The number of applicants for one job opening can go up to a hundred. The challenge to keep the list of applicants organized, manageable and comprehensive is a growing challenge. This is true for both small, medium and large enterprises. Also, the cost of hiring additional staff under the hood of the Human Resource Department (HRD) is getting more expensive. Companies need to think of a better strategy to cope with the applicant processing without exploding the operational costs. A brilliant solution would be to automate routine processes and provide information granularity through the use of technology.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that automates the recruitment process. It sorts through hundreds of resumes with predetermined criteria, to get the best candidates from a pool of applicants. It can be installed on-site or off-site. An on-site installation would mean having the ATS within your organization’s facility. This type of setup offers more technology control, security, and customization. An off-site installation would mean either having the ATS outside your facility but still having full control or purchasing a license from another company and have them maintained it for you. The latter option is also called cloud hosting. It is cheaper, and you get to maximize the expertise of third-party companies which you might not have internally in your organization.
Some benefits of using ATS is summarized below:
- Automation of routines. There are some recruitment tasks that are repetitive. These type of tasks can be automated using ATS to allow employees to focus on other tasks that may require attention. An example would be resume sorting based on criteria.
- Automation of Recruitment Funnel. Usually, after an applicant gets shortlisted, an employee would send notification via email, phone call, or text message. This manual notification process is tolerable for a small number of shortlisted applicants but time-consuming for a larger list. An ATS can be used to automate sending of notifications to your applicants right after they are added to a shortlist basket.
- Better analysis and coordination of recruitment efforts. An ATS can provide statistics that reflect the effectiveness of a process or campaign. Through the use of these statistics, the HRD can amend, improve or completely change their processes and strategies.
- Data Mining and Collection. An ATS archives all applications you feed to it, and it can retrieve the applications faster than a human can. The fast retrieval process of ATS can help speed up your process of evaluating qualified applicants.
- Savings on paper. An ATS saves all information in a database. It doesn’t need paper to save, restore, and share information. This is big savings in terms of paper usage especially when printing resumes and credentials.
We at AlertChecks provide access to reliable and secured ATS through our partners and we already integrated with these ATS platforms, providing our background checks through a back office solution through your choice ATS. We evaluate your needs before we recommend an ATS. We believe that not all ATS were created equal. A thorough understanding of your need is important to be able to choose the appropriate ATS.