What is Modern Applicant Tracking System? (Features + Pros & Cons)

The applicant tracking system can be a bonus for recruiting leaders and/or HR managers who want to save time and work more effectively. You might experience that talent acquisition has totally changed. Sourcing great talent has completely changed because of the rising competition. The great continued resignation reshapes how you manage and retain your employees. Nowadays, job openings have reached heights, and this situation is putting recruiting leaders or HR managers under pressure. 

In this blog, we will be discussing the modern applicant tracking system. Also, you will know about its features, benefits, and downsides. This complete guide to the applicant tracking system will help you understand what ATS (Applicant tracking system) exactly is, how it works, 

What Is An Applicant Tracking System?

In simple terms, an applicant tracking system abbreviated as ATS is a software app. This software handles all the hiring needs in order to recruit top talents. ATS can be accessed online at the enterprise or small businesses. Well, it depends on the needs of the firm. This software is created in order to automate, fasten, and improve your hiring process. It effectively helps recruitment leaders and HR managers in finding, screening, organizing, and hiring new employees.  

You should be happy to know that the modern applicant tracking system does all the essential tasks. From job posting to candidate screening and interview scheduling, ATS made every process even easier. 

What Are The Uses Of An Applicant Tracking System?

Have you ever thought about what it means when we say the applicant tracking system fastens the entire hiring process? Why is it important to hire faster? You must be aware of the fact that generally, a hiring process lasts for only 2-3 months on average. At the same time, the top candidates stay on the market for just ten days. Recruiting leaders or HR managers get plenty of resumes for a single job profile. This way, it is quite difficult to find the perfect candidate among hundreds of profiles. 

Here, it would be very interesting to know how an applicant tracking system helps you there? What is its role? There are most important features by which an applicant tracking system helps HR managers in order to get top candidates for their firm. Below, I am mentioning some of the common points an ATS (applicant tracking system) can solve:

• Struggle in order to sort out top candidates among hundreds of resumes.
• Drowning in paperwork and spreadsheets
• Employees refer very few candidates.
• When you have not enough time to send personalized responses to applicants
• Creating and managing the career site of your firm on your own
• Posting vacant job openings on multiple job boards & portals.
• It helps in tracking recruiting metrics and reports.
• ATS saves and organizes candidates' profiles for future use, too. This way, your time will be saved from being wasted. 
• Upgrade interview process
• Arranges pre-screening questions or assignments.

Key Features Of An ATS (Applicant Tracking System)

This is an obvious thing that so many candidates apply for a specific job at a time. Firms need to set up their plans in order to attract the top skilled candidates. Also, they need to organize them once they have applied. Here, we are going to discuss the top features of an applicant tracking system. You will know how these features help you succeed in today's competitive job market. 

Feature 1: Career Page

An applicant tracking system (ATS) helps in designing your career page. Also, it develops your identity from the start of the hiring process. Candidates can witness all the job openings on your career page and can apply directly from there. An Applicant tracking system automates your career page with customized input forms, powerful filters, resume screening, and email notifications. 

Feature 2: Customized Job Board View

An applicant tracking system observes and creates your recruitment process better with customized board views for each stage and every vacant job opening. Recruiting leaders or HR managers can easily store all the documents of a particular applicant and their contact information too to contact them in the future. The applicant tracking system tool helps HR managers to create searchable candidate profiles. 

Feature 3: Job Postings On Multiple Job Portals

There is a question arises about how the applicant tracking system will make the hiring process more efficient? ATS integrates with the most popular job portals and social platforms such as Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn, etc. This way, you can easily post your job ads on several job portals with a single click! 

Feature 4: Resume Parsing and Screening

Let's discuss another feature of the applicant tracking system, which is resume parsing. This feature extracts all the important information, then converts it into an easy-to-scan format. The ATS also helps in lowering the load of the HR department. This software can automatically reject a candidate who does not match the firm's needs.  

Feature 5: Interview Scheduling

With a modern applicant tracking system, recruiting leaders or HR managers can integrate interview schedules via Google Calendar. This way, the applicant will be able to pick the suitable slot for the interview and also reminders for the same. Some applicant tracking system also provides customizable interview questions within the software.

