Recruiters, hiring managers, and anyone else in involved with recruiting – does this nightmare sound familiar?

Imagine an overflowing email inbox, a stack of resumes ten inches high sitting on your desk, calls to make and a long list of things to do. Where do you start? You spent last week manually posting ten different urgent job postings on the internet; now you have to sort, vet, screen, interview, and hire the applicants while you do everything else that you’re responsible for.

How are you realistically going to stay on top of all of this?

Sounds like you need an ATS

These days, more and more companies are looking to applicant tracking system software (ATS) for answers to their recruiting problems. What exactly is an ATS?

An ATS is a software system designed to provide an efficient, cost-effective recruiting infrastructure that supports your efforts to attract, review and select the best candidates for your team.

The essential purpose of an ATS is to streamline the hiring process. The best ATS systems leverage technology and functional design to give their users and applicants the most user-friendly experience possible.

Basic functions of an ATS

The basic functions of an ATS are to provide the employer with an organized, often automated recruiting support system and to improve the rate of success when sourcing high-quality candidates.

By using an ATS (instead of your e-mail inbox or the US mail) to collect applicant data, you can save a huge amount of time. The system will collect and organize information, reduce the number of lost applicants, and assist in the screening and overall search processes.

Here are some of the top features you can expect from any quality ATS:

• Applicant tracking: Automatically sort and track applicants through every stage of the recruiting process.

• Mobile functionality: 70% of job seekers now use mobile technology to search for jobs – don’t get left behind!

• Calendar and email communication: Create customized email templates, automatic responses, trackable communication logs, a shareable calendar, and more.

• Pre-screening Questions: Automate the entire initial screening process.

• Systems Integration: Link other software applications (HRIS, background checks, job boards, etc.) to your ATS.

Benefits of using an ATS

First and foremost, an ATS will save you time. When you can automate the time-consuming leg-work of manually managing resumes/paper applicants and reviewing candidates and manually creating reports, you’ll have more opportunity to focus on deeper, more strategic work. How many times have you thought about how much more you could accomplish, if only you had more time?

But the benefits of an ATS go beyond being just a time-saver. Use data-driven models, pre-screening questions, and other ATS functions to bring the most highly qualified candidates straight to the top of the stack. You can also improve communications between hiring managers and applicants and perform recruiting tasks that cannot be done effectively with manual systems – all through one system designed for easy user experience.

An ATS can also assist in attracting passive candidates. Because you’ll be able to reach and build relationships with passive applicants, you have a great shot at grabbing their attention with personalized outreach. Use an ATS to facilitate social media referrals, collect unsolicited resumes, or to provide powerful search capabilities to sift through your entire talent pool.

There’s more to the ATS than you think

If you’re considering implementing an ATS for your business or upgrading your current system, let us show you how The Applicant Manager can help streamline your hiring process. Schedule a demo with us by clicking the link below.