Identify Requirements for Your Applicant Tracking System
Identifying clear business goals will connect your priorities to your requirements. It is imperative that your committee stay focused on its initial system requirements. The committee must avoid being distracted by system elements that are not inline with your company’s priorities. You have recognized the important business goals and key requirements to consider when forming your own objectives.
Key Requirements to Consider in an Applicant Tracking System
- Process efficiencies: centralizing a process can improve a variety of tasks including, but not limited to, job requisitions, tracking, management of employee referral and transfer programs.
- Allows candidates to quickly and easily apply to your organization for salary and hourly hire without going through multiple pages of questions.
- Can facilitate high-volume recruiting while remaining cost-effective.
- A highly configurable, scalable solution that can configure to our unique hiring management process and capable to accommodate our evolving needs as our organization grows or our processes change.
- Improved reporting capabilities: many organizations are challenged with determining their total spends on vendors, sourcing, and comparing metrics. Coordinating through a single source will allow for accurate centralized reporting.
- Allows recruiters to search the database on all information, and by specific parameters.
- Includes a Reporting Center that enables users to run ad-hoc reports and save criteria for future use, as well as run industry standard reports, including cost-per-hire, time-to-fill, source effectiveness, and more.
Build Brand Identity and Awareness
- Creating a connection between an applicant and a positive employment experience will craft recognition of the brand. A strong brand can generate trust that will drive applicant traffic and enhance your talent pool.
- Branded Career Center web pages may be accessible through your company’s Web site.
- Allows recruiters to easily post career information to the company Web site.
- Provide multi-language capabilities for global support.
- EEO/AAP Compliant.
- The ability to maintain an accurate measure of such information will keep in agreement with federal regulations and avoid any legal actions against the organization. It will also help to establish applicant quality.
- Capable of capturing, tracking, and reporting voluntary EEO data, while remaining in compliance with the guidelines set forth by the EEO/OFCCP.
- Capable of pre-screening candidates with elimination questions in order to indicate those who meet basic qualifications for the position.
- Improved communications.
- Establishes an environment that effectively informs, will unify all the users and streamline the organization’s operations.
- Includes a Communication Center to facilitate communication among recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates. Also allows users to schedule appointments, leave notes and interview feedback, to send mass messages, and auto-respond to applicants upon receipt of resume.
Customer Support for the Applicant Tracking System
- Full user adoption depends on the level of customer support provided by the vendor during and after implementation.
- Readily available support team, dedicated to manage company and user issues while employing industry best practices.
- Highest level of support available at no charge to your company.
Applicant Tracking Systems Vendor Assessment
It is recommended that you ask for a Request for Proposal (RFP) from potential vendors your committee has decided to consider. This is your opportunity to gain clarification on any topic to help your committee determine whether the applicant tracking software can do the required job. Your committee should consider the following major issues to devise an effective RFP:
- Does the system support the main concerns of your committee? This ties into the previous part of the evaluation process; you must know your process completely before you can determine what features you need. Your committee
cannot be distracted by solutions that may offer functions that are not your main priority. While they may seem attractive, many flashy features and functions will not create any value to your organization if they will not be adopted by your users.
- Has the vendor installed the system in another organization of a
similar size?
- Your committee should have access to references that can give you
insight on issues such as customer satisfaction and follow up, the implementation process, and hidden fees. Remember, features are of no value without strong user adoption.
- What does the implementation process entail? Having a successful
adoption rate begins with the proper implementation. You want to be sure that your chosen vendor does not leave your users without proper training and continuous support. The implementation should be centered on your organization’s recruitment process, not learning how to accommodate to their system.
You should never have the feeling that your implementation program will leave you feeling lost and unsure of the vendor’s capabilities. During the evaluation process your committee should have the impression that, based on your department priorities and business goals, your implementation will create a strong foundation for a long partnership with your applicant tracking system provider. Remember that high user adoption to the applicant tracking system will generate a higher ROI.
