Hiring applicants is one of the most intimidating tasks of recruitment. Hundreds and hundreds of candidates apply for one job posting. To sift through these hundreds, efficiency and speed become essential. Everyone continually seeks to streamline hiring processes. Thus, the growing need for an effective solution has been at the forefront. An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a comprehensive solution that enables a company to streamline its recruitment processes. It reduces the viewing of job postings and resumes reviews up to the candidate interaction or hiring decisions.
Let’s see what different benefits an ATS brings to your business:
- Simplification and improvement of the recruitment journey
- Savings of valuable time
- Overall improvement of the candidate experience
What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?
An Applicant Tracking System is an electronic recruitment software aimed at helping organisations manage the recruitment process efficiently. It is designed to be a central source for dealing with job applications, resumes, and applicant communication. ATS makes such areas of hiring simpler and automated wherein posting jobs, parsing resumes, screening applicants, scheduling interviews, and tracking candidate movements across the recruitment life cycle occur. An ATS protects the HR team from untimely procedures, minimises the requirement for effort, and makes it hassle-free for both recruiters as well as applicants.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is today’s game-changer in modern recruitment because it streamlines the entire hiring process as effortlessly as possible. It allows the HR team to track applicants from the beginning till the end, making large volumes of resumes and applications accessible to manage. It automates screening of resumes, scheduling interviews, and communications with applicants in one place.
By saving the HR professional from the need to review each application manually, ATS saves time and reduces laborious work. An ATS ensures nothing slips through the cracks, whether screening resumes with keyword filters or sending automated emails to candidates.
An ATS system ensures that numerous tasks are automated, significantly boosting the productivity of HR teams. This transparency keeps the HR team informed and in control, allowing them to focus on making the best hiring decisions while relieving administrative burdens.
How does an ATS Work?
An ATS automates and organises every step of the recruitment process. Here’s how it works:
- Collection and Parsing of Resumes: As soon as there is an application, the ATS collects all the applications, and then parses each resume to convert the resume information into digital format for pertinent information such as experience, skills, and education. All data is normalised to make filtering easy.
- Keyword and Criteria-Based Filtering: Recruiters have criteria—the keywords, experience, location—the ATS applies to rank and shortlist applicants. It narrows it down quite a lot, saving a huge amount of time and letting recruiters quickly hone in on the most likely candidates.
- Candidate Management: All the status of the candidates will be tracked in the system, right from interview process to waiting period for feedback to the point of declining. The recruitment staff can schedule interviews, automated updates, and maintain communication directly from a single dashboard.
- Analytics On Hiring Metrics:This is one of the features of recent ATS platforms, which provides analytics such as time to hire, source of applications, and candidate conversion rate. The HR teams, therefore, have an opportunity to fine-tune their recruitment strategy.
Who Uses an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?
Applicant Tracking Systems are used across all industries to streamline hiring and manage candidate pipelines effectively. Here’s how different users benefit from ATS:
- Large Corporations: Large companies receive high volumes of applicants. There is a need for an efficient and reliable sorting and correspondence system to screen applicants effectively and establish contact with the potential hire. ATS saves time in recruitment and reduces overall recruitment ambiguity – factors that are critical for competitive markets.
- Recruitment Agencies: These large companies handle several clients with different requirements. ATS can track each candidate’s move, automatically communicate, and handle large applications with ease for the recruiters.
- Small and Mid-Sized Businesses: Even the smallest organisations benefit from an ATS in reducing time and resources to recruit. With integration to job boards and routine tasks, an ATS allows SMBs to vie for top talent without having a large HR team.
Even organisations in finance, health, and government have guidelines on recruiting. The documents are manageable. Using an ATS also helps the hiring team stay aligned with current industry standards, minimizing risks during audits or compliance checks.
Features of Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
The most strenuous part of recruiting is sifting through the thousands of applicants for every job opening. If this company grows, so does the applicant pool for each position. There are several ways an ATS simplifies this process:
Job Posting Distribution
An Applicant Tracking System will make recruiting much more straightforward by consolidating all your job postings in one location, making it easy to push job listings out on multiple job boards, social media channels, and your company’s website with just a few clicks. This saves time, and at the same time, the job openings reach many more people with different skill sets.
