If your applicant tracking system (ATS) consists of a pen and a stack of post its, chances are you‘re not hiring the right candidates. Why? Human error makes you more likely to miss qualifications, questions, and background checks, especially if you have a large hiring team. An applicant tracking system is a digital alternative that takes the guesswork and errors out of your hiring process. Large companies use them for one important reason: they work.
Below, we‘ll show you how an online workflow-based system can help you save time on each applicant tracking step in your hiring process. It will also help you find the best people for the job!
Posting Jobs
Writing a job description is easy. Writing a great job description that attracts the right candidates is a lot harder. If you miss important information, you’ll waste a lot of time sifting through a lot of unqualified candidates.
An ATS like TimeForge helps attract the most qualified candidates. Once you’re done writing a job description, you can turn it into a template and save it for later, so it’s right where you left it when you need to hire again. Automatically publish the job posting on your website, or publish your description on career sites and job boards like Indeed.com. An ATS helps you get recruitment marketing right with the right job description in the right place, every time.
Screening Candidates
One of the most critical steps in the recruitment process is screening candidates. Time is money, so don’t waste it interviewing candidates that aren‘t a great fit. How do you find the right candidates to interview without also spending hours analyzing resumés?
With an applicant tracking system like TimeForge, you can say goodbye to an email inbox full of attachments. Create a customized job application right in the software, and you’ll ensure you’re asking all your candidates the exact same questions. Once candidates start filling out their applications, all of their info ends up in the same database. Then, the software filters the information to tell you automatically whether or not candidates are qualified. That means you can streamline talent acquisition by only reviewing the resumés of qualified candidates.
Interviewing
Have you ever found yourself digging through your inbox (or your desk) for a candidate‘s resumé before an interview? When you‘re recruiting and hiring, being organized is key to a quick hiring process. Recruiting software can help keep you organized during the interview process and even help you come up with the right questions to ask.
Cloud-based software means you can access candidate information anywhere, from any device. As long as you’re somewhere with a computer or smartphone, you can pull up their resume. You can also save your notes from the interview right to their candidate profile, meaning you can add any vital info about what their soft skills were like in the interview. At any step in the process, you can rank candidates so they’re easier to compare later.
Background and Reference Checks
It‘s common for hiring teams to skip this step, especially when a candidate seems promising. But these background and reference checks can uncover some critical information! Checking food safety certifications, criminal records, and forklift licensing are all as important as checking references.
When you have an ATS, you‘ll be able to see whether or not you or another hiring team member has completed each check. That means large teams can more easily delegate this task to HR assistants instead of paying management to do admin work. You can also attach reference letter emails and any other documents to their candidate profile. That way, you‘ll always have their certifications and background checks on hand in your HR system.
Onboarding
Once you‘re ready to hire, you usually have to sit down and type out all your employee‘s information into your HR software. At the same time, you have to make sure they‘re going through the proper onboarding steps—adding a mountain of work to your day!
With TimeForge, you can simply click “Hire” to transfer all their contact information from your hiring database to their employee profile. That way, you‘ll have more time to spend on actual training and will waste less time doing data entry. Customizable onboarding checklists will help you make sure that each new hire goes through the same training process.
ATS software is a great asset for large recruiting teams, especially if you‘re trying to create consistent recruiting and hiring standards across multiple locations. Everyone will have access to the job descriptions, workflows, and talent management features that make recruiting efforts a snap.
Even if you’re operating alone, applicant tracking software can make the process a lot less time consuming and frustrating. Hire the right candidates every time with software that puts the right candidates in your office, and save time in the process!
