What is an Applicant Tracking System? 

An applicant tracking system, or recruitment tracking system, is a software solution that is specifically designed to simplify, streamline and speed up the hiring workflow. Thanks to a centralized database, this tracking tool increases the efficiency and productivity of the recruitment team. Moreover, it empowers the hiring team to create engaging job descriptions and post multiple job openings across numerous channels. 

Assess the suitability of a candidate for the current job opening at your organization with applicant tracking systems. With candidates exploring newer avenues for suitable jobs that suit their profile, businesses, and organizations have begun automating employee screening processes with recruitment management software.   

Aside from helping companies save time and resources, online applicant tracking software offers important features for social media integration, career page branding, email templates, AI analytics, and flexible workflows. You can post a new job, create an interesting job description, attach your company's credentials, send it across multiple channels with the help of an applicant tracking system.  

How Does ATS Software Help Small Businesses with Applicant Management?

Small businesses often suffer because of limited resources and their difficulty in bringing the best candidates on board. However, with applicant tracking systems, the task is much simplified and streamlined. 

Small businesses require an applicant tracking software that not just automate their recruitment workflows but also help them filter the best candidates quickly and automatically. 

How an applicant tracking solutions help small businesses with recruitment? 

• Online Applicant Tracking: Advanced filtering options help choose candidates with the desired variables such as job experience, fieldwork knowledge, research done, degree earned, and work experience. Companies may further alter these variables as per their requirements. 
• Integration with Job Portals: With just a click, it is possible to integrate with popular job portals and get in touch with the right candidates. 
• Faster Onboarding: Thir Applicant tracking software provides onboarding support wherein particular details of a candidate can be posted into the company’s record automatically once she or he has been hired. This saves the hassle of doing manual entries. 

What are the Core Applicant Software Features & Capabilities? 

• Job templates: Applicant tracking systems help with the most important part of the job creation and approval process. These provide pre-built job templates to simplify the work of an organization by creating application processes for different vacancies. Also, there is a separate vacancy approval section for each kind of job published. 
• Customizable career pages: Along with job templates, online applicant software provides customizable career pages, which can be trimmed to perfection with the company's logo, guidelines, and perks offered. It is critical for attracting the best suitable candidates. 
• Advanced search tools: Advanced search tools make it easy for recruiters to search for a candidate with the desired variables. For instance, if you are looking for a candidate with a scientific research degree and knowledge, you can enter details such as degree, research interest areas, work experience, location, specific achievements in the field to find the best job candidates. 
• Reporting and analytics: Candidate management system provides a built-in analytics tool for reporting on data, such as acquisition costs, hiring time limits, and diversity compliance. Further, these tools provide an insight into where exactly improvement needs to be made within the entire hiring process. 
• Pre-screening: Assess new and prospective appointees by utilizing applicant tracking software's pre-employment assessment tests, such as video interviews, personality tests and pre-set questions. Such tests save a lot of the company's time and resources in selecting the deserving candidate. 
• Systems integration: Integrate the applicant software with other critical software solutions for your organization, such as payroll checker, HRIS software, background check services, etc. Software for tracking applicant's info thus transforms into a powerful toolkit for handling recruitment profiles. 
• Communication logs: Look for an applicant tracking system that provides an intuitive calendar, automatic replies, email templates, and communication logs for quick response time. The entire communication channel is further streamlined when the applicant tracking system gets integrated with email channels like Gmail, Outlook, Messenger, etc. 
• CV analysis: CV parsing technicality is of important use to candidates and companies alike. While a candidate can automatically attach a CV to application forms, the company in question too can organize CVs by sorting them out as per qualifications, work experience, and other chosen criteria 
• Custom recruiting workflows: Improve the quality of hiring processes by managing custom recruiting workflows. Once the workflow for job recruitment is set up, it becomes easier for a company to receive an overview of the entire hiring process. Your business with an applicant system can check for the candidate's ranking, the total number of applicants, and communication history.
• Automated communication: Send mass recruitment emails to applicants with an applicant tracking system. You can also attach email templates for undertaking video or face to face interviews and do necessary follow-ups with applicant tracking system's automated communication tools.
• Integrated career page: An integrated career page provides a complete overview of an organization in terms of its achievements, vision, focus areas, core team members and company's guiding principles. Online applicant tracking platforms help with the creation of company pages using pre-built design templates for candidates to view and apply for the next job opening.
• Multiple job board support: Candidates use multiple job portals to search for new jobs. Companies too in a similar way opt for candidate management systems that help track and manage candidates’ interests and submissions from different job portals. 

