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Excellent Integration and Investment
“ExactHire has proven to be a valuable resource that has streamlined our candidate and onboarding process. This is very important because our organization is process driven. This means that we align our processes to reduce touch labor, which results in more Return on Investment (ROI).
We have tried previous HR solutions in the past but none has produced the results obtained from using ExactHire. The service provided to us was top notch. I highly recommend this product to companies who want to align their business processes with a time-efficient tool.”
“It’s easy to use, the support staff is very helpful, set up and implementation is very easy, easy to add sources for recruiting.”
Great bang for your buck!
“As a company that has over 50 retail locations, ExactHire offers us the ease of multiple manager accounts to track applications. Visually, the site is very user-friendly and does not complicate the process. Mass emails, unlimited postings, and unlimited user accounts are my favorite features. Also, the 1-on-1 customer support we receive is timely and tailored exactly to our needs–we talk to the same rep. every time!”
Easy to use and get great candidates
“Really easy software to use and great for job postings. You can set up new ones or copy old ones to use over again with minimal changes.”
Our applicant review process improved ten-fold
“I love how easy it is to post new jobs and review applicants. We have been able to streamline the process so applications go straight to the hiring manager. This cut down work time in HR by eliminating the need to print and send applications via inter office mail to the managers for review.”
Amazing customer service and easy implementation process
“Pros: The cost, the customer service we receive, and the ease of use of the system for admins and managers.”
This has made our application process and Affirmative Action Tracking so much easier!
“Before, we had tons of paper files and long grueling spreadsheets to maintain. Now, I just direct all of our applicants to one website, and boom, all the information needed for tracking is at your fingertips.”
What you need to know before choosing to buy.
Here’s all you need to know about applicant tracking systems. Whether you choose ExactHire or another ATS provider, we hope you find this information helpful in making an informed purchase decision.
An ATS, or applicant tracking system, is software that allows employers to attract, manage and engage candidates through the recruitment and hiring processes. These systems can be used via desktop, laptop, or even mobile devices. An ATS allows for efficient information collection, applicant organization, filtering and ranking of candidates, and candidate communication–not to mention a much smoother applicant experience.
35% of small businesses use an ATS, and that rate is climbing every year.
Applicant tracking systems are very effective in improving hiring results, and that is why just over 98% of Fortune 500 companies use some kind of ATS. But an ATS is not just for large companies–35% of small businesses use an ATS, and that rate is climbing every year.
An Applicant tracking system makes recruiting and hiring processes more efficient and effective…but how does it accomplish this?
Applicant tracking systems make a hiring manager’s life easier by integrating with job boards to streamline job posting and allowing for an efficient approach to recruiting. This means that hiring managers do not need to separately login to individual job boards to post or receive applicants. With one click a job listing can be posted to multiple job boards, and the applicants from those job boards flow into the ATS.
Additionally, some of best ATS solutions can support sponsored job listings, or paid job ads, right from within the ATS platform. This, combined with job board reporting, allows employers to experiment and see which job boards are most effective in producing quality job candidates.
An ATS collects, tracks and stores job applicant information and communications. This helps employers easily manage applicants and screen out undesirable candidates in order to make the best hiring decision.
Hiring managers can filter out or organize job candidates based on experience level, skill set, and other relevant criteria. The result is a process that massively cuts down time-to-fill, while also increasing the quality of new hires at a company. Efficiency in hiring and increased hiring quality can lead to a better company culture and better business performance–that all starts with an optimized hiring process, supported by an ATS.
Applicant tracking systems provide an easy, optimized applicant experience for job seekers too. Starting with a simple online employment application, and continuing through with timely, personalized candidate communication templates, job seekers feel engaged throughout the hiring process.
Making the application process easy on applicants increases applicant conversion rates, resulting in a larger pool of candidates. Then, with built-in candidate ranking features, it takes little time for hiring managers to review candidates and determine the best one.
An ATS can organize applicant data efficiently and effectively, however it also provides hiring managers the opportunity to input additional candidate data as well. Applicant tracking systems have features that allow for feedback and notes that can be shared among the hiring team. This ensures that all relevant information is considered when making a hiring decision, while also providing valuable information that can improve the recruiting and hiring processes.
In a nutshell, applicant tracking systems make for a more efficient and effective hiring process. They accomplish this through automating job posts, hosting online job applications, organizing applicant data, ranking and filtering of job applicants, and providing tools that simplify candidate communication.
Overall, this saves an employer time and money, while helping a business thrive through hiring the best candidates available in the job market.
Investing in a good ATS is very important in order to optimize hiring outcomes. That’s why 98% of fortune 500 companies utilize an ATS to automate the hiring process, reduce hiring costs, and recruit better job candidates.
With so many companies using one, it’s clear that an applicant tracking system is critical to hiring success–an ATS makes the HR department’s hiring process streamlined, efficient, and effective.
Let’s go over exactly how it does all of this.
Top of the line ATS software provides features that automate tasks such as:
With these features and others, the selection and hiring process can now become paperless and nearly effortless. No more logging into your email system separately, accessing a shared spread sheet, or toggling between browser tabs to access different job posting sites. An ATS brings the most important tools and information into focus, allowing HR to seamless manage task switching.
All of this helps an organization transition from a fragmented, paper-based hiring process, to an automated hiring process that creates efficiency and prevents good candidates from “slipping through the cracks”.
