Many employers seek to streamline recruitment and hiring so they can quickly (and attentively) assess top candidates without sifting through a large number of resumes that lack required credentials, skills, or relevant work experience.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) allows hiring managers to screen up to thousands of candidates based on their alignment with necessary qualifications, past job titles, and more. Using a set of high-priority keywords, filters, and the most essential elements of a job requisition, an ATS can generate the profile of an ideal candidate and rank candidates who are closest to matching job prerequisites or preferences. An ATS can even use one specific term like a specialized job title or job responsibility to narrow the filtering process further.
In this article, we’ll explore how ATS integrations can save your business money and time while allowing you to more thoroughly vet and hire top candidates. We’ll also offer recommendations for specific ATS platforms and outline how built integrations can support your efforts to identify and hire promising job candidates even if you’re already using an ATS.
The Features and Benefits of an ATS for Employers (and Applicants)
As a cloud-based digital tool with a host of automated features, an ATS can support your recruitment and hiring processes by offering a range of benefits to you, your hiring managers, and to applicants.
An ATS typically provides the following benefits to employers:
- Automated filtering of resumes to focus on promising candidates and attentive manual review of applications
- Expanded candidate sourcing and simultaneous posting across multiple platforms
- Streamlined interview scheduling, formal offers, and e-signature receipt
- Improved in-house coordination and hiring communication using one consolidated platform that bypasses fragmented email communications
- A digital, cloud-based approach that lets candidates apply, schedule interviews, take tests, and submit necessary documents from any mobile device
- Transparency and fairness at the hiring stage: providing applicants with real-time updates about where they are in the hiring process, including outstanding tasks they need to complete
Value of an ATS with Built Integrations + Recommendations
Whether you’ve never used an ATS for your business or currently use one without built integrations, it’s important to understand the added benefits of an ATS with built integrations and which platforms to consider.
With built integrations, your business is enabled to sync an ATS with your company’s accounting software, email marketing software, CRM software, and a range of other HR functions, including payroll, timekeeping, and benefits administration. This allows you to consolidate a wide range of applicant (and eventual employee) data while making significant upgrades to your talent acquisition, hiring, and onboarding processes.
Using built integrations with your ATS reduces cost-per-hire by eliminating the need for duplicative or manual tasks that must be completed on paper, in another digital platform, or using multiple platforms. As built integrations expedite the entire hiring process, they also make the next phase – onboarding – much more efficient for hiring managers and applicants alike. While the benefits to hiring managers are clear, an ATS with built integrations can also help you make a lasting and positive first impression on a new hire.
For instance, if a candidate is weighing the pros and cons of different available positions and your business offers an intuitive, streamlined application process (a reflection of company culture), it could mean the difference between accepting an offer of employment elsewhere or with your company.
Explore our related article for further advice on how to use an ATS as one complementary part of your recruiting process.
Choosing the Right ATS Platform for Your Organization
A number of ATS platforms are available for organizations of all sizes, but it’s important to choose or upgrade to one that fully accommodates your business, aligns with built integrations, and is easy to configure with your existing software and HR processes.
Platforms like JobVite, Workday, UKG Pro and UKG Ready, are all excellent choices, especially if you’d like to use an intuitive mobile application and enjoy easy navigation of the application, hiring, and onboarding phases (for your staff and applicants/new hires).
If you’re already using an ATS platform, we may be able to integrate our background screening platform with your ATS. Please contact us to set up a free discovery call.
If your organization is not using an ATS, or you’re considering using an ATS for the very first time, we strongly recommend UKG Ready. Our partner company, Cello HR specializes in UKG Ready configuration and implementation and can help you decide if it’s a match for your organization and talent acquisition goals.