Candidate Management System – Top 13 Features and How to Use them

With the advent of modern cloud-based software, it is easier than even ever to subscribe to an enterprise-class candidate management system at an affordable price.

If you have issues managing your candidates, resumes, notes, communication, and schedules, you should seriously consider a candidate management system. Read our other article on why using a recruitment tracking spreadsheet is a thing of the past.

If you have more than 50 resumes on your hard disk, you seriously need a candidate management system. Making good hiring decisions can happen only when you have all the information in one place.

If your recruitment data is spread across spreadsheets, emails, and documents, it is hard to remember all the information when making hiring decisions. Sometimes, you may want to analyze your hiring decisions even after the hire. By looking at your past data, you can make better hiring decisions in the future.

Recruiteze is the perfect simple small business candidate management system that is cloud-based and available as a subscription. With Recruiteze, you can manage your careers page, jobs, candidates, communication, and notes in one place.

Consider the case where you have one recruiter using their email to communicate, schedule, and hire a candidate. When the recruiter leaves the company, all that information is lost. When a new recruiter joins the organization, they will have to start all over again. You cannot have a standard operating hiring process if it is spread across different individuals, email accounts, and spreadsheets.

This is where a candidate management system can streamline your processes.

Here are the top features to look for in a candidate management system:

1. Ability to post jobs,
2. Career page,
3. Career page widget,
4. Personalized application acknowledgment,
5. Custom application,
6. Custom candidate workflow,
7. Workflow notes,
8. Create email templates,
9. Notes,
10. Tracking communication,
11. Edit candidate,
12. Repository, and
13. Reports.

Let’s get into each of the features more in-depth!

1. Ability to post jobs

You should be able to post jobs in your candidate management system. Once a job is posted, all the applications, notes, communication, and scheduling can be associated with a job.

The first step to publishing jobs is to create a Recruiteze smart career page.

2. Careers page

It is very important that you subscribe to the right service since you will need a service that allows you to customize the logo, headers, and colors to match your employer’s brand.

This modern smart job board feature is available only with the premium version of the software.

Check our article on how to create your careers page with Recruiteze for an in-depth guide on how to set-up career pages.

3. Careers page widget

This is another important feature, which will allow you to insert the careers page widget into your careers page. It is vital that it is very easy to implement and manage.

Click here for an in-depth guide on how to set the careers page widget.

If you want to see the sample job widget live, click here.

4. Personalized application acknowledgment

You should be able to create a personalized application acknowledgment.

You must address the candidate in the email. This enhances the candidate experience. Based on a study, most job applicants expect a confirmation acknowledging the application. They would also like to know the next steps after the application. Here you can let them know how you are going to communicate with them about the next steps.

5. Custom application

You should be able to create a custom application to help you prescreen candidates. A few additional questions or information can help filter out the suitable candidates that quickly suit your needs.

With the custom application form feature, you can add the following types of fields to the form page:

• Text-Input
• Paragraph
• Select.
• Email
• Phone
• Checkbox
• Radio Button
• File Upload
• Terms Check

For a detailed guide on how to create a custom application in Recruiteze, check this link.

6. Custom candidate workflow

The candidate workflow is the most important feature of a candidate management system. You should be able to put the candidate through the workflow and customize the workflow.

Based on what we have heard from our users, we have created a standard workflow for our candidate management system. But you do not have to require all the steps. If you are a small business, your workflow can be just 8 steps:

1. Review application
2. Reject application
3. Phone screen complete
4. Schedule interview
5. Offer candidate
6. Decline candidate
7. Candidate accepted offer
8. Candidate declined offer

We offer a highly customizable, advanced, and simple-to-use workflow feature. This feature is available with the paid version of our software. Candidate workflow is available from all the candidate views. It works exactly the same from all the views.

For the purposes of this article, we will use the “Applications” feature as an example. You can update your application’s workflow status from the applications view, from the candidate details view, and from the job detail view.

The image below shows the applications view:

Clicking on the workflow tag from the list opens up a popup that will allow you to update the workflow. If the candidate is not already associated with the job, you will need to add the candidate to the selected job. This helpful article details how to add the candidate to the job.

The image below shows the updated workflow status popup:

You can change the workflow status from the popup. It will be immediately reflected in the list.

You can also update the workflow status for one or more jobs for the candidate from the candidate detail view like shown in the image below:

We have designed the following workflow transitions that are available by default when you first start using the feature.

