In the digital age, high-quality candidates play a decisive role in the success or failure of a business. However, attracting and recruiting exceptional candidates is no small challenge. SHiring will introduce 7 aspects of implementing an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that enhance the candidate experience and provide a competitive advantage in the talent race.
What is candidate experience?
The candidate experience encompasses the entire process a job seeker goes through when applying to a company. It includes all stages of interaction, starting from the initial application submission, to the interview rounds, competency assessments, and concluding with receiving a job offer or rejection notification from the employer.
Read more: What is an Applicant Tracking System?
The importance of candidate experience
In today’s digital age, enhancing the candidate experience is essential. An effective solution is to implement an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) – software that automates and manages the recruitment process, including job postings, resume screening, interview scheduling and candidate tracking. An ATS optimizes the recruitment process, providing a better experience for candidates through its ability to process quickly, continuously and efficiently.
The candidate experience holds particular importance. A recent report by CareerPlug indicated that 53% of job seekers had at least one negative experience during the hiring process in the past 12 months. Additionally, 52% of job seekers declined job offers due to poor experiences.
In the highly competitive talent market, the candidate experience determines a company’s success in attracting and retaining high-quality talent. The candidate experience reflects the professionalism and respect a company shows to potential candidates, which can lead to either positive or negative outcomes.
A negative candidate experience can cause a company to miss out on recruiting top talent, damage its reputation and brand, prolong the hiring process and increase costs. Conversely, a positive candidate experience brings many benefits, such as increasing the job offer acceptance rate by 38% (according to CriteriaCorp), saving time and recruitment costs, attracting suitable candidates, enhancing the employer brand and boosting workforce productivity.
Therefore, implementing solutions like ATS to improve the candidate experience is a crucial step, helping companies gain a competitive advantage in attracting talent.
7 Aspects of implementing ATS to improve the candidate experience
Candidate information storage
ATS plays a crucial role in organizing and efficiently managing candidate data throughout the recruitment process. Given the vast number of resumes and applications that recruiters receive for each job opening, managing and tracking all this information manually can overwhelm recruiters.
With the implementation of an ATS, detailed candidate information is centrally stored in a centralized database, completely eliminating the need for physical paperwork or disorganized spreadsheets that can easily be misplaced or lost. Recruiters can access and search candidate profiles with just a few clicks, significantly saving valuable time.
In addition to systematically organizing candidate information, an ATS ensures compliance with data protection regulations by securely storing sensitive personal information in accordance with privacy laws. With ATS assistance in scientifically arranging candidate information, recruiters can optimize their workflow and focus on evaluating candidates’ competencies instead of spending excessive time sorting through piles of paperwork or disordered digital data.
This not only reduces the burden on recruiters but also enhances the quality of the candidate experience. When the recruitment process is carried out smoothly and efficiently, candidates feel respected and professional. They receive quicker feedback and have positive experiences during their application process. Moreover, using an ATS helps minimize errors and ensures fairness in reviewing all candidates, creating a transparent and professional recruitment process.
Streamlining the recruitment process
Applicant Tracking System (ATS) play a vital role in streamlining and increasing efficiency in the recruitment process. Thanks to the ability to automate various tasks and centralize candidate information management, ATS helps recruiters save significant time and effort.
One of the ways ATS streamlines the process is by simplifying job postings and applications. With this system, employers can easily create detailed job postings with specific requirements and standards. This ensures that only the most suitable candidates apply, helping to screen out unqualified candidates from the start, reducing the volume of applications that need to be manually screened.
Furthermore, an ATS allows tracking and recording every step of the hiring process, from initial screening and interviews to making the final offer. All candidate interaction information is stored, ensuring no steps are missed and providing transparency for both parties.
Thanks to its diverse and superior features, ATS has become an indispensable tool in optimizing the recruitment process. ATS helps recruiters save time, improve productivity and make more accurate hiring decisions. At the same time, this system also improves candidate experience, creating satisfaction and professionalism right from the first steps of the recruitment process.
Read more: SHiring – Efficient recruitment solution integrating AI and ATS
Automating administrative tasks
An Applicant Management System (ATS) is a powerful tool for simplifying and automating many administrative tasks related to the candidate experience during the recruiting process. With this system, employers do not need to spend too much time entering candidate information or manually screening resumes..
One of the important features of an ATS is the ability to analyze resumes. The system will automatically extract relevant information from records and populate the database, saving significant time compared to reading each record individually. Employers can quickly review analyzed data and make informed decisions.
