Applicant Track Systems (ATS)

What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?

It is an automated system for employers to seamlessly manage job applications and candidate information. It streamlines the hiring process, simplifying tasks for recruiters and managers to attract, select, hire, and onboard the most suitable candidates efficiently. From job posting to identifying top prospects, ATS software automates and enhances numerous tasks, providing everything necessary to deliver an engaging candidate journey, streamline processes, improve effective hires, and expedite hiring decisions.

Benefits of adopting an ATS

Using an ATS benefits your talent acquisition strategy in the following ways:

1. Streamline tedious administrative tasks: Hiring goes beyond reviewing resumes and preparing interview questions; it encompasses posting job listings, follow-up messages, scheduling interviews, and other essential tasks. Automating these processes saves time and enhances productivity.
2. Enhance collaboration and engage key stakeholders: Given the multifaceted nature of hiring, it often involves various departments and individuals. In addition to administrative functions, involving relevant managers and team members in decision-making safeguards and reinforces company culture. ATS software provides a collaborative platform for evaluating candidates, sharing feedback, and facilitating seamless communication.
3. Eliminate time wasted on irrelevant candidates: Identifying top talent is a time-consuming process. It involves assessing various aspects beyond qualifications alone. For instance, while intelligence is valuable, effective communication skills are equally crucial. Similarly, experience matters, but so does the ability to accept feedback. An ATS streamlines this process by providing assessments that delve deeper into candidate data, helping you find the right balance between cognitive ability and personality fit.
4. Reduce recruitment cycle and time-to-hire: Streamlining the recruitment cycle and reducing time-to-hire minimises distractions and boosts productivity. Leveraging an ATS to gather and analyse data provides crucial insights into your hiring process, enabling you to identify areas for improvement and accelerate it.
5. Streamline and standardise your hiring process: Even with a well-crafted talent acquisition strategy, the journey from finding to onboarding ideal candidates entails numerous steps and often spans multiple departments, leading to potential confusion. An ATS offers invaluable organisation, ensuring no detail like follow-up emails or interview appointments slips through the cracks. It establishes a replicable routine, bringing predictability to fulfilling hiring needs.
6. Scale your hiring pipeline with ease: Managing a surplus of potential candidates is a sign of growth, yet it can be overwhelming. ATS software simplifies this process by enabling the creation and scaling of a talent pipeline strategy. This allows for the efficient and effective sourcing, attracting, and screening of hundreds of candidates.
7. Boost employer branding: While candidates aim to impress during the hiring process, presenting your company positively also attracts top talent. A branded job board, tailored emails, and polished recruitment collateral convey professionalism and trustworthiness, enhancing your employer brand.
8. Enhance the candidate experience: An ATS streamlines the hiring process for candidates, too. They can easily initiate applications from mobile or desktop, receive informative follow-up communication, and enjoy flexible interview scheduling. This benefits both your business and potential employees by ensuring convenience and keeping everyone informed throughout the process.
9. Combat hiring bias: An ATS standardises the hiring process, ensures everyone follows the same steps and protects candidates and employers from unconscious bias risks. By eliminating bias in hiring, businesses can tap into a larger pool of talent, offering greater opportunities.
10. Measure, report, and enhance: Good data helps drive better decisions. The ability to track and report recruiting analytics can refine the hiring process and improve your quality of hire. Tracking metrics related to time of hire, candidate sources, and diversity surveys helps accurately gauge the productivity and performance of your hiring process.
11. Simplify compliance: Automated features and reports eliminate the administrative burden of compliance. Utilise ATS tools to establish inclusive hiring processes, ensuring compliance with EEO/OFCCP/GDPR guidelines. These tools optimise job posts, extend hiring reach, and navigate local, national, and international regulations effortlessly.
12. Enhance sourcing: While job boards are vital, an ATS extends your reach by using AI and public data to find, sort, and present qualified candidates preemptively. With instant sourcing, you can reach passive, existing, and valuable prospects instantly.
13. Maximise job board integration: Automatically post to numerous job boards and social media platforms to attract a broader candidate pool. With just one click, instantly reach millions of prospects, saving time on manual posting efforts. Diversify your applicant pool and stand out in the competitive hiring landscape with seamless job board integration.

What to look for in an ATS

The best ATS solutions offer everything you need to support an excellent candidate experience and effective recruiting processes, including HR automation and artificial intelligence (AI):

• A centralised platform that acts as the source of truth for recruiting and hiring teams, enabling easier collaboration and communication.
• AI tools, including a writing assistant, to help you write job descriptions, offer letters, and candidate emails quickly, easily and consistently.
• Customisable career sites where you can showcase your employer brand and company culture.
• The ability to publish your jobs across multiple third-party job boards as well as your public job board to maximise the number of potential candidates.
• Automation of routine tasks such as sending notifications to candidates, gathering interview feedback, and rating candidates.
• Enables potential candidates to quickly and easily apply for jobs on mobile devices and via text message in their language of choice.
• Automated email and text campaigns to build strong candidate pipelines.
• Schedule interviews effortlessly with automatic links in candidate emails.
• AI-powered recruiting assistance to help teams prioritise recruiter follow-up and optimise hiring workflows.
• Enhanced reporting to keep management updated on the candidate pipelines for each job and the effectiveness of different job boards.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR and other regulations and guidelines set out by the EEO/OFCCP.

What ATS do you recommend?

With a focus on providing integrated solutions that meet the needs of our clients, Tugela People partners with a number of solution providers to enable companies to realise the full potential of their people and meet the growing needs of their organisations.

As an ATS solution provider, we recommend Workable:

Workable is the premier hiring and HR management platform globally, empowering in-house recruiters, hiring teams, and HR professionals with diverse tools to discover highly qualified candidates and collaborate effectively throughout the recruitment lifecycle. Since its inception in 2012, Workable has served over 27,000 companies, facilitating the hiring of 1.5 million candidates. Notable clients include Ryanair, Lyst, Moodle, Dribbble, Bevi and Square Enix. Additionally, they have received awards and recognition on renowned sites like Capterra, G2 Crowd, GetApp and Software Advice.

Click here to find out more about Workable now and how you can streamline and revolutionise your hiring: