Just as many people embrace technology to find a “best match” for just about everything today, companies are also turning to software to recruit “right fit” hires.
Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software solutions have reset the recruitment landscape, redefining and transforming many important, time-consuming HR tasks in recent years.
If you’re new to ATS solutions, they help recruitment managers and teams speed up, simplify, standardize, and finetune their search for right-fit candidates. Integration-wise, an ATS can be installed in PCs or on the cloud for remote access by owners and authorized colleagues.
Key tasks include the ability to:
- Manage job postings
- Sort through applications from prospective employees rapidly
- Screen and identify the most qualified workers
Processing the initial screening of all job applicants is the primary key role of ATSs.
While all resumes and cover letters were once read by hiring managers, most large companies, and a growing number of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) now utilize ATSs to perform this role quickly, efficiently, and more effectively.
Major time-saving and effectiveness benefits are provided by advanced software that can screen high volumes of candidates and identify best match job seekers to a specific role.
This is achieved by an algorithm that compares their skills and talent with the requirements of an open role.
ATS the HR industry-standard platform
In addition to making a difference on the recruitment front, ATS solutions are also streamlining onboarding processes to get incoming employees familiarized faster with the responsibilities of their new roles and the culture of a company.
ATS adoption is also sweeping the world.
A recent press release issued by MarketsandMarkets, a leading B2B research, and analysis company, predicted that the global ATS market size is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.7% to reach USD 3.2 billion by 2026 from USD 2.3 billion in 2021.
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ATS features and options
As ATS technologies have developed and matured, more diverse and specialized solutions are available to companies and organizations now.
HR leaders can analyze and weigh up the benefits of competing packages across several benchmarks including cost, accessibility, and most relevant features to their enterprise.
Large corporations, for example, will demand an ATS solution to “heavy sift” through the large volume of applications received (often in the hundreds or thousands) to find a strong candidate list based on specific skills and experience needed to match the company’s business and culture.
Whether a company is big, medium or small in size, when it comes to choosing an ATS solution, hiring managers can enjoy the following features:
Career page hosting is your ‘shop window’ to potential candidates. ATS solutions enable you to host an attractive branded site to display career pages where open positions are posted on your various platforms.
By streamlining the career page setup process, hiring teams can spend more time sorting and matching candidates instead of updating external job boards. Among Manatal’s many useful features is how it allows companies with small recruitment teams - or perhaps those with no career page - to set one up directly through the system.
This feature allows recruiters to customize their own career pages, with attractive visuals and great content to give applicants a more nuanced view into life at your company.
Job distribution saves time in terms of informing potential candidates of new roles. ATS solutions utilize a job distribution system to post information on all job boards in one go – no more posting jobs one at a time on relevant sites.
Manatal’s job board integration allows teams to post job advertisements across multiple job boards and social media channels and receive applications from various sources at once. This streamlining of job distribution and applications creates a faster recruitment process, and saves time.
Application organization sorts and organizes prospective hire applications to find the best-matched people for the role – the ATS enables hiring teams to put candidate applications into one portal to allow hiring decision-makers to sort and filter applicants faster.
Collaboration tools are essential to make the hiring process faster and simpler for all parties. ATS collaboration tools allow hiring team members to be across every stage of a candidate’s application – the tools enable them to be aware of and track important deadlines, to-do tasks, and other milestones. This is one of Manatal’s most effective features - particularly for recruitment teams that have to work closely with hiring managers and line managers - when time is limited.
Calendar integration keeps interviewers and interviewees on the same page regarding interview times and dates, and updates throughout the hiring process. This is done by integrating calendar applications that allow managers to track the availability of their hiring team members and applicants to find convenient interview times for all.
While there is a common misconception that ATS solutions are for large corporations only, it’s a wrong perception because ATS offerings will benefit any organization involved in hiring, and the next section looks at how they enhance recruitment best practices for SMEs, staffing/temp agencies, and recruitment agencies.
ATS benefits for SMEs
Small and medium business owners can streamline their hiring processes with an ATS solution to achieve positive outcomes in performance, speed, operations, applicant engagement, cost and time savings, and more.
Especially if they are still using spreadsheets to manage and oversee their processes. An ATS will reduce the hassle, time, and resources used to monitor and respond to emails, scan CVs, book interviews, handling documents and functions such as:
- Accepting, storing, and sorting CVs
- Screening and ranking resumes based on set parameters
- Managing a careers page
- Customized emails and automated responses
ATS solutions provide a convenient and efficient way to better manage the many steps involved in recruiting. So no more lost emails, paperwork, printouts, or forgetting to attend an interview and sending follow-up messages.
Time is a precious commodity for all business people, but especially for SME owners, who often double or triple hat in terms of responsibilities and functions. With an ATS solution, jobs can be posted to relevant job boards instantly, they can also automatically send letters to people who were not considered.
The ability to store, share, and access information with other team members is another important consideration. Manatal steps up in this area by enabling all applications to be received in one place.
So, while you can advertise a role on multiple channels, all applications will be sent and collected in one place – the database of the ATS. With a robust applicant database, you can even start your next recruitment process here first – the ideal candidate may be someone who applied for a role before.
An ATS like Manatal also allows you to create an affordable, eye-catching, and easy to manage careers page as used by bigger companies. Like them, you can effortlessly post and publish your jobs to relevant job sites to cast your talent net further and deeper.