In addition, ATS also automates communication with candidates via email such as sending email confirmation of application receipt or interview schedule. This helps candidates stay updated without the need for recruitment staff to send emails manually.
Another notable feature is the ability to schedule interviews directly on the platform and send calendar invites to candidates. ATS also supports feedback management and candidate evaluation by centralizing information from many sources in a single system.
By automating the above administrative tasks, ATS helps recruiters spend more time focusing on building relationships with candidates instead of getting caught up in paperwork or reporting, improving quality amount of experience for candidates.
Better Job Descriptions
17% of candidates withdraw from the recruitment process due to discrepancies between the job description and the interview.
According to LinkedIn
Clear job postings that provide detailed information about the job, work environment, job requirements and evaluation criteria help candidates quickly determine if the career opportunity aligns with their skills, experience and career goals. This is crucial as it helps candidates understand the company, its culture, core values, and specific job descriptions, facilitating deeper and more effective conversations during interviews.
Leverage recruitment software’s data analysis capabilities to gather detailed information about the target talent group, including experience, skills, educational background and other factors you seek. This information helps you create specific, concise and attractive job descriptions that reflect recruitment needs and attract the right candidates.
Use collaboration tools to quickly share job description drafts with stakeholders such as managers, HR and field experts, allowing you to receive timely feedback and improve the content.
Ensuring stakeholder alignment to avoid wasting time
- Classifying and tagging candidates:
ATS helps recruiters classify and tag candidates based on criteria such as skills, experience, expertise and job position. This enables recruiters to easily filter and identify the most suitable candidates for specific positions, shortening recruitment time and enhancing candidate experience by providing timely feedback.
- Adding notes and comments on candidates:
ATS allows recruiters to add notes and comments on candidates at various stages of the recruitment process. This ensures candidate information is accurately updated, making all interactions with candidates personalized and effective, improving candidate experience.
- Sharing Talent Pool data:
ATS provides talent pool data for use in discussions about ideal candidate profiles. This helps recruiters persuade hiring managers about their strategies, set accurate expectations from the beginning and ensure selected candidates meet the position requirements, facilitating a smooth and transparent application process.
- ATS Access Rights:
Provide ATS access rights to hiring managers and other stakeholders to increase visibility into the recruitment process. This allows them to raise issues promptly, ensuring the recruitment process runs smoothly and efficiently, thereby enhancing candidate experience with quick handling of information and feedback.
Maintain candidate engagement
Frequent Communication: Provide candidates with updates on their application progress through each recruitment stage. Use ATS to automatically send notification emails and status updates, ensuring candidates are always informed.
Showing Respect: Appreciate candidates’ time and interest. Ensure they don’t feel ignored or left out..
Creating a Good Impression: Maintain a professional and seamless application experience, demonstrating respect and positive company culture.
Effective Monitoring: Use ATS to track each candidate’s progress, set reminders, and collaborate with team members.
By implementing these measures, you can ensure candidates have a positive experience with your company, even if they are not hired for the applied position. This can help you build a reputation as a reputable employer, attracting high-quality candidates for future recruitment opportunities.
Providing a user-friendly interface
A professional and user-friendly interface is crucial for creating a good company brand and image for candidates. Modern Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) offer an attractive, easy-to-use interface that can be customized to match the company’s unique style. This helps the company present a professional and modern image, creating a positive impression from the first moments candidates interact with the system.
Moreover, a friendly and consistent interface across different devices, including mobile, provides a smooth and convenient experience for candidates throughout the application process. This not only helps the company gain favor from candidates but also demonstrates professionalism and dedication to creating an optimal application environment.
SHiring – ATS solution to improve candidate experience
In today’s digital age, finding and recruiting talent has become increasingly complex and competitive. Companies not only need to attract potential candidates but also ensure the recruitment process runs smoothly and efficiently. That’s why ATS has become an indispensable solution.
SHiring offers outstanding benefits for both recruiters and candidates. With advanced features, this solution not only optimizes the recruitment process, saving time and resources for recruiters but also enhances the candidate experience, creating a friendly and professional recruitment environment.
Discover in detail how SHiring can improve the candidate experience, helping companies attract and retain excellent talent, ensuring a competitive advantage in today’s market. If you are ready to elevate your recruitment activities to a new level, request a demo of SHiring today.