Benefits of Using Applicant Tracking System 

Hiring the right candidate for a job role is a vital part of your organization's success, but it is a time-consuming process and requires a lot of resources. But with an applicant tracking system, most of the problems associated with the recruitment process can be streamlined.

Let's look at the benefits of using this system and how you can use it to save time & money:

Post Vacancies on Your Official Website and Third-Party Job Portals

With an applicant tracking system, there is no need to spend extra on recruitment agencies. You can easily post and track vacancies across various employment boards as well as your own website. The software provides you the facility to shortlist suitable candidates from tons of fresh applications.

Moreover, it also tells you about websites that are not giving your positive returns, so this again saves you from burning a hole in the hiring budget.

Streamline the Onboarding Process

Once you hire the candidates, you can welcome them with an effective onboarding process. According to a study by Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), out of all the employees who attend a personalized onboarding session, 69% of them are more likely to continue to work for the same company for more than 3 years.

An applicant tracking system makes the hiring process more organized while giving new candidates clarity from the first day itself.

Automate Mundane Tasks and Reduce Paperwork

The next big advantage of using an ATS is that you can automate daily tasks like resume screening, attendance tracking, record keeping, and more. It allows you to spend more time on the tasks that require your attention, rather than spending time on mundane work.

Unnecessary paperwork also causes a lot of stress and leaves less time for training, employee engagement and strategy making. But with applicant tracking software you can digitally manage & store your documents. Moreover, it also allows you to Everify critical documents for employee background checks.

Builds Your Brand Reputation

During the hiring process, it's important to leave a long-lasting impression on your candidates. Whether you hire them or not, the candidate should have a positive experience with your hiring process. It can only happen if you properly notify them about each stage of the interview process and tell them about their selection, rejection, and next round of interviews.

Thanks to an ATS system, you can ensure transparent and prompt communication with candidates. Not only candidates, but the software also allows you to provide instant status updates to the higher management.

Which Companies Should Buy Applicant Tracking System?

All companies can use an applicant tracking software for job posting, tracking, and hiring a new candidate for a particular position. However, there are a few businesses that would reap significant benefits by switching to a new-age ATS system:

• Recruitment agencies: Agencies are always on the lookout for new talent because their business depends on screening, shortlisting, and hiring new candidates for multiple organizations. Having an ATS at their disposal can ease out the entire process, and they can avoid tedious manual procedures to make a faster and better hiring decision.
• Large corporations: Organizations thrive by attracting, onboarding, and utilizing the top talent across different processes. However, some companies lack the right plan to connect with jobseekers, others don't have the right tool to find suitable candidates. The usage of applicant tracking system addresses all these challenges and the software is equipped with all the essential features that make it easy for HR department to manage, analyse and recruit new talent in a short span.
• Small and mid-size businesses: Owing to the cost-effective monthly subscription plans of applicant tracking software, now even a small or mid-sized business can use an applicant tracking system to hire the best talent. An advanced cloud-based model means that your organization doesn't need a large HR department to fulfil hiring requirements. Everything, from job postings to payroll management, can be done with the help of the software. 

What's the Average Cost of Applicant Tracking Systems?

The price of applicant tracking systems starts at as low as Rs 500 per month. However, it depends on multiple factors like customization, pricing model, number of users, etc. You can opt from the following pricing models to get the right ATS software.

• Per-User Pricing: It is the most widely used pricing model of applicant-tracking software, where a company pays a monthly fee based on the number of users. The company that has ten users will have to shell out more amount than the one that has only 4 users. While this plan has a lot of flexibility, this also has a drawback as the companies are bound to pay more when multiple individuals are involved in the hiring process.
• Pay for Every Job Posting: It’s a preferred model for small-scale companies that don't hire as frequently as large MNCs. But companies with large hiring volumes may not opt for because of the budget constraint.
• Pay for Each Module: This pricing structure is mainly followed by companies that have integrated ATS systems with the HRMS suite. Training, HR functions, payroll management, attendance tracking, and performance management are the popular modules of the suite. Moreover, businesses pay a certain amount to incorporate ATS module in the HRMS software.  
• Flat Rate: Regardless of the number of users and job listings, organizations pay a fixed monthly or annual amount to use an applicant tracking system.

