Over the years, it has been noted that many questions and queries have been posted by candidates and even employers regarding the fair selection process by an applicant tracking system. Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions pertaining to the working of small company applicant tracking systems such as how it reviews the candidates and benefits offered by an applicant tracking system to the employer.
Every coin has two faces. If the ATS speeds up the recruitment procedure, no wonder there are some cons related to it. But those can be worked around easily with some smart moves by employers. Let’s take a tour and understand some ATS basics. Then, we’ll clear up some misinformation and assumptions about this very crucial and important component of an HR system.
What Is an ATS?
In layman terms, ATS is just a software that stores the information collected from job applicants’ input. It is developed to serve the recruiting needs such as application tracking, resume filtering, emailing etc. Once the data is collected, the profile of each candidate is visible to every person on the recruitment team. All the applications can easily be sifted by the ATS and the hiring team can easily identify the most suitable candidate for the job based on the criteria set by the employer.
Who Needs
Small Company Applicant Tracking Systems?
Time is money. Many small companies believe that they hire so infrequently that they don’t need any help or additional software for applicant tracking and they can manage on their own.
In today’s world, for every single job opening more than 250+ job applications are received and reviewing each and every application costs time, money, and effort. The same time can be used to understand the candidate better in the personal interaction/interview round.
Read More: How a Small Business Applicant Tracking System Can Help Your Business?
Companies are growing and so is the competition. Growing and performing well are the two key KPAs for every startup or small company. Bringing an ATS on board makes sense in every respect.
Why Do Businesses Use Them?
If an ATS is properly configured, it can help organizations of all sizes accurately identify and acquire talent according to their needs and save them money and time. The data is readily available online and can easily be accessed from a remote location as well.
An ATS offers a well-organized database through which the hiring manager or the recruitment team can review the candidate data and can communicate, coordinate, and schedule interviews over a common platform.
Even the data of the candidates who are not selected remain available on the online servers which can, therefore, be used for future prospects.
Applicant Tracking System Costs
ATS is ruling the HR space!
Don’t Tell Yourself You Don’t Need an ATS for Small Business Recruiting
Each and every company is striving to have their own bespoke ATS. An ATS may range from free to thousands of dollars or per month subscription-based ATS etc. Some need to be downloaded on a computer while some do not need any infrastructure or additional cost such as SAAS based ones. Mentioned below are some options that are preferred by companies these days.
- Free Software
Many of the free software has fewer professional features but they are sufficient for a small business. These features can be expanded in due course of time as per the need/growth of a company. Employers can track open jobs, qualified applicants, etc.
- Job Boards
There are job boards available online that are free and paid ones. There are monthly billings or annual billings for the paid job boards. The charges may depend on several factors such as the number of job ads, job posts, or resumes.
- Recruitment Software
Recruitment software doesn’t just keep track of applicants and maintain a candidate database. It also help post the jobs online by integrating with social media platforms and job boards. The cost is determined by company size, the number of users, and other factors.
- Professional ATS
A professional ATS integrates with the organization’s HR and payroll systems. These ATS are fully scalable, robust, and 100% secure.
There are many professional ATS which offer a free trial before you buy the product.
Looking for an ATS with a free trial? Click here to avail a 15 days free trial.
Pros of Using an ATS
- Better Candidates: ATS makes the application process much easier. It boosts the number of applicants and helps the recruiter make a choice from a wider talent pool.
- Faster Hires: An ATS saves time as it help customize searching, filtering, emailing the candidates, and maintaining a well-managed database of candidates.
- Increased Collaboration: An ATS allows the managers and interviewers to contribute together towards the hiring process.
- Improved Employer Brand: Having an easy, mobile-friendly, and fair application process helps promote the organization as the best place to work and fetch a number of positive reviews.
- Boosts Candidate Experience: ATS makes the complete hiring process properly channelized and organized. Notifications are sent to the candidates at each level. The candidates are free to choose their interview slots as well. All these factors boost the candidate experience.
Disadvantages of ATS and How to Overcome Them
Here are some of the cons of ATS. With smart and intelligent operations, these cons can be trounced.
- Cost:
As ATS is professional software and if it is designed exclusively for the recruiting firms, it tends to be costly. The best options for small companies are free versions or a trial version they can try out before committing to the expense of ATS.
- Complexity:
Most of the small companies need just the basic features and not an ATS that is fully overloaded with useless features. There are many features that are not required by small companies such as client billing, recruiter reports, etc. Most of the time in a small company there is a single person handling all the HR operations, so having a “feature-rich” ATS may not be a prerequisite for every company.
- ATS searches
There is an assumption that the ATS perform searches based on keywords, job titles, and skills mentioned on the resume. Everything depends on the configuration of the ATS. The company may also program the ATS using som