Applicant Tracking System In Recruiting (Pros & Cons)

The applicant tracking system in recruitment helps in many ways. This software can filter out unwanted resumes, which reduces the time that recruiters spend in order to eliminating applicants who are not the right fit for their company. Another applicant tracking system benefit is that they keep tracking of applicants, their skills, and proficiencies. This way, HR managers can help in building a database of talent that might be accurate for a different job in the future.

Pros of Applicant Tracking System

• An Applicant tracking system provides customizable screening criteria, which allow recruiters to keep or eliminate applications that do not match to firm's needs.
• This software is like a more concise group of qualified & skilled applicants for each job opening.
• ATS spends less time on mundane activities, such as reading several resumes and deciding whether to keep or pass 
• This tool (applicant tracking system) reduced the burden on the recruiting budget.
• It helps in the automatic job posting to several online job boards when a position comes available.
• This software regularly tracks to measure job application progress.
• ATS is the wealth of data to measure the effectiveness of any part of the process and find areas to improve them.
• It can easily access previous applicant data, which helps in building out the talent pipeline.

Cons of Applicant Tracking System

There is no such thing that comes with perfection with any technology. All the applicant tracking software comes with several downsides too. Although we know that the applicant tracking system has the ability to lighten the workload and improve the overall hiring process at the same time. Also, it is warned that it all depends on how compatible the ATS and resumes are. So, there are a few downsides that can pop up along the way. 

Here, we are going to discuss some of the potential issues that you might encounter with an applicant tracking system:

• It might misread resumes in PDF format.
• Automatic elimination of every resume (even great ones) that the system can't read and interpret
• Missing out on potential great hires and great pipeline talent when resumes are eliminated
• The inability to read most.
• There might be Incorrectly categorized data from resumes that were created in an unusual format.

The downsides of an ATS (applicant tracking system) add a layer of limitation that can decrease its overall value to the recruiting process. If it finds some top talent and eliminates others who do not match the firm's needs, the applicant tracking system benefit could be a wash. So before making an investment in this software, thoroughly research well what the software can do and where you will run into snags.

How To Choose An Applicant Tracking System For Your Business?

As you can see, ATS (Applicant Tracking System) offer many different solutions for various recruiting goals and challenges. Therefore, finding the right ATS tool is not an easy task. Here, I am going to mention three steps that you should follow in order to have the right applicant tracking system:

Step 1: Determine Recruiting Goals

If you are thinking about investing in a new recruiting tool, you should start by identifying your recruiting goals and challenges like

• Where and how do you post your jobs?
• Do you work with external recruiters?
• How do you do recruit planning and budget costs?
• How are your job ads written?
• How do you currently collect applications?
• Do you use job-related assignments or pre-screening questions?
• How do you progress candidates from applied to hire?
• Do you figure out background checks before a final offer?

Step 2: Find Out ATS Providers 

In the next step, you have to research the different applicant tracking system providers and do not forget to compare their ATS solutions. You must keep your hiring goals and challenges in mind. Also, browse their website in order to check if they seem like a good fit for your business.

Step 3: Try A Demo

Getting a demo is your chance to see ATS in action, what features it offers, and how it can solve the challenges that a recruiting leader or an HR manager may face. Most ATS providers provide a free & live demo. It is the plus point of the whole process. There, you have the chance to test all the features and user experience live. Just keep in your mind that the ATS should be simple and easy to use.

Final Words

In the complete and comprehensive blog above, we have discussed all the major aspects of the applicant tracking system. We discussed what exactly the ATS is? What are its features? From pros and cons to the process to choosing the right applicant tracking system, I hope you are now aware of everything about ATS. In short, it should build recruitment marketing for both active and passive candidates. Also, the career sites have the ability to boost your employer's brand. 

Moreover, the Applicant tracking system should be built for today's complex talent market, which offers you a competitive advantage with internal mobility features and a great candidate experience. For more information, you may visit our website - E Global Soft Services, and experience the best services.