10 Signs You Need an Applicant Tracking System

How do you find highly qualified individuals who fit your company culture in an ever-changing world? It has never been more challenging to attract quality candidates and keep them in the team.  

They want a better treatment and candidate experience from employers, but recruiters must also ensure a smooth onboarding and establish hybrid work and telework policies. Because of that, HR professionals might often feel they have more on their plates than they can handle. 

For instance, 90 percent say their stress became more overwhelming during the pandemic and 85 percent struggle with an increased workload. Recruiters and hiring managers face numerous challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis, including improving employee morale in hybrid workplaces and managing remote workers. 

Sadly, that’s not all. These professionals also find it hard to retain key talent, drive company culture in the post-pandemic world, and provide a good candidate experience. 

Recruitment has become more challenging than ever, and HR needs all the help they can get. Technology is a loyal ally to human resources.

It helps carry out regular activities remotely and maintain team connectedness despite remote work. Without tech, it would be much more challenging to onboard new employees, share assignments, have meetings, and collaborate. 

The Power of Recruitment Technology

So, what about tools that center around the hiring process, candidate experience, and collaboration with clients? The Applicant Tracking System (ATS) performs that role by centralizing and streamlining recruitment.

ATS simplifies the selection process and subsequent tasks by providing HR professionals with various features and functions, such as analytics, candidate sourcing, and collaborative tools. Its use is crucial for identifying top talents in the post-pandemic era and fostering engagement. 

However, not every company crossed to the digital side, sticking with manual processes and traditional methods. Many recruiters still use spreadsheets and paper documents to track their activities and measure efficiency. 

But outmoded practices hurt recruitment efforts and result in a lack of accuracy, productivity, and credibility. Yet, business and HR leaders often have misconceptions regarding the ATS or lack information that could encourage them to start using it.

If you’re thinking about implementing an Applicant Tracking System but still unsure whether you should do it, here’s everything you should know.

How ATS Works

ATS typically doesn’t require extensive knowledge or skills to implement it. However, on-premise solutions might take more time and effort to install than cloud-based.

The former requires companies to purchase a software license, and although that might provide more data security, it also means they-re responsible for maintenance. Therefore, if you choose on-premise ATS, you’ll have to manage upgrades and address potential issues.

Thus, you’ll need support from your IT employees with tech infrastructure and installations. Because of that, this approach means more responsibilities and continuous work on ensuring everything is running smoothly.

On the other hand, cloud-based software is becoming increasingly popular due to its flexibility and accessibility. It allows a higher level of scalability, and it’s more affordable.

While companies must install on-premise ATS on their servers, the provider hosts cloud-based software and takes care of maintenance and upgrades. Thanks to that, you pay only for features your business needs and can add new ones later. 

The cloud solution also doesn’t require IT support, and you can start using it right after installing it. Its simplicity makes it ideal for companies that want reliable software without investing a fortune. Moreover, it’s also a good deal for scale-ups and small businesses planning to expand in the future. 

Hence, cloud-based ATS tools simplify recruitment by removing the need to worry about software upgrades and licenses. They also don’t require training or specific tech skills.

Moreover, ATS typically has a centralized dashboard, and recruiters can navigate it smoothly. That means that you can access every feature in one place and speed up your recruitment activities. 

But this software doesn’t eliminate the human-centric approach to the hiring process. ATS uses AI to mimic recruiters’ thought processes and give authentic results. However, intelligent algorithms eliminate unconscious bias from recruitment and use facts to identify the most compatible candidates. 

On top of that, AI provides ATS tools with the speed that humans often lack due to focusing on multiple aspects. As a result, this software accelerates mundane tasks and increases efficiency, resulting in moderate workloads for recruiters and better experience for candidates.

An ATS might have different features depending on a provider, but the following characteristics are the most common.

Features That ATS Typically Has

Candidate Sourcing

The goal of most ATS solutions is to help recruiters streamline their selection process and identify the most suitable candidates faster. Because of that, they include tools that help you source quality candidates using social media extensions and centralizing your job applications in one place.

That way, you can access candidate profiles quickly and compare job opening requirements with skills and experiences from the talent pool database. Moreover, ATS usually has a candidate referral tool supporting your employee referrals program. 