An ATS helps in automating the process of the job openings’ distribution, thus enabling the quick attraction of top talents without missing qualified applicants from various platforms. The significant advantages of most ATS tools are resume parsing, candidate screening, and analytics features, among others, that enhance the recruitment process to provide better hiring outcomes
Applicant Management
The system is also good at centralising information on the applicants. That way, applicant management becomes efficient. One is in a position to track and monitor the flow of candidates at each level of recruitment from the time they apply. First, a candidate gets to submit an application which then immediately goes into the system, meaning you will not miss any information. You are practically tracking the interview, among other related levels, in real-time. This is an excellent way of keeping everything put together and enhances the communication and efficiency of the hiring team. An ATS will quickly provide the HR department with the access key metrics to reduce time-to-hire while helping make data-driven decisions.
Customisation of Job Description
Many ATS allow you to customise job descriptions and requirements to the skills and qualifications needed. It helps attract candidates who have precisely what you need.
Talent acquisition systems will help improve the screening and shortlisting process.
One of the biggest benefits of an ATS is that it can accelerate this process significantly. When recruiting a new employee, the task of going through hundreds and thousands of resumes is a challenging task.
Resume Parsing
The ATS application applies resume screening technology, which means it will automatically screen and obtain the essential information that exists on every resume, such as skills, qualifications, experience, and education. The system then ranks these resumes based on how well they align with the job description. This instant analysis allows you to save valuable time spent in reading through a range of resumes manually and spend more time studying the essential applicants.
Keyword Matching
Most ATS platforms contain keyword-matching capabilities. The system will pick up specific keywords associated with the job description, particularly niche-required skills or certifications. Resumes that contain those keywords are ranked higher, so you will see those who are top contenders quickly.
Automated Shortlisting
After the parsing and sorting of resumes, the ATS automatically shortlists candidates who best fit the job requirements. This feature for automatic shortlisting saves plenty of time to pinpoint the right candidates significantly and lets you move ahead with the interview process much more rapidly.
Benefits of Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
Bias-Free Recruitment
Unconscious bias is one of the most well-documented issues in hiring; an ATS helps play the most important role in defusing this issue. These biases are either due to gender, race, age, or background. Bias can cloud judgement when it comes to hiring decisions, and you may end up not choosing the best candidate for the job. An ATS deals with data-driven criteria that relieve you of biases in evaluation and ensure that the candidates are judged purely based on their job performances.
Data-Driven Decision Making
An ATS eliminates human biases as it makes decisions based on data instead of on human emotions. There is also an analysis of the resume based on qualifications, experience, and skills wherein the candidates are judged entirely based on his job performance, therefore making the whole process objective and fairer.
Structured Interviews
Some of the ATS also ensure structured interviewing techniques through integration with scheduling and management tools for interviews. Managers can then base their comparison objectively on performance rather than judgments or opinions.
Promotion of Diversity and Inclusiveness
Various ATS tools have built-in diversity and inclusion features to help the employers attract a greater number of candidates. Equally, these tools promote equal opportunity as all candidates will be rated based on a similar set of criteria for evaluation, increasing diversity in your workforce and making your company even more socially responsible.
Candidate Experience with ATS Technologies
In the competitive market of gaining jobs, it would be necessary to have a good candidate experience in order to engage the best cream-of-the-layer talent. Here are several ways an ATS can improve candidate engagement and satisfaction:
- Simple Application Process: A modern ATS offers you an efficient application process for applicants. The ATS software employs resume parsing technology that automatically reads resumes and takes out relevant data including ones appropriate skills, qualification, experience, and education. The system then ranks the resumes according to their similarity to the job description. This instant scanning saves you precious time wasted in manually perusing the resumes and spends more time on the front runners.
- Effective Communication and Feedback: With the automated feature of shortlisting, it reduces a significant amount of time to identify the best candidates, and hence you can carry out the interview process much more speedily.
- Higher Response from Candidates: An ATS will enable you to maintain contact with the very best candidates even if they are not selected for the particular role you are recruiting for. You can add them to your talent pool for future opportunities, so when you have new openings, you have a pool of quality candidates ready and waiting.
Improving Collaborative Interactions between Hiring Teams
As you increase your recruitment team, efficient collaboration is inevitable. An ATS will improve communication and collaboration between hiring managers, the HR team, and other parties involved:
Centralised Candidate Information
The information about a potential candidate, and feedback file is kept in one place. In an ATS, all the parties associated with your hiring process get to access one and the same set of information so that one person does not have to bear the consequence of miscommunication; hence, it will be easier to evaluate candidates together.
Real-Time Collaboration
An ATS makes it easy to have multiple team members read and rank candidates in real time. They can make comments about each of the applicants and give their feedback as a way to bring consensus in the hiring decision.
