If you're one of the many businesses with an in-house recruitment team, you'll know the value of HR recruitment software. Improve your recruitment process with these best practice guides and expert insights to get more out of your Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
Most businesses, three-fifths as many, recruit and hire in-house for many reasons. Considering the average number of applications per low-skilled job opening is between 200 and 500, in-house talent teams need the right technology to support their strategy.
How can HR and talent teams benefit from applicant tracking systems (ATS)?
To understand the actual value of ATS software, you need to look beyond its functional ability to source, screen, and hire applicants. Recruitment is the first impression future employees have of a company. With over half (57%) of UK companies reporting hard-to-fill roles, prioritizing talent acquisition is now more critical than ever. A robust applicant tracking system can help ensure candidates have a positive experience from when they come across your job advert to onboarding.
Modern recruitment automation ATS software supports every stage of the hiring process. This centralized database facilitates and securely stores all interactions, from CV screening, communication, and scheduling to pre-employment background checks and right-to-work. Happy hiring teams, happy hiring managers, and happy candidates. But how can HR and talent teams benefit from a modern applicant tracking system? Check out the best practices below for ideas on optimizing your hiring processes.
Six Benefits of HR Applicant Tracking Systems
- Reduce manual work with your automated hiring system's ability to review resumes, schedule interviews, and email applicants.
- "killer screening questions" to exclude applicants who don't meet a certain minimum standard or criteria, reducing time spent on underqualified and unsuitable applicants.
- Cast a wider net to find top talent. ATS helps create and post multiple jobs simultaneously, sometimes including integration with job boards to distribute vacancies automatically. This is especially useful for companies with 200 to 1,500 employees and numerous open positions across disciplines and occupations.
- Find the right employees quickly by improving selection based on qualifications, experience, and skills.
- Enjoy peace of mind knowing you're complying with policies to ensure equality, eliminate unconscious bias, and support blind recruitment (personal information like name and age are hidden from the hiring manager)
- Protect data integrity and enjoy better data quality: Save resumes for suitable future job opportunities, maintain personal data to protect against data breaches by GDPR requirements, and capture, monitor, and renew soon-to-expire consents in your dashboard for all stored data.
The evidence is clear: modern applicant tracking systems are essential to any hiring strategy and offer many benefits to employers and future employees. But how can companies get even more value from this technology? These best practice guidelines for using applicant tracking systems, including managing employee information, will help your hiring team optimize every step of the process.
HR applicant tracking system (ATS) best practices
Start by selecting the right ATS.
Whether you're a small, medium, or large organization, an automated hiring system can streamline your recruitment processes and save valuable time. The first step towards success is finding a solution that fits your needs, balancing features, and being cost-effective.
Ensure your ATS integrates with other HR systems.
Evaluate whether your recruiting software integrates seamlessly with existing HR systems or whether it's time to upgrade both. This integration creates a smoother experience for applicants while easing the administrative load on hiring teams. Automating data syncing can minimize errors and enable real-time updates between recruiters and hiring managers. This will improve communication and help us identify challenges earlier. Integrating your ATS with onboarding software can significantly enhance the onboarding experience for new hires, which is essential for their success.
Optimize your job postings.
Job postings should attract the right talent by using relevant keywords. Ensure the description is accurate and inclusive, strive for gender-neutral language, and consider using terminology pertinent to international candidates where appropriate.
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Showcase your company's unique perks, like remote work flexibility, generous paid time off, and comprehensive health and dental coverage. Let candidates glimpse into your fantastic company culture and inspire them to apply! Always include a salary or salary range; studies show that four out of five job seekers are less likely to use it if a salary isn't listed.
Simplify the application process.
Your job ad serves as potential candidates' initial point of contact and research shows that about 70% of applicants give up on too complicated or repetitive applications, which can lead to losing out on top talent. As more digital natives join the workforce, companies must prioritize an intuitive and engaging user experience. Implementing tools like progress bars, step-by-step screens, and clear timelines can help manage expectations and lead candidates through the process.
Screen candidates more effectively with tailored questions.
Asking the right questions during screening is key to ensuring your hiring process identifies top candidates early on and weeds out those who may not be the right fit. Tailored questions go beyond a candidate's resume, offering deeper insights into their soft skills, motivations, and role alignment elements critical to finding the ideal match.
Here are some effective screening questions designed to help assess candidates more holistically:
- "Tell us a bit about your career so far."This question offers a snapshot of a candidate’s journey, allowing hiring teams to evaluate their experience and personality. It's a great way to uncover nuances not visible on a resume, such as their passion, career evolution, or communication style.
- "What made you want to apply for this role?"Rather than focusing on why candidates may leave their current positions, this question gets to the heart of their true motivations. Whether for career advancement, a new industry challenge, or alignment with the company’s mission, this question uncovers what drives them and helps you assess their long-term commitment.
- "How do your skills align with this role?"This question effectively evaluates how well candidates understand the role and its demands. It also helps you gauge their confidence in applying their existing skills to the new environment, indicating self-awareness and how well they've researched the job.
- "What are your key considerations when changing roles?"This digs deeper into a candidate's values and priorities—whether they focus on salary, company culture, work-life balance, or career progression. It allows you to highlight aspects of your offer that match their expectations and assess whether their priorities align with your company's services.
In addition, for roles requiring technical skills, it is essential to ask candidates to describe their relevant experience in detail. Questions that prompt them to explain how they’ve applied technical expertise in real-world scenarios provide a clearer picture of their problem-solving abilities and depth of knowledge.
Using tailored questions like these ensures that your screening process goes beyond simply matching keywords in resumes. Instead, it creates an opportunity to evaluate candidates based on their comprehensive fit for the role, which leads to quicker and more accurate decision-making. This proactive approach helps identify and move forward with top candidates early, giving your team a strategic advantage in recruitment.
Enhance candidate communication with automation.
Automated responses can simplify communication with candidates, whether they're moving forward or being declined. Set up automatic responses that send customized messages to shortlisted or rejected applicants. Thoughtfully designed templates make a positive impression and ensure that even rejected candidates have a good experience.
Personalize applicant communications
Go the extra mile with personalized responses. Automated templates can still include a meaningful note about a candidate's application or interview, which helps build your employer brand and increases the chance of future engagement.
For successful candidates, prepare social media templates that align with your company's brand and tone of voice and that they can use to announce their new role. Digitally signing contracts is another way to streamline the hiring process, ensuring a faster, more efficient recruitment cycle with less paperwork.
Simplify pre-employment checks
Your ATS should also handle pre-employment checks, such as Right-to-Work (RTW) and background checks. Storing this information securely within the ATS ensures compliance and keeps the process efficient and organized.
Collaborate effectively with hiring managers.
Using blind recruitment techniques, share anonymized candidate information with hiring managers. This allows them to assess candidates based on their skills and experience without bias. Hiring managers can provide valuable feedback, which recruiters can use to enhance communications with candidates.
Analyze and continuously improve.
Optimizing your hiring process requires constant reflection. Gather feedback from applicants, candidates, hiring managers, and your internal team to identify areas of improvement. Monitoring online reviews, such as those on Glassdoor, is another valuable source of feedback.
Leverage reporting and analytics to track critical metrics like application volume, time-to-hire, and cost-per-hire. More importantly, this data helps demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of your ATS.
By applying these best practices, you can enhance the efficiency of your recruitment process, ensure compliance, and create a better candidate experience. Modern HR software like Hireforce offers the tools to streamline your hiring journey, ensuring your company stays competitive in today's fast-paced job market.