Job Boards Integration

ATS streamlines recruitment by enabling HR professionals to share job postings on multiple job boards simultaneously without logging in each one separately afterward. Instead, they receive all job applications within the software, reducing the time for resume screening. 

However, recruiters have an easier time evaluating CVs thanks to the ATS screening functions. 

Resume Storage and Parsing

HR professionals no longer need to keep incoming job applications in separate folders, databases, and email messages. Instead, they can store them in the ATS and access them with one click. 

This software also keeps the selection process more objective with its resume parsing feature. AI matches candidate skills, education, location, and experiences with the job opening.

Reports & Analytics

A successful recruitment process depends on your capability to understand the efficiency of your hiring efforts and strategies. But without relevant and well-measured data, it’s hard to say what to improve.

ATS provides an in-depth analysis of your activities and initiatives. Detailed performance reports give insights into your team productivity and point to practices you should tweak. 

AI-Based Recommendations

Sometimes finding suitable candidates takes weeks and even months. That slows down the recruitment process, affects candidate experience, and often reduces the quality-of-hire.

A well-rounded ATS usually has an AI-powered recommendation engine. It suggests the best candidates from the talent pool and enables recruiters to find compatible job applicants faster and shortlist them. 

Career Pages

A good ATS should enable you to create a customizable career page and highlight your company brand. It should be easy to navigate and help you attract compatible job seekers.

That way, people can apply to your job openings directly, and you’ll receive job applications in the dashboard. Thus, ATS usually allows making custom application forms and templates. 

Team Collaboration

Internal and external communication is critical for successful recruitment and engaging candidate experience. ATS takes care of this aspect by providing team chat, email integration, and tools that help you share data with specific team members. 

Moreover, it usually includes Customer Relationship Management software, enabling you to foster regular collaboration with your clients. 

Task Management

ATS has tools that help you manage your time, keep a moderate workload, and remember meeting dates and locations. This software typically lets you create To-Do-Lists, track activities in a calendar, and receive reminders about events. 

Customer support

Most ATS solutions offer customer support and help you if you experience issues with the software. Thanks to that, you can count on professional assistance and be confident that the provider has your back. 

If you’re unsure whether these features would help your recruitment process, here are the indicators you need an ATS.

10 Signals Showing You Should Have an ATS

1. Your Recruitment Process Takes Too Much Time

If you’re dissatisfied with the time your team takes to hire candidates, perhaps they need help to speed up their activities. Recruitment can be highly challenging, especially if you look for job applicants for hard-to-fill positions. 

Recruiters often waste time sharing available vacancies on multiple job boards. Thus, they must open each employment website separately to check new job applications.

But these job boards typically have different mechanisms, requiring your team to copy and paste the same job description many times. Having an ATS would allow you to share the same vacancy on various employment websites and receive all incoming resumes in your dashboard.

That way, you would reduce the time-to-hire, spend fewer resources, and help your recruiters be more efficient and less stressed.

2. You Must send Your Marketing Campaigns to Candidates and Clients Separately

Although many companies still rely on spreadsheets and email to track the recruitment process and communicate, that could hurt your hiring efforts. It’s tiring and time-consuming to send the same material to different parties and log into email every time you receive a message.

ATS enables you to share data with multiple persons simultaneously and receive all messages in a centralized dashboard. Thus, you can use team chat to avoid using two platforms simultaneously. 

You can also share content in the ATS and decide who can see it. With the roles and permissions option, you can provide access to managers only or share information with the whole department.

3. You Can Only Use Recruitment Software in the Office

If you implemented hybrid work like many high-performing companies or chose telework, you need technology employees can access anywhere and anytime. But if you still rely on manual methods (e.g., Excel, spreadsheets, paper data storage) or on-premise software, you probably struggle with slow processes and communication. 

Cloud-based ATS solutions allow you to access the dashboard regardless of your location if you have internet access. Thanks to that, your team can work from home and in physical offices without losing data and progress. 

4. You Want to Improve Your Career Site but Aren’t Sure How to Build It

Every thriving company needs an attractive and informative career site that encourages candidates to apply for job openings. That’s also the first impression you’ll make on your future employees. 

A career site is among the core elements of your employer branding and should help you reach suitable job applicants that fit your company culture. Hence, if you want to improve yours or create a new one but don’t know how to do it, having an ATS gives you this benefit.

You get access to easy-to-make career sites you can customize and highlight your brand. 

