3 Benefits of Using an Applicant Tracking System – Even When You’re Not Hiring

The current job market is moving much faster than it has done in previous generations. Long gone are the days of learning a trade upon leaving school and sticking at it for the duration of your working life. Today’s workforce are switching roles and workplaces faster than ever before and are constantly on the lookout for progression opportunities and promotions. This means that the average number of applicants for any advertised role is higher than the number an employer can realistically invite for interview. As with most things in our current digital climate, technology can help solve this problem. Using an applicant tracking system can increase the efficiency of the recruitment process by a long way and is also extremely useful to have in place even if you don’t have any openings right now.

Saves Time

For any given vacancy, an organisation might have the capacity to invite 5 candidates to interview. These 5 candidates will have to be narrowed down from the masses of applications received, which is likely to be in the hundreds. Sifting through such a large volume of applications is a lot of work for HR and recruitment personnel and is a waste of valuable time when many candidates don’t fit the necessary criteria. An applicant tracking system will automatically sort through CVs, only passing on those from candidates who meet the fundamental requirements to the recruitment team. This allows HR and recruitment staff to make better use of their time by focusing on higher quality applications and allowing them more time to engage with these candidates.

Application tracking systems also allow for greater time efficiency by automatically carrying out administrative tasks which would otherwise fall to HR and recruitment staff. When sorting through applications, your application tracking system can be programmed to send automatic replies to unsuccessful candidates, improving their candidate experience and giving a positive impression of your organisation, without taking precious time from your busy staff.

Facilitates Collaborative Hiring

Whilst HR and recruitment staff are responsible for sourcing top talent for your organisation, when new recruits join the company these are usually not the people they will primarily be working with, so it’s important to ensure that applicants will work well under their line manager and within their team.

Senior members of staff within each department will also have a better knowledge of what exactly is required for a specific role and as such are fundamental in the recruitment process, but often have limited time to do the work themselves. This is where collaborative hiring comes into play, allowing team leaders to have crucial input into the recruitment process, whilst the majority of the legwork remains with the HR team.

Applicant tracking systems facilitate this approach by making it simple for HR to share key candidate CVs and significant notes with the relevant teams, streamlining applications before busy staff commit time to interviewing.

Ensures you Recruit the Best Candidates!

Of course, the main objective of using an applicant tracking system is that you hire the best candidates for your organisation, making sure no applicants are missed, no CVs overlooked, and no time is wasted considering unqualified candidates.

Sometimes, the reality of the matter is that the strongest applicants approach your organisation at a time when you’re not recruiting. At the opposite end of the scale, it may be that you need to fill a position very quickly and don’t seem to be receiving applications from any strong candidates. By monitoring and recording applications on a database, storing details, qualifications and particular strengths of any application, this problem is eliminated using an applicant tracking system, ensuring top talent is only ever a few clicks away.

To find out more about how Talentia’s applicant tracking system could benefit your organisation, visit our recruitment and onboarding page.