Tired of letting the best, and most talented, candidates slip through your search undetected? If you’re still employing traditional tactics to find the right candidates you’re likely missing out on some great people.
Chances are you might not be utilizing an applicant tracking systems to your advantage.
Deciding on the right software to track candidates throughout the recruiting process can be a daunting process. It’s easy to get inundated with multiple companies contacting you for a demonstration of their product. Having gone through a few evaluations of applicant tracking systems there are many things to consider and evaluate.
Many of the systems are incredibly similar so it’s important to do your research prior to the demonstrations, and even after, to really make sure you know what is best for your organization. Below are two pointers that we feel are most helpful to consider when picking your applicant tracking system.
1. Check out reporting capabilities: Before you even begin the process of demonstrating systems, establish a list of reports that you would like to be able to pull. You should label each report as either a must have or a nice-to-have. We’ve found that if you don’t have these thought through and you purchase a system you may be shocked to find there are additional fees to create certain reports. We have been quoted as much as $3,000 to create a report that you’d think would be a standard item. To create this list we recommend pulling together people who will be using the system daily. Choose leaders who are using reports to make decisions and someone from operations or finance. The users of the system should be thinking of reports that will drive efficiency and help them with day-to-day recruiting. Some examples of reports that may help recruiters are:
• Job activity reports. This would tell candidates activity as it related to a job they are being considered for.
• Notes activity. This would allow recruiters to track their daily activity.
• Placement list. Recruiters can use this to see current and past placements.
2. Reports Worth Considering: Leaders within an organization may not be as interested in the details of each candidate and would rather see higher-level information. Similarly, your finance or operation team may be keeping duplicate reports that Customer Relationship Management software could produce. Here are reports worth considering:
• Weekly/monthly/quarterly revenue. It’s important to understand the system’s capability to track revenue.
• Employment status. Can the system differentiate and run reports based off 1099 or W2 employees.
• Billing information. If you work with hourly employees, can the system run reports based off bill rates and pay rates and allow you to determine spreads? In addition, can you use this system to run commission reports? Same this for permanent placements.
• Recruiting statistics. Does the system run reports that reflect days to fill, percentage of submit to hire?
3. Training: What will implementation and training look like for your team? If you are transitioning data from one system to the new, is this fee included in your quote? Some applicant tracking systems have prerecorded or live trainings for new users. These training seminars are important to utilize in order to get a better understanding of the system. But you should know whether your initial quote only include training for the current users. This is a hook that I’ve seen before. I’ve also noticed that some applicant tracking systems will charge you for additional training seminars as you add new employees. You should also inquire about the process for asking questions or reporting system issues. Many times there is a help desk but it’s important to understand expectations for hearing a response.
Obviously there are many more steps needed to implement an applicant tracking system, but these factors were crucial for our team when we decided on the best tool for our team. By using these three key considerations, the best and most talented people will stop falling through the cracks - they'll start falling into your organization.