5. You Want to Increase Your Talent Pool

Many HR professionals struggle with a talent shortage and find it challenging to reach new candidates. That can be even harder if you have no tech advantage and don’t know where to start looking for new job applicants.

ATS includes tools that allow you to share your marketing and job campaigns on social media and import information from public profiles. Thanks to that, you can target your audience and connect with like-minded and skilled candidates. 

6. You’re Hiring Headhunters and External Recruiters to Streamline Your Recruitment Process

Although external recruiters and headhunters are a stellar solution when you’re recruiting for hard-to-fill roles or hiring multiple employees at once, you should avoid using them for every job opening. Entry-level and mid-level positions are typically not as demanding as C-Suite, and you can trust your time with this assignment.

However, if you genuinely want to streamline your recruitment process and ensure it works, you need efficient technology. ATS fits this description because it provides a hiring pipeline that’s easy to navigate. 

You’ll get all the features you need for intuitive and fast recruitment, ensuring your recruiters can accelerate the selection process and get the best results. 

7. Your Recruitment Team Struggles with Data Analytics and Decision-Making

If your team is continuously struggling with performance and decisions regarding recruitment activities, feedback, and candidate evaluations, they need help. After all, it’s often challenging to decide the most relevant metrics and track KPIs. 

That’s even harder in a team with various recruiters without a centralized communication platform. ATS provides reports and analytics that help recruiters understand if their efforts fail to produce good results.

Thus, they’ll understand what they should enhance and how to do it. Team chat and a centralized dashboard make it easier to communicate and have all data in one place. 

8. You Had High-Quality Candidates in the Past, But They Weren’t Suitable for the Job Opening. Now When They Are, You Can’t Find Them

HR professionals often rely on email for communication with candidates, but it’s hard to track numerous conversations and memorize hundreds of names. Hence, messages with many qualified job applicants might get lost over time, affecting the talent pool. 

You might encounter stellar candidates that are unsuitable for a specific job role. But they might be a good fit for another job opening in the future. 

If you can’t remember their names or where you contacted them, you might lose the opportunity to fill the vacancy with a highly compatible job applicant. ATS keeps all conversations in one place and has an advanced search tool, allowing you to find candidates who applied months or years ago.

9. You Want to Analyze Your Job Openings but Have No Tools That Would Ease the Process

Although you’d like to understand details concerning your job openings and determine relevant metrics to discover what’s working and what needs tweaking, you have no tools for that. ATS allows you to analyze your vacancies separately or together. 

You’ll know how many candidates you have in the pipeline for each job opening, how many you hired, and how productive your teams were in the process. 

10. You Want to Make a Sales Report and Measure ROI Across All Team’s Recruitment Efforts, but Don’t Know Where to Start

You want to identify your recruitment bottlenecks, track revenues, and create a sales report but aren’t sure how to do it. ATS provides tools that enable you to monitor your sales funnel, track team results, and measure ROI, helping you make well-informed decisions. 

How ATS will Evolve in the Future

Continuous improvement of ATS tools is among the best aspects of implementing this software. You’ll get access to numerous features, but as technology evolves, so will the Applicant Tracking System. 

AI will continue expanding the possibilities of this tech and automating manual processes. ATS will also become even more mobile-friendly and will resemble social media networks. 

For example, a candidate profile will look more like a detailed portfolio than the database most platforms use today. That way, recruiters will have a more authentic look into their job applicants’ stories, experiences, and skills. 

Moreover, candidates might even get the option to upload their pictures to the ATS and elaborate on their resumes. This software will likely improve its predictions and analytics, enabling it to suggest past shortlisted candidates right after recruiters add a job opening to the platform. 

The UX/UI will continue evolving, becoming more intuitive and personalized. Thanks to these changes, more companies will implement ATS in the future and use it to streamline their recruitment process. 

ATS continuously improves and provides new features, ensuring that it keeps up with the times and tech transformations. Its functions will likely double in the future, turning it into an essential element of efficient hiring processes.

For instance, Manatal ATS listens to feedback from its users and uses it to provide better characteristics and experiences for clients and job applicants. It already offers numerous features that turn recruitment into a seamless procedure, such as candidate screening, in-depth analytics, reports, CRM, and collaborative tools.

If you want to discover more about Manatal ATS and how it could benefit your business start your 14-day free trial today!