Access to Hiring Team
Most ATS platforms allow you to customise user permissions so that hiring managers, HR personnel, and other team members who might need to be part of the process are allowed to access the information they need to see in relation to the candidates. This would ensure security with data while also making sure that decision-making is inclusive of the right people .
Reporting and Analytics for Data-Driven Decisions
Another key advantage of using an ATS is the very valuable insights that it provides regarding your recruitment process. An ATS will track key metrics, generate detailed reports, and thus help you make data-driven decisions on your hiring strategy.
Using an ATS, you can also track how long it’s taking to get candidates through every stage of the hiring process, which ultimately means you can identify bottlenecks and optimise your hiring strategy for faster hiring.
Source of Hire
ATS platforms often monitor where candidates are actually coming from -whether it is via job boards or social media, or even employee referrals. This will help you identify the best channels to source employees, which in turn may allow you to allocate resources in more effective ways.
Difference Between ATS and CRM
While both ATS and CRM systems are an integral part of recruitment, they are used for different Purpose :
ATS (Applicant Tracking System)
An applicant tracking system is an application software that follows the mainstream business process in managing active applicants. It allows posting of openings, tracking of applications, automated resume screening, organisation of candidate data, and more efficient decision-making throughout the recruitment process.
CRM (Candidate Relationship Management)
A Candidate Relationship Management system is used to build and nurture long-term relationships with potential candidates, mostly passive, that does not actively apply for jobs. It focuses on creating talent pools, engagement of candidates through personalised communication, and development of employer branding that enhances the pipeline of talent for future needs.
Let’s see some basic differences between ATS and CRM:
| Aspect | Applicant Tracking System (ATS) | Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A system for managing and tracking applicants during the hiring process | A system to build and maintain long-term relationships with candidates |
| Primary Purpose | To organise and streamline the recruitment workflow for active applicants. Main ficus is hiring and application management | To engage and nurture passive candidates for future hiring needs. Aid in long-term talent acquisition and relationship building |
| Candidate Type | Active applicants (those who apply for job openings). | Passive candidates (not actively applying). |
| Recruitment Stage | Post-application (screening and processing applications). | Pre-application (talent pipelining and engagement) |
| Functionality | Automates screening for resumes, tracks application progress and automates interviewing. | Helps in the creation of talent pools, personalised communications, and branding management. |
| Outcome | Building a pipeline of engaged candidates for future roles | Building a pipeline of engaged candidates for future roles |
How To Select A Suitable ATS
Here’s how to shrink selection criteria to only a few that make choosing the ideal Applicant Tracking System not so daunting:
- Set Your Budget: Identify what you need in terms of the features, then determine if the prices charged regarding licences, job postings, and management of candidates really add value.
- Know Your Workflow: All businesses are unique, and each business will have different hiring requirements; therefore, look for an ATS that is congruent to your recruitment process.
- Compare Solutions: List the simple features. Compare several solutions. Try the usability for free.
- Mobile Access: The ATS must support mobile recruiting so that you can be connected with applicants whenever and wherever you wish.
- Data Security: Confirm that the ATS has strong security measures-such as SSL encryption-to protect sensitive recruitment data.
What Are the Most Common Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Myths?
Myth 1: ATS Automatically Rejects Candidates Without Human Review
Reality: An Applicant Tracking System can filter applicants according to criteria, but the ultimate hiring decision is always a matter of human discretion. Recruiters usually shortlist and then match the resumes as required.
Myth 2: Only Large Companies Know the Advantages of ATS
Reality: Yes, large corporations were among the pioneers. However, its functionality appeals to even SMBs as it automates mundane tasks and fits into the pocket when recruitment is concerned.
Myth 3: Keywords are Sufficient to Clear the ATS
Reality: Keywords are nice, but always more important to the algorithms of the Applicant Tracking System is context. Overstuffing resumes with keywords without an emphasis on relevance can detract from ranking.
Myth 4: ATS Software Is Difficult to Use
Reality: Most current generation Applicant Tracking System platforms are user-friendly and many times integrate with other systems the HR team will be using and even job boards, making it possible for the smallest HR teams to deploy without extensive training.
Conclusion
Applicant Tracking System is very futuristic in the current fast-paced recruitment scenario. It helps your team to work smarter, rather than harder, by automating time-consuming tasks that allow for very little bias during the hiring process, engage candidates better, and give valuable insights.
TankhaPay provides an ATS that streamlines the recruitment process and ensures that you hire much better. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, it’s an investment in your hiring strategy that drives success. Choose TankhaPay to make things simpler to your recruitment, save more time, and hire better talent faster. Are you ready to change the way you hire? Get started with TankhaPay today!
