In the dynamic world of talent acquisition, staying ahead of the curve is essential for success. As job markets become increasingly competitive and the recruitment process more complex, recruitment agencies and organizations need a robust system to optimize their recruitment efforts. Here's where Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) step in. If you're a seasoned recruiter, you probably know what an ATS is, and you might have used one, as justified by the fact that 70% of recruiters worldwide use ATS systems (Source: www.Capterra.com).
The decision to invest in an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) often weighs heavily on management and talent acquisition leaders. With a team of recruiters and various recruitment tools already in place, the question remains: Is an ATS worth it? Is the investment in an ATS software worth it? Will it propel us towards our hiring goals, or is it simply another tool in our crowded arsenal?

Hiring Goals of Recruitment Agencies and Businesses

Recruitment agencies aim to expertly match top talent with ideal opportunities. On the other hand, for corporations, it's about putting together efficient teams quickly while reducing costs and ensuring compliance. These goals boil down to ‘building teams with the best talent’. However, the challenges they face in achieving this goal are numerous, including competition for top talent and the complexity of the hiring process. Furthermore, the introduction of new generations in the workforce has prompted a re-evaluation of traditional recruitment approaches. Within this dynamic landscape, ATS serves as the centralized hub for all hiring goals and optimizing the recruitment process to minimize the challenges.

What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?

At its core, an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is your all-in-one recruitment powerhouse. It's the digital wizard (a sophisticated recruitment software) that transforms the often-chaotic world into a streamlined, efficient process. ATS helps businesses organize, search, and manage job applications while ensuring a smooth and efficient journey for both candidates and employers. From posting job listings to evaluating resumes and scheduling interviews, ATS is your recruitment software for simplifying and optimizing the hiring process.

In this blog, we will explore why both hiring agencies and businesses alike need an ATS.

Why Recruitment Agencies and Businesses Need an Applicant Tracking System

1. Streamlined Workflow

Recruitment teams are constantly on the mission of filling multiple open positions simultaneously. Between managing several spreadsheets or tools, and with different stakeholders involved, the process can easily become disorganized, unclear, and ineffective. This is where an ATS will help you refine the hiring workflow, from start to finish, on a single platform.
An ATS will enable you to set up a robust workflow

• Sourcing, Screening, Tracking, Onboarding applicants

• Team communication

• Account-level Management

Overall, the ATS creates a replicable routine around fulfilling hiring needs. This streamlined workflow translates to quicker decision-making and faster hires.
94% of recruiters say that using an ATS has improved their recruitment process. (Source: Capterra)

2. Improved Candidate Experience

78% of job seekers believe that a company's use of technology reflects its overall culture.
Positive candidate experience isn’t just good manners, it’s good business. In times when talent is scarce, candidate experience makes a significant impact. Nearly half of Gen Z talent won't apply for a job if a hiring process is outdated and You can’t afford to miss out on this large part of the talent pool. An ATS, when combined with a personal touch, can significantly enhance the candidate journey, leaving a positive impression on your talent pool. This is directly related to candidate dropout rates and employer branding.
Here's how the right ATS will assist in creating a positive candidate experience:

• Real-time Status Updates

• Faster communication to maintain engagement with candidates

• Straightforward job applications

• Effortless Onboarding by integrating with other HCM software solutions

Creating a positive candidate experience with ATS automation also helps agencies and businesses reduce the candidate turnover rate or drop rates.

3. Enhanced Collaboration & Integration

Successful recruitment indicates various moving pieces efficiently working together. For a strong Talent acquisition, you need to have a smooth collaboration between the multiple stakeholders, departments and teams involved. This is precisely where an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) comes into play, helping talent acquisition teams to set up a smooth collaboration and creating a central platform to integrate different recruitment tools.
ATS offers extensive customization options, enabling you to create a system that matches your workflow.

• Data accessible across team members

• Seamless collaboration across departments

• Integrations with existing recruitment tools and job boards

• Easy management of job posts across recruiters and accounts

This will help you build a complete recruitment process around your ATS with reduced potential for errors. Controlled access for all involved parties ensures that the right hiring decisions can be made quickly, and collectively.

4. Data-Driven Decision Making

Calling the shots in Talent acquisition may look like a piece of cake but there are too many factors that affect the decisions. Recruiters grapple with join dates, culture fit and more, while Talent Acquisition Heads deal with strategy, budgets, client expectations, diversity-inclusion policies and team performances.
Deadlines and high candidate dropout rates add to the pressure of decision-making. This gives room for Instinctive decisions or unconscious biases to creep in, these clouded judgments are unreliable. ATS transforms recruitment data into actionable insights and connects the dots between hiring KPIs. ATS empowers users to make informed hiring decisions and optimize talent acquisition strategies. With the right insights and metrics, you can

• Re-align strategies

• Reliable hiring decisions

• Get forecasts and visibility

• Track progress

By analyzing ATS data, businesses make more data-driven decisions, improving the quality of hires and reducing the hiring time. ‘More the Data, Better the Decisions’ - enhancing overall hiring outcome of the talent acquisition strategies.

5. Leveraging Talent Pools

‘Talent shortage’ is something that 70% of recruiters regularly hear. Both agency and corporate recruiters encounter this challenge due to factors like a lack of structured talent pools, Data inaccuracy and limited exploration beyond traditional sources.

ATS assists users in creating and managing talent pools extensively. Users can have a well-structured talent pool that encompasses a diverse range of candidates, including referrals, active seekers, and passive prospects who've expressed interest in your organization or whom you've identified as potential future hires. By leveraging ATS automation, recruitment agencies and businesses can effectively nurture candidate relationships, fostering a pipeline of top-notch talent readily available when positions open up.

6. Reduced Hiring Time and Cost Savings

The cost of hire and time-to-hire are the two important benchmarks in the recruitment world.
By automating processes, ATS significantly reduces hiring time. Faster recruitment means your organization can fill critical positions quicker, saving money and increasing productivity.
As we discussed above, ATS combines a streamlined recruitment process and data-driven decision making translates to significant cost savings and reliable hires in the long run.

ATS software can help companies reduce their time-to-hire by up to 60%. (Source: LinkedIn)

7. Job Management & Resume Parsing

Recruiters work with multiple job openings and have to ensure the best applicants get to the interviews. They have to keep the candidate data up-to-date and ensure to fill the positions as quickly as possible; Amidst the pressure of juggling multiple openings with tight deadlines, inaccuracies can arise, and potential candidates might slip through the cracks.
An ATS simplifies job post management by allowing you to post, update, and manage multiple job openings from a single platform. Resume parsing, a key feature of ATS, automatically extracts relevant candidate information accurately from resumes and CVs, making it easier for recruiters to identify the most qualified applicants swiftly.
ATS can help recruiters to simplify the process with –

• Manage & post multiple jobs

• Resume parsing

• Interviews scheduling

• Writing the job descriptions 

• Tracking applicants, so that no promising candidates are missed

Selecting the Right ATS

While the benefits of an ATS are evident, choosing the right one for your organization is crucial. Consider factors like your organization's size, specific needs, and budget when evaluating your options. Customization and scalability are also essential to ensure the system aligns with your unique requirements.

Conclusion

The recruitment landscape is evolving rapidly, and Applicant Tracking Systems is no longer a luxury but a necessity for recruitment agencies and businesses alike. They offer a competitive edge by improving efficiency, enhancing the candidate experience and employer branding, providing valuable insights for continuous improvement, and bringing efficiency to job management and resume parsing. If you want to stay ahead in the talent acquisition market, investing in an ATS is a decision that will yield long-term benefits.