Most ATS platforms are also mobile-friendly to help you reach a broader range of candidates in their preferred channels of choice – the ones they are most likely to search and respond to job offers.
And in terms of resources, Manatal better enables small and medium businesses to run a paperless office. They also allow their HR staff to spend more time on new priorities to boost their efficiency and productivity, without increasing the headcount of the HR team. SMBs can also save money that may have been used to pay a recruitment agency.
Simplicity is a must for all businesses, but especially for SMBs who may lack a full-time IT person or team to their IT systems.
As for ease of use, Manatal’s ATS offering is hard to beat.
Operational within 15 minutes, it provides SME managers and teams with powerful features such as AI recommendations, a wide range of customization options, job board integrations, and much more.
AI recommendation scans the unique educational, and work experiences of all candidates, to create a shortlist of the most suitable candidates in your database
Manatal also provides a unique automated enrichment feature that allows customers to efficiently and comprehensively review candidates using social media and data integration. Its powerful AI tools can browse the web - extracting information from over 20 social media platforms – to provide a deeper, more comprehensive profile of the candidate.
7/7 online support is also provided to Manatal customers wherever they are – you can read more about Manatal’s customer assistance here, and Mantal’s pricing packages - that begin at $15 per month - here.
The Ultimate HR & Recruiter Toolbox: Browse our collection of email templates and job descriptions.
ATS benefits for staffing agencies and recruitment agencies
Red-hot competition for talent is a reality in several markets and industry sectors such as IT, today.
It’s why providing a compelling candidate experience is essential for staffing and recruitment agencies.
First impressions count
Job seekers want attractive application sites that are fast and easy to use.
For example, if they apply for an online job offer – and a pop-up message asks them to create an account and password first – they are very likely to end their application there.
The candidate drop-off rate for people who click apply but never complete an application is a staggering 92 percent according to a survey run by Appcast, a respected U.S. recruitment data provider.
Reverse the drop-off trend
To address the “drop off” challenge, the latest ATS solutions simplify, and personalize the way recruiters greet, and engage, with applicants virtually.
Recruitment chatbots, for example, can be used to provide answers to commonly asked questions from applicants on pay rates, required skills/experience, company culture, and more at any time convenient with them. Chatbots offer a user-friendly way to keep candidates interested and engaged.
In light of the ongoing pandemic environment, making your application site as mobile-friendly as possible is also important because job seekers prefer to find, and apply for jobs via their phones today. So, if you are still running a legacy system designed for desktop users, you will be left behind in the talent race.
Make candidates feel valued
Communication is another vital factor. No response, delayed follow-up messages, or an inability to connect with recruiters is a major turn-off for job seekers – poor, or zero post-application feedback leaves a bad taste in their mouth.
New ATS solutions provide an easy way to send timely messages to keep applicants in the loop and feel valued. Recruiters can program automated updates to cover application steps and the status of the application. They can also be reminded of these, and track notification progress with dashboards.
Positive, proactive communication with applicants (whether they are successful or not) is highly recommended. Ongoing, relevant dialogue with applicants shows that you care – this matters because candidates will remember how they were treated and can share these experiences on many channels today.
Streamline recruitment systems and optimize outcomes
Jobseekers demand a user-friendly, responsive online application experience, and Manatal’s cloud-based recruitment and applicant tracking software is built to optimize the recruitment process and outcomes.
In short, it’s a terrific and affordable option for HR departments and recruitment and staffing agencies.
Featuring tools to enhance performance in key facets such as candidate sourcing, customer relationship management (CRM), AI-based recommendations, candidate profile enrichment, compliance (GDPR, CCPA, PDPA), team collaboration and communication, reporting and analytics, task management, a complete API, and more, it’s a near-complete package offering an array of benefits.
Recruiters can, for example, maintain an up-to-date client profile quickly, easily, and centrally with the recruitment CRM solution. Aggregation and easy accessibility allow recruiters, sales professionals, and others to collaborate more, communicate directly about client tasks and maintain a record of communication for future reference.
Manatal’s solution also simplifies the conversion process, especially tracking leads with its recruitment CRM tool that enables users to maintain a record of their active leads (at various stages) through a conversion pipeline view.
Sharpen your edge
While large corporations were the first to embrace ATS solutions, they no longer have a monopoly on the technology, nor the automatic first pick of candidates in the market because ATS offerings are now available for businesses and agencies of all sizes.
Even though SMEs may feel as though recruitment software is over the top for their needs, ATS solutions are essential to staying competitive in the hiring game.
For many SME managers and teams who have many responsibilities on their daily business plate, hiring tasks will no longer slip through the cracks – an ATS helps to reduce errors and make the process of finding talent faster, smoother, and easier for all stakeholders.
ATS solutions will also help staffing and recruitment agencies to maximize their resources and talent to make a bigger splash in the hiring field. Especially in the area of building candidate relationships in the near, medium, and longer-term – a critical factor as the chase for talent in certain sectors intensifies.
You can’t know until you try, so if you are currently running a legacy recruitment system, we invite you to start a 14-day Free Trial today (no credit card required) to discover how Manatal will ramp up your efforts to find the best and brightest job seekers on the market today.
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