Applicant Tracking System: Top Benefits of Using an ATS For Your Business

Finding and recruiting top talent is crucial for any business that aims to succeed and grow. However, the hiring process can often be lengthy, tedious, and inefficient without the right tools. An applicant tracking system (ATS) streamlines recruitment by automating repetitive tasks and providing key insights.

What is an Applicant Tracking System?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a software application that enables organizations to efficiently manage large amounts of candidate information and streamline the hiring process. Some critical aspects of an ATS include:

• Filtering resumes is based on predefined criteria to identify qualified candidates that match the job requirements.
• Ranking candidates based on how well their skills, experience, and qualifications align with the job description.
• Tracking candidates as they progress through the different stages of the hiring process.
• Facilitating collaboration between recruiters and hiring managers by allowing them to leave notes and feedback against each applicant’s profile.
• Improve efficiency by automating routine tasks like scheduling interviews, sending communication, and generating reports.

How does an ATS work?

Most ATS solutions follow a similar workflow comprising the following high-level steps:

Resume Filtering

The system automatically scans all incoming resumes to shortlist candidates whose skills and qualifications match the job criteria. This initial screening is done by parsing resumes for relevant keywords.

Knockout Questions

Shortlisted candidates may be required to answer qualifying questions further to assess their fit for the role and organization. Candidates who don’t meet the predefined thresholds are filtered out.

Candidate Scoring

The ATS extracts relevant data points like work experience, skills, education, etc., from resumes and assigns scores to candidates based on their overall match with the job profile.

Interview Scheduling

The ATS helps recruiters schedule and manage interviews for top-scoring candidates directly from their profile pages on the system.

Communication Tracking

The progress of each applicant is tracked throughout the hiring cycle. The ATS also facilitates sending automated communication like status updates.

Reporting

Recruitment metrics and key performance indicators are documented through automated reports for analyzing hiring funnel performance and ROI.

Top Benefits of Using an Ats for Your Business

Save Time and Resources

One of the biggest challenges of hiring is how much manual work is involved. Posting jobs, sorting resumes, scheduling interviews, and tracking applicants throughout the process requires a significant time commitment. An ATS automates these routine tasks so you can spend less time on administration and more time focusing on strategic initiatives.

By eliminating the need to manually post each job on different sites, filter resumes, and follow up with candidates, an ATS streamlines workflows to save you hours each week. It also provides tools like templated job descriptions and interview questions that you can easily reuse, saving even more time. All of this results in substantial resource savings as well.

Improve Collaboration

Hiring often involves collaboration between recruiters, hiring managers, and other stakeholders. An ATS facilitates this teamwork by giving all decision-makers secure access to candidate profiles and a shared space to leave feedback and rate applicants.

Rather than emailing resumes back and forth, the whole team can view candidates in one place and have discussions directly in the system. Critical comments and notes are also stored for future reference. This level of collaboration helps ensure a consensus is reached on the best fit for your organization.

Enhance the Candidate’s Experience

A positive candidate experience is critical to attracting top talent. An ATS streamlines the application process from the job seeker’s perspective by allowing them to apply online or via mobile quickly. It also automatically sends status updates so candidates always know where they are in the process.

Other features like a branded career site, social sharing buttons, and the ability to upload additional documents make applying simpler and more convenient. A good ATS aims to provide excellent experience that leaves candidates with a great impression of your company.

Improve Hiring Insights

An ATS generates valuable recruiting metrics that offer hiring intelligence. Leaders can analyze key performance indicators like time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, application sources, etc. This data provides actionable insights into what’s working well and where bottlenecks may occur.

With these analytics, you can optimize processes, reallocate budgets, and refine strategies based on proven best practices. Over time, an ATS helps you make more informed decisions that enhance your ability to efficiently find and assess top talent.

Ensure Compliance

Staying compliant with employment laws and regulations is essential but complex without the right tools. An ATS streamlines compliance tasks like anonymizing applications, tracking diversity hiring metrics, generating offer letters, and more.

It also helps demonstrate and audit adherence to requirements. Automated tools take the administrative burden off your shoulders. And integrated reporting provides transparency to prove fair hiring practices if needed. This level of compliance support significantly reduces risk for any organization.

Scale Your Hiring Pipeline

Growing companies require scaling their talent acquisition efforts. An ATS allows you to source, qualify, and track hundreds or thousands of candidates simultaneously. Its tools for skills assessments, behavioral profiling, and matching resumes to open roles help expand your hiring reach.

Advanced ATS systems even use AI and predictive analysis to identify qualified passive candidates from external databases you may not have otherwise found. All of this together helps stock your talent pipeline with an abundance of top prospects to fuel your growth in the long run.

Integrate with Job Boards

Posting jobs one by one across different sites could be more efficient. An ATS seamlessly syncs with hundreds of job boards and social networks with just one click. This multi-channel distribution significantly expands your candidate reach with minimal effort.

Advanced systems even analyze which sources drive the most qualified applicants for specific roles. You can then optimize budgets toward the most converting options. Integration also ensures all your open jobs are constantly updated across the web for maximum visibility.

Strengthen Employer Branding

An ATS supports branding your company as an employer of choice. From a polished career site interface to personalized candidate communications, every touchpoint showcases your professionalism. Customizable templates and design elements let you maintain visual consistency and voice.

You can also use employer branding features to promote company culture, values, benefits, growth opportunities, and more. All of this helps you attract suitable candidates who are the best cultural fit for long-term success within your organization.

Reduce Bias in Hiring

Unconscious biases can undermine fair hiring practices if left unchecked. An ATS promotes inclusion and reduces bias through features like anonymized applications that mask candidate gender, age, and other attributes during screening.

It also enforces consistent processes like standardized interview questions and evaluation criteria. Over time, hiring data can be analyzed to ensure equitable outcomes across all demographics. These tools help ensure the most qualified candidates rise to the top regardless of personal characteristics.

Read More: Best Video Interview Software Platforms for Virtual Interviews

Support for Remote Hiring

The future of work is flexible. An ATS equips you to hire both locally and remotely. It enables everything from online applications and video interviews to digital onboarding and offboarding.

Document e-signing, electronic forms, and other paperless features also streamline compliance. Tools like company chat and collaboration spaces even promote remote team-building. So, whether your candidates and employees are distributed globally or down the street, an ATS supports the changing nature of work.

Conclusion

As this article has shown, an applicant tracking system provides tremendous value for any organization that optimizes hiring. An ATS delivers clear benefits, from saving time and money to improving compliance and scaling pipelines. It also enhances the experience of both candidates and your hiring teams.