Advantages of using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

How to improve and speed up the recruitment process in your company? What are the benefits to recruiters and the company as a whole of automating the talent search process? Curious to find out? Read our article about ATS.

Benefits of using an ATS – table of contents:

1. What is ATS
2. ATS benefits for HR and the company
3. Recruitment KPIs
4. What features should a good ATS include?
5. FAQ

What is ATS

The recruitment process – which consists of preparing and publishing a job advertisement, collecting applications, screening and interviewing candidates, and finally selecting the ideal nominee for the position – is often a challenge for recruiters.

Burdened with administrative work and having time and budget constraints makes them unable to seek professionals effectively and find the right candidate. More and more companies decide to automate the recruitment process using the ATS tool.

Applicant Tracking System is recruitment and candidate management software that supports HR in routine hiring activities.

ATS benefits for HR and the company

The use of ATS supports the activities of recruiters, bringing benefits to the entire company. It primarily saves time and relieves HR from administrative work.

Recruiters can use ad templates, use multiposting instead of manually publishing ads on different portals, create their message blueprints or use the already prepared ones and quickly communicate with candidates.

ATS also enables quick pre-selection of candidates based on individually defined criteria and comparison of applicants’ data with the requirements of a given position – thanks to this, a recruiter does not waste time browsing through all received applications but focuses only on those selected by the system, belonging to candidates who fit the position profile and meet the requirements.

Thanks to such automation, recruitment is much faster, and the time from starting the search to hiring an employee is significantly reduced.

The ATS system also constitutes a central database – it contains collected application documents, messages exchanged with candidates, history of already conducted interviews along with the recruiter’s opinion. This solution enables access to all necessary information to authorized persons. In a situation where, for example, the recruiter leading given enrollment changes during the process, there is no need to deploy a second person, because all relevant information on the stage of the recruitment and the candidates can be found in the database.

Recruitment KPIs

ATS also enables the monitoring and reporting of all Key Recruitment Indicators (KPIs). These indicators measure and monitor the quality and results of recruitment activities which allows you to analyze and optimize your recruitment processes effectively. Detailed reports make it possible, among other things, to identify the most effective sources of inflow of applications.

Another benefit of using an ATS is saving costs – since most of the administrative work is automated, we don’t need to expand our recruitment team. Efficient use of the recruitment budget results in faster and more productive recruitment.

Easy application, transparency throughout the recruitment process, automatically sent confirmation of the submitted application, news and information about the recruitment stage, quick feedback and the ability to check the status of the application online are all aspects of ATS that improve the candidate experience. It is the experience throughout the recruitment process and feedback about the company. A major advantage of the ATS is that it functions well regardless of the size of the company or the industry in which it operates.

What features should a good ATS include?

The ATS system should support the recruiter’s actions without imposing anything on him. Therefore, they should enable the possibility of personalization, adjusting the solutions to the company’s own needs, having an option to create custom templates or defining career paths depending on the position and industry is important.

For the system to prove itself in a given organization it is worth testing it beforehand, checking whether it is clear, intuitive, simple and comfortable to use.

Whether it will prove useful in a given organization and improve the recruiter’s work. Therefore, another indispensable aspect is the DEMO version, i.e. a chance to test the ATS free of charge for a specified period.

Fast, free, and knowledgeable customer service support is another significant feature to look for. You should be able to contact the troubleshooting center through a variety of channels – such as through a convenient contact form, a quick chat, or phone contact.

The ATS should store up-to-date information and data in the cloud, which can always be conveniently accessed online. As a result, the company’s IT department is free from the burden of installing or servicing the software – this becomes the responsibility of the service provider. This saves both cost, time and IT resources.

The last thing to keep in mind when choosing ATS software is legislation. Recruitment involves sensitive candidate data, so the software should be compliant with for instance General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when carried out in the UE countries and elsewhere according to the local governing regulations. It should offer the ability to program automatic deletion of applications after a certain time, so as not to store personal data of former candidates unnecessarily.

ATS has benefits for recruiters, candidates and the organization as a whole. It is worth considering its implementation in every organization, regardless of the industry, to accelerate and streamline recruitment processes. It saves expenses, time and human resources and makes recruitment more efficient.

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