening. An ATS automates all the manual tasks thereby saving a recruiter’s precious time that can be devoted to other critical tasks like interviewing candidates.

5. Who is it meant for? An ATS is meant for recruitment agencies or HR of any organization which is engaged in recruiting candidates in large numbers.

6. Corporate HR Departments In large organizations, an ATS can prove to be a blessing in disguise in finding the right candidate at a faster pace. In fact, 75 percent of big companies use an ATS before a resume gets in the hands of a recruiter. There is evidence that mid-sized companies are also adopting this practice. ATS can assist HR of these big organizations in posting the requirements on all relevant websites and social media sites to reach out a wider pool of candidates. It is even possible for the HR to track applications received from various sources encompassing internal employee references which forms a major chunk of applications for any large organization.

7. Recruitment Agencies Recruitment agencies have multiple requests for multiple positions from various clients. An ATS helps in managing multiple jobs from multiple clients as well as candidate profiles acquired from multiple sources. What sets the hiring process different for recruitment agencies is the need for faster sourcing of candidates and a seamless process for submitting candidates to the client without much manual effort. And this is where an ATS built for recruitment agencies can make all the difference.’

8. Why do you need an ATS? An Applicant Tracking System can help recruiters in many ways. Given below are some of these benefits:

9. 1. Sourcing More Candidates One of the most important tasks of a recruiter is to gather as many resumes as possible within the stipulated time. An ATS can help in this process by providing multiple ways of sourcing candidate profiles easily. For example, RecruitX lets you source candidates from job portals and Linkedin in one click through its Chrome extension. Just click on the “add” button in the extension the moment you see a profile and the candidate is parsed and added to your RecruitX dashboard. Can sourcing candidates be simpler than this? 2. Shortlist Candidates The ATS helps you track and update each applicant, assess whether the candidate is the right fit for the job or not. The system has been designed in such a way that you can have a custom input forms. For example: If one needs a list of candidates with a particular skill set with an experience that calls for the candidate to have worked in multiple platforms and in a particular country, the ATS will help you achieve this in no time. It can also help with pre-screening questions and response tracking.

10. 3. Aggregating Resumes A job opening is not only posted on sites, sometimes it is sent to the recruiter directly. Some resumes which have been received in the past and have not been shortlisted earlier are perched safely in the folders of the desktop/laptop. With ATS, rummaging through these folders manually is not required. With an ATS, you would have all your resumes nicely organized in your candidate pool. You can then add any of these candidates easily to a new job within seconds. 4. Candidate Communications The ATS tool enables tracking across all communications exchanged between the candidate and the recruiter. Right from scheduling the interviews to on-boarding of the employment, the recruiter can refer back to any email communication without the need to check emails, which otherwise gets buried amongst hundreds of others emails. Not just that, an ATS will also help you send bulk emails easily saving you lot of time and effort spent otherwise on reaching out to each candidate separately.

11. 5. Managing Subcontractors Sometimes the need to subcontract the hiring process to a vendor is inevitable. This calls for a dedicated module to manage the submissions of candidates from these vendors. Thus, enabling the audit trails and avoid confusion that may pop up due to human error. ATS helps in vendor management efficiently enhancing not only the experience but in building the relationship with the vendor for future transactions effectively. 6. Data Analysis and Metrics A good ATS has the ability to pull data that gives an insight on the efficiency of the entire recruitment process – how many jobs were closed on time, how many jobs were not, how fast was the recruitment cycle, how many candidates were communicated with and when amongst others. The good thing about using a software for your recruitment is that you don’t have to do guesswork when it comes to tracking the process and its efficiency. The software does it for you 24X7.

12. 7. Holistic Approach Without an integrated system, the hiring experience is sure to be a nightmare for recruiters and the candidates alike. With ATS, the need to update different software for different needs is eliminated. It serves as a single point update for all your recruitment needs. Simply put, an Applicant Tracking System automates the recruitment process. It enables the selection process to be analytical and assists it in a variety of ways. Its efficiency results in the elimination of unwanted steps in the process and automation of steps which are mundane and repetitive. If you are a busy recruiter handling a large number of jobs manually, it’s high time you signed up for an ATS.