Recruiting skilled candidates for a particular role is the basic requirement of any business to compete with others. For that, you need to develop hiring strategy to align the efforts and goals. An efficient strategy gets you a pool of qualified candidates and makes your selection process easy. However, it needs attention and considerable time to take all the factors into account. Therefore, recruiters leverage tech advancements to simplify the work and spare time for evaluating & building strategies.
An applicant tracking system assists the hiring executives throughout the recruitment cycle. It posts vacancies on job portals and helps to source candidates easily. It even simplifies the screening and interviewing stages so managers can focus on candidates’ skills rather than the administrative workload. Digital tools optimize the entire process and help you get the most out of it. However, it is crucial to know how to leverage ATS effectively. Therefore, we have stated some valuable tips for your HR team.
Table of Contents
Best ATS Tips To Speed Up Your Hiring
Evaluate Your Job Postings And Set Them On Auto Mode
The first step to achieving something is looking at the past and finding mistakes. Evaluating your earlier job postings can help you identify the areas of improvement. Sometimes your job descriptions might not engage the candidates, or the career page might need to be more attractive. There could be many reasons you are not getting enough qualified applications. So, consider all the factors affecting the process and try to compare your efforts with competitors.
Furthermore, you must leverage the ATS features to optimize your postings. Here are some key points to consider:
- Utilize the AI capabilities of ATS and make engaging and comprehensive job descriptions.
- Make efforts to increase the visibility of postings in user searches by using relative keywords in the descriptions.
- Look for relevant and free job boards to post ads. Outline candidates’ interests and requirements based on the job roles and segment them through the system.
- Personalize the postings based on the job role and candidates’ interests to attract them in a better way.
Make Your Social Media Account Attractive And Improve Your Employer Brand
According to Zippia, 57% of candidates prefer social media to get themselves a job. Social recruiting is growing unexceptionally in hiring practices, and it will continue to do it in the future. Gen Z candidates prioritize social media platforms to look for work or research about the employer, so making the company account attractive to users is essential.
Social recruiting is helpful in publishing job posts and gathering applications, but it is not meant for that only. Some hiring managers consider social media a substitute for job boards and keep posting vacancies on it, making the feed boring. Social platforms don’t just reach to candidates, but they also leave an impact on their minds. And therefore, it is crucial to work on the aspects of the employer brand to create an engaging company image. You can take the assistance of an applicant tracking system for great social reach. Here is how:
- Link your company’s social media handles with the system, and if you are using social media marketing tools, then integrate them for time savings.
- Make the most out of the system for preparing attractive job posts. If possible, make custom posts for each role, segment the audience, and create a database.
- Utilize paid ads on prominent platforms and use ATS to run the campaigns effectively.
- Find the most visited social groups and communities on different platforms with the system and also the most followed hashtags.
Optimize Your Interviewing Process
Interviews hold major importance in the entire process, and therefore, it demands timely evaluations and improvements. So, determine a structure and map the interviews for each job role. Set particular standards candidates need to meet and always try to improve them. Further, you must utilize your ATS to organize the process efficiently. Here are some tips:
- Schedule the interviews in the system and keep yourself prepared for them. Also, set alerts to remind you about the interview timings if you are caught up in other work. If you already use any scheduling software or calendar app, integrate it with ATS to sync the data and organize everything.
- Leverage advanced features of the applicant tracking system, such as chatbot. Arrange pre-interview questionnaires through chatbots to save time. It will narrow down the list of selected candidates for interview, making the selection process easier.
- If interviewing distant candidates, make use of video conferencing tools provided by the vendor as they deliver a high-quality experience. Otherwise, integrate your existing tools with the system for a better experience.
- Once the interview is done, use reference areas to note important points. Describe interviewing the particular candidate in brief so that you can take reference in the future from it. If the system offers candidate scoring features, take advantage of that.
Track The Applicants And Reduce The Average Time To Hire An Employee
According to OfficeVibe, the best talent gets hired in just 10 days, yet it takes recruiting teams a massive 27 days to fill a position. So, you need to move fast and be unique, or you will be late. For that, you will need effective strategies and plans in hand. Once you have made the strategies, utilize the ATS to track every stage of the candidate in the process and reduce the time of hiring. The following points will help you in that:
- Before posting any vacancy, prepare a well-structured plan. Then, source qualified candidates and make a talent pool. If you find a robust profile but no post is vacant for them. Then, consider noting their details in the database so that you can contact them in the future and save time from finding applicants from the start.
- Set effective screening standards so that only qualified candidates get an entry for interview. Enter relevant keywords for the job role and their synonyms, too. Determine fonts and resume formats as many as possible to ensure you are not missing out on skilled candidates. Also, set pre-screening questions to evaluate the applicant before the interview. Ask questions related to the job role and the candidate’s experience; this will help you to judge him better than the resume. To make the questionnaire unique, add different questions and use a variety of styles, such as open text, checkbox, and drop-down list.
- Maintain effective communication with the candidates. Deliver timely emails and messages to applicants and keep them updated about their status in the process.
- Leverage the dashboard and reports to keep track of productivity. Set efficient performance metrics to measure the effectiveness of efforts.
Ending Notes
The talent market is constantly growing, and each job posting is flooded with applicants. So, it becomes necessary to leave some part of the process on technology so that the managers can focus on the strategies and quality of outputs. The applicant tracking system can save you a lot of time and contribute to increasing overall productivity.
Not only the recruitment industry but technology trends are impacting every sector and business process. AI, blockchain technology, cloud computing, and hybrid workspaces are widely adopted by businesses. They are changing the definition of workspaces and HR, and you should also maintain pace with them.