• Application Received – This is the first step in the workflow. When a candidate applies for a job from the job application link, they are automatically transitioned to this state. Also, when a candidate is manually associated with a job, they are transitioned to this state.
• Application Review Complete – At this step, the recruiter has reviewed the application. They can either reject the candidate or go to the next step of doing an initial phone screen.
• Phone Screen Complete – At this step, the recruiter talks to the candidate to better understand the candidate’s skills and experience to determine the job’s match. After this step, they can either reject the candidate or submit the candidate to the hiring manager for feedback.
• Submit Resume for Client Feedback – The recruiter submits to the hiring manager to get initial feedback, whether to pursue with the candidate or not. If the hiring manager shows interest, the candidate can be submitted with proper notes and documentation or reject the candidate for this job.
• Submit to Client – The recruiter submits the candidate to the job. Based on hiring manager feedback, the candidate can be either declined or scheduled for an interview.
• Declined By Client – If the client declines the candidate, the recruiter can transition to this state.
• Schedule Interview – If the hiring manager wants to schedule an interview, the recruiter can schedule and transition to this state. Based on the interview feedback, the candidate can either be rejected for this job or extended an offer.
• Send Offer to Candidate – Recruiter will transition the candidate to this state once an offer is sent.
• Rejected by Client – Recruiter will transition to this state if the candidate fails to get through the interview.
• Candidate Accepted Offer – Once an offer is extended, the candidate can accept the offer or reject the offer. A recruiter will transition to this state if the candidate has accepted the offer.
• Candidate Declined Offer – If the candidate declines the offer, the workflow will end with this state.

These steps are based on interviews with several recruiters, but you do not have to stick to these workflow steps. If you have a different workflow, just send us an email to support at Rrecruiteze.com, and we will set up your custom workflow for you for free.

During each transition, you can either save the workflow state or save and notify. The other feature you will need for greater efficiency is the email templates. We will discuss this later on in the text. For the workflow, you will need to set up the specific workflow templates which are available in the workflow feature.

Email notifications can be sent to either candidate, client, hiring manager, or another recruiter/user within your organization at any workflow transition. The image below shows the notification email dialog.

You should be able to notify the candidate, hiring manager, or another colleague through email notifications of your decision for that step and candidate. This can also involve attaching the resume of the candidate. This can include scheduling interviews, sending rejection notifications, acceptance notifications, or anything from your custom workflow.

The notification email is very similar to sending out any other email. For a notification email, you can select an appropriate workflow template. If you do not have a workflow email template, the template drop-down is shown as empty.

Once a template is selected, the email is composed using the job and candidate details. Optionally with any of the steps, you can send the candidate resume as an attachment. All you need to do is select the checkbox which is marked in the image.

So, now that you have put the candidate through the workflow. At any point, you like to see the candidate workflow history. It is available from the candidate detail view by clicking on the job title link. The image below shows the candidate workflow detail popup.

That is the workflow feature explained.

7. Workflow notes

You should be able to record a note for each workflow step. This is very important to understand why the candidate was put into that state. This also helps you review the hiring process.

8. Create email templates

You should be able to create email templates, especially workflow email templates. This will greatly enhance the standards of your communication. This also shows a lot of professionalism when everyone in the company has standard communication for each step. It also avoids any discrimination based on any factor. This is one of the most important features, along with the ability to create a custom workflow.

When creating email templates using Recruiteze, you can get to the email template management screen by clicking on the Administration -> Email Templates left navigation menu.

There are six different types of email templates:

1. Candidate
2. Client
3. Workflow
4. Task
5. Contact
6. Application Acknowledgement

To get a detailed tutorial on how to create email templates, check this guide.

9. Notes

Ability to add and edit notes and attach documents as notes is an important part of a good ATS. Attaching a document helps when you want to add additional information like reference notes or any other candidate-specific documents. This will also help you consolidate the information associated with a candidate in one place.

Make sure to check out the guide on Notes.

10. Tracking communication

When you communicate to the candidate from the candidate management system, you are able to track communication. You should be able to view all the communication history in one place. This will help you make informed decisions.

11. Edit candidate

You should be able to edit the candidate information. You should always strive to keep the candidate information complete. Whenever you talk to the candidate, you should ask them if all their contact information is still the same. If it has changed, you should update the database immediately so that you keep the most up-to-date information.

12. Repository

You should be able to build your candidate repository so that you can keep in touch with the candidates. You will also have a place to go to find the next best candidate if the one you hired quits in a few months.

13. Reports

You should be able to see the reports to see how many applications were received, how many were interviewed, who was rejected, and who was hired. This will significantly help you understand the hiring process and help you increase your recruitment efficiency.

Yes, these were all features available only to the Enterprise at one time. Now you can afford it! A simple modern candidate management system costs you about 4 Starbucks lattes in a month. That is worth money spent for all that it has to offer.

You can get a detailed how-to guide on the reports here.

Recruiteze Is a Simple Small Business Candidate Management System

Now that you know the most essential features of a candidate management system, you do not have to look far. Recruiteze is the best small business candidate management system. It offers all the features you need at an affordable price.

With Recruiteze you can manage your hiring process efficiently because you will have all the information in one place. It helps you improve your hiring efficiency by identifying areas of improvement with the available information. You can build your candidate repository so that you can go back to the next best candidates.

Try Recruiteze free today!

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