If you are using a spreadsheet to track your candidates or planning to use one, you should read this article to understand what the differences, between an online applicant tracking system and recruitment tracking spreadsheets.
If you are looking for an online applicant tracking system, you should consider Recruiteze. With Recruiteze, you can manage all your jobs, applications, notes and communication in one simple interface.
With an average of 250 applications received for each job posting, it is definitely a good idea to organize and track all the candidates, notes, scheduling and results. A spreadsheet was great for most businesses, when the cost of installing and maintaining an on-premise applicant tracking software system was expensive. Not only did it require hardware, networking and software costs, it also required staff to manage the hardware, upgrades and administration.
With the advent of online applicant tracking systems, it is no longer the case. Read this article on the differences between an online applicant tracking system and on-premise ATS. With the development of cloud based software as a service solutions, here are some advantages summarized:
- The time to get started with an online ATS is very minimal, if you pick the right software. With Recruiteze, you can be up and running within 5 minutes.
- There are no hardware costs, since the software is hosted on the cloud.
- The service is accessible from anywhere in the world if you have a device that has an internet connection and a browser.
- The cost is negligible for all that it offers.
- You pay for only what you use. You can add or remove users depending on your business needs.
- You can always downgrade, if you do not need all the features.
- Provides a better candidate experience.
| Recruitment Tracking Spreadsheet | Online Applicant Tracking System |
|---|---|
| You can maintain a list of candidates and their contact information. | All your candidate resumes are parsed, indexed and added to your database. Each candidate record will have their complete contact information, associated resume, employment history, education, skills and certifications. |
| You can tag the candidates with their skills and search the candidates that match the skills in future. | You can search for anything in the resume, not only the tagged skills or strengths. |
| It is not very easy to search a candidate by name or email. | You can search a candidate easily by either first name, last name or email. |
| You can add a notes column and add the notes for the candidate. It will be cumbersome, since it is hard to find the candidate, then you must add the note, you must add who added the note and date time. Only if you have all this information, the note becomes meaningful. If the number of notes for each candidate keeps increasing, it becomes harder and harder to work with the spreadsheet with wide rows and columns. | It is very easy to add a note. The name of the person is the logged in user and a date is associated with the note. There is no limit on the number of notes you can add. It is also easy to read for each candidate, not having to scroll through the columns back and forth. |
| You must switch multiple tabs or look for resume on the disk or email. | Once a candidate is selected, all the consolidated information related to the candidate is available in one view. The complete contact information of the candidate, the resume, any contact history, any submission history and notes history all in one view. You do not have to switch between multiple sheets or search for information in emails and the disk. |
| It is time consuming to maintain a spreadsheet, and use it to see candidate details as well as to update information. | A significant amount of time can be saved by using an online applicant tracking system. Everything can be done in a snap. |
| The resumes must be stored somewhere either on the network or on hard drives. Most often, it is usually stored in each user’s hard drive. This will result in not having one common store for your resumes. | With an online ATS, all your resumes are stored in your storage are in the cloud. Accessible to all users and from anywhere. |
| You need to manually enter all the candidate details for each candidate. | If you subscribe to an online ATS that parses the resumes, it will pull all the information from the resume, add it to your database and index it. |
| You must build and maintain a careers portal on your website, if you have a website. This might even require hiring a website contract developer to maintain the portal. This will incur recurring costs for you. | With an online applicant tracking system, it provides a career portal, which you can just plug into the website. You can manage your career portal through the software. You add a job, it displays on your career’s portal, if you deactivate a job, it will be removed from your portal. |
| It is hard to design and maintain a custom job application. | An online applicant tracking system, allows you to create a custom job application. This will allow you to capture the relevant information from the candidates. This helps in doing a better job filtering the candidates and picking the most suitable for your position. |
| You will have to manually send an acknowledgement for each job application. You will not be able to scale with this model and you may not even send an acknowledgement for most candidates. This will provide a bad candidate experience. The candidates do expect an acknowledgement. | With an online ATS, you can design a custom acknowledgement email. This will send a personalized email addressed to the candidate as soon as they apply for the job. |
| When a candidate applies for a job, the application and resume will come in an email. Now the resume must be stored in a specific location, the candidate details must be manually added to your spreadsheet. | With an online ATS, as soon as the candidate applies for the job. The resume is parsed, the candidate contact and relevant information is pulled and added to your database. The resume is stored in your database. This will save you significant time. |
| It is hard to manage the candidate hiring workflow through a spreadsheet. You have to make notes and work with different systems and software like spreadsheets and email to manage your workflow. | With an online ATS, you can quickly move the candidate through the different steps of your workflow like acknowledge receipt of application, review, reject or schedule interview and make the offer. With each step in your workflow, you can setup automated communication with the candidate and the hiring managers. This will provide for an excellent candidate experience. |
| Time is more valuable. The time spent doing all these activities can be used to work on higher value items, which will help increase the bottom line. | With an online ATS, you save a lot of time. Time directly correlates to money. So, you end up saving more money than managing recruitment through spreadsheet. |
| Hiring decisions are not consolidated in one place. It will be in spreadsheets, emails and in different inboxes. This may result in not making the best hiring decision. | With an online applicant tracking system. All the notes, communication and workflow is in one place to make a better-informed decision. This will result in hiring the best candidates for the job. |
Now that you have seen the huge difference an online applicant tracking system can make for managing your recruitment, you should look at Recruiteze.
Also read this article on why using spreadsheet is a thing of the past?
Recruiteze is the best free online applicant tracking system
Recruiteze makes your recruitment process simple, by providing a modern interface to manage your hiring efficiently. With Recruiteze, you can manage all your jobs, applications, career portal, notes and communication in one place.
Recruiteze is a cloud based application, and is available from anywhere and any device that is connected to the internet and has a browser.
If you are still using a recruitment tracking spreadsheet, it is time for you to try out our online applicant tracking system for free.
If you need help choosing an online ATS, these articles will help you.
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