Software Categories Similar to ATS Software 

Payroll Management Software  

Payroll processing involves a lot of activities to carefully look after an organization's most important asset - employees. When done manually or with an outdated tool, it becomes time-consuming and complex and gives inaccurate results. Payroll management software is used to ease the hassle of payroll processing. From leave & attendance management to managing the entire payroll lifecycle, this software can do it all with just a few clicks.   

Attendance Management Software 

Attendance tracking is an important function of an organization that enables the HR department to track the attendance of employees at work or in a remote setting. In addition, they can approve or manage overtime and get in-depth reports for payroll management. This attendance management software can also be used by employees to get complete information about their attendance, apply for leaves, check their payslips and perform many other mundane tasks.

Leave Management Software  

This leave management system application that is specifically designed to manage leaves and attendance of the workforce. The new-age software comes with cloud storage facility and a web-based or mobile application that allows you to efficiently manage, track and approve leave requests from any android or IOS device. Moreover, thanks to a user-friendly interface, employees can easily access their accounts to check leave balances or request a day off from work.  

Recruitment Management Software 

It is one of the most important software for HR professionals as it automates the interview scheduling and hiring process. With recruitment management software, HR teams can screen bulk resumes in a few minutes, and can easily shortlist qualified candidates for respective positions. It creates a unique hiring experience for candidates and lets them know about the next steps in the interview process. 

Grievance Management Software 

For the smooth functioning of any business, it is important that all employees are fully engaged and work together to achieve the goals. However, things go haywire when they are unhappy about something or want to complain about an ongoing issue in the company. Grievance management software gives them a platform to present their issues in front of higher management or a dedicated team of professionals.  

It helps them in lodging the complaint, monitoring the real-time status, generating reports and resolving the issue as soon as possible. Due to the transparent functioning of the software system, the complainer can have the complete visibility of the ongoing issue resolving process.  

Applicant Tracking System Trends 

Recruiting through social media 

Today, when you are surrounded by memes and viral posts on social media channels, you can leverage their reach and popularity to search for the best candidates. Some applicant tracking systems have a built-in social recruitment feature which allows automatic posting of new vacancies on popular social media sites as well as job boards.  

Inbuilt analytical tools help in determining the best performing job campaigns. Your current employees can also share job openings with their friends & acquaintances on social media handles.  

Hire talent from home 

COVID-19 has started a new trend of working from home. Even when the things are back on track now, most of the companies have adopted this work from home model for their business. The shift has also passed on to the recruitment process, therefore applicant tracking system are built with functionalities and features for effortless recruitment no matter where the candidate is located.  

All major software is now optimized for mobile phones, which means applicants can search for a vacancy or apply for it on the go. Not only profile screening but interview setup, interview feedback, as well as every hiring process, can take place via mobile device. Moreover, ATS software can also be integrated with video platforms for conducting remote interviews.  

Use machine learning & artificial intelligence to your advantage 

Although recruitment is a human led process, machine learning and AI is used to automate mundane tasks, promote better decision-making and promote more jobs to qualified people. In order to communicate with jobseekers, companies can implement conversational chat box with ARI (Automated Recruiter Interface). This way, candidates can interact with the brand through their preferred messenger service, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp etc. at their preferred time of the day.  

How to Find the Best Applicant Tracking System Software? 

Look for the following critical features within an application system for identifying the best solution for your business:

• Social media integration: With an applicant tracking software, look for social media integration. Candidates these days make full use of social media channels for searching and applying for new jobs on a regular basis. 
• Mobile application: Most users prefer downloading job applications on their mobile phones for quick searches. Therefore, find an applicant system, which supports mobile application. This way, the current opening in your company can be visible to a larger audience. 
• Automated screening: You can automatically filter out the deserving profiles with a candidate management system. Ruling out applications not fit for the current job profile saves a lot of time and resources. 
• Integrated personality tests: Surfing through the right candidate profile becomes easy with integrated personality tests.  Such tests let all the current applicants answer questions related to not only personality assessment but also the suitability of prospective candidates for the current job role. 
• Analytics dashboard: The analytics dashboard creates data on a regular basis for providing an insight into the entire recruitment process of a business. It is a managerial tool deployed by organizations to bring forth improvements as necessary to develop a productive hiring channel.