Does Your Company Need an ATS? Does Your Company Even Know What an ATS Is?

The ladies of the OpenView recruiting team sparked this post. If you do not know much about our backgrounds, all of us came from different recruiting firms around the greater Boston area, each with a different Applicant Tracking System, or ATS. Our conversation revolved around what makes a good ATS and how it helps a company.

If you are unfamiliar with the Applicant Tracking System, it can be used to input resumes into a database, email candidates, post jobs and keep hiring metrics. Depending on the caliber ATS your company purchases, these basics can be accompanied by some nifty bells and whistles.

This particular conversation got started because the OpenView recruiting team is in process of choosing a new ATS. We have been weighing the pros and cons of purchasing a new ATS and we came to the conclusion we cannot imagine how any start-up or expansion stage, let alone an established company, can possibly operate without one.

Here are a few reasons why all recruiters and hiring managers need to consider utilizing an Applicant Tracking System.

Recruiters or No Recruiters

How can you possibly keep track of all the applications you receive? For each job posting I put up from OpenView, I get upwards of 400 resumes. I could not possibly reply to each person to confirm we have received his or her resume. Compound this with multiple job postings at one time and we have exponential amounts of applications — how do we sift through them? That’s where an ATS comes in.

Keywords

Once you have uploaded a candidate’s information into your ATS, you can do keyword searches. This makes life a lot easier than starting a search from scratch every time you open a new position. For example, if you are hiring for a Software Developer who needs Java experience you can type “Java” into key words and a list of all applicants with that skill will pop up. This means there is less of a chance you are overlooking qualified applicants.

Rejections, Shmejections!

A pesky little task for a hiring manager or a recruiter is rejecting all the applicants he or she is choosing not to pursue. By implementing an ATS, this can be done efficiently with the click of a button. Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. Think of all the time you will save!

Job Postings Made Easy (and Affordable)

That’s right folks — an ATS can provide you with UNLIMITED job postings! If you’re relying on LinkedIn to get the job done to the tune of a few hundred bucks per posting then this may save you some cash. Your ATS will be able to post directly to your company website and in some instances it can also be linked to external job boards like Monster and Career Builder.

If your company has not yet looked into an ATS to manage all your applications and recruiting resources, I would highly suggest you look into it. It could be the saving grace in a hiring pinch one day soon!

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