With the hiring process being a time-consuming process, the hours (and money) spent finding the perfect candidate can add up. Using an ATS can drastically reduce this time and expense.
For example, it’s not unreasonable for just one member of an HR team–without an ATS–to spend 20 hours a week on recruitment and hiring. Now, a good ATS can reduce workload by 30% (with better ATS options increasing that percentage). That would mean that the aforementioned HR team member–by using an ATS–would only spend 14 hours a week on hiring, freeing up 6 hours to spend or more value-add HR activities.
If the HR staff member makes $20 an hour, then the 6-hour time savings equates to a cost savings of $120 per week, or roughly $480 per month.
If we assume the price of a great ATS for small business is around is $250 per month. A business can save $230 per month by using an ATS–and that’s just considering the savings generated by one employee using an ATS. This doesn’t take into account the time spent by other members of the HR staff, department head, and CEO who might also be involved in the hiring process and benefit from an ATS.
These numbers of course will vary company to company based on HR staff wages, hours spent hiring a week, number of employees involved in hiring, and ATS software used. However, the wide consensus is that ATS software saves companies money most of the time, and since the software is scalable, the more your company grows, the more money you save.
The promise of better-quality candidates is two-fold. First, an ATS platform provides online applications that are easier for candidates to complete. This allows for little application fatigue and a lower applicant drop-off rate. And when combined with automatic postings to job boards, companies will find that they are getting more quality job applications than they were before. And that translates into a much larger talent pool from which to choose the best candidate.
This, of course, means little to nothing if there isn’t a way to accurately identify and select the best job candidates. This is where the second part of the equation comes in.
A good ATS has built-in candidate screening features. They allow for the filtering of candidates based on location, experience, answers to specific questions on the job application, and other customizable criteria. When this functionality is paired with an easy process for organizing and searching candidates, ATS users enjoy all of the benefits that come from a large talent pool, while simultaneously minimizing the negatives.
Through a combination of these three above reasons, it is clear to see the importance of an ATS. Every company in the world can benefit from easier hiring that saves money and results in better candidates. From fortune 100 companies to start-ups, every company should use an ATS.
If you would like more information, please click here to learn more!
The difference between an average and a great ATS is the same difference between most cheap, decent options and the cream of the crop. The difference lies in the combination of:
It can be especially hard to identify a great ATS because many vendors claim to be of similar quality and offering similar benefits. However, very often the ATS vendor will stop there. So to find the best ATS for a business, buyers need to take a close look at the level of customer service and the specific ATS features that will deliver the quality and benefits. In this section, we’ll focus on features.
A good ATS will provide some of the features below, while a great ATS will provide most, if not all of them. Let’s have a look at the various features you should look for as you research an ATS.
This ATS feature allows you to access thousands of job boards right from within your applicant tracking system. Often the job posting task can be done in just a few clicks.
Good ATS software can also provide placement recommendations, so that you can easily uncover the best sites to promote your open positions before automating your job posting to different job boards.
A great ATS offers programmatic job advertising, which allows algorithms to post jobs on relevant sites at the optimal times to get you the most qualified candidates.
An ATS that supports mobile recruiting allows for job seekers to easily read job posts and apply for jobs using a phone. A great ATS optimizes and displays your online job application for mobile devices, as well as desktops. By using software that supports mobile recruiting, you can reduce the friction in your application process, lower your applicant drop off rate, and receive more qualified candidates.
Once you get a user applying to a position for your company, a great ATS will then allow applicants to use that same information seamlessly to apply for other positions at your company. This further aids in the ability to get more candidates applying for your jobs.
Integrated pre-employment assessment tools help employers use an ATS to select the best fit candidate during the later stages of the hiring process. Candidates will always try to put their best foot forward through the application and interview stages, so assessments act as a way to objectively separate the best job candidates from the good candidates.
Additionally, by combining employee assessments with ATS screening questions, employers can drastically improve the efficiency of their application process. How? Employers can use employee assessments and job skill tests to identify key traits of existing, high performers at their company. Then, using screening questions, hiring managers can easily identify and advance job candidates who possess those traits.
Background checks are a way to protect employers against negligent hiring. However, the background check process can be time-consuming. Additionally, the manual processing of social security numbers and license numbers can be a liability.
A great applicant tracking system integrates with background check services. It will allow you to order a variety of pre-employment screening packages and instantly launch a background check request to your job candidate from within the ATS. Once complete, the results of the background check will populate the candidate’s record.
What good is a wealth of candidates with no way to track them all or find the qualified ones? With great ATS software you can customize your own list of applicant status codes and easily assign dispositions to one or multiple job candidates at once.
By organizing applicants in your ATS system you and your hiring team can better engage with candidates in a timely manner with the right information.
A great ATS works seamlessly and is easy for HR staff to use.
Importantly, it should allow for unlimited user logins so you can create as many user logins as you wish and choose between administrator, manager and assigned user permission sets for each one.
It should also include manager roles and permissions so you can create separate user accounts for hiring managers and provide them with easy access and involvement in requisition management, applicant tracking, and candidate interview documentation.
Another key aspect of a great ATS is its ability to integrate affirmative action as well as equal employment opportunity (EEO) reporting.
Applicant tracking systems simplify compliance reports and applicant flow log requirements by automating tasks related to affirmative action plan reporting. The system should include a standard EEOC compliance report that allows you to effortlessly collect, organize and manage EEOC-required applicant data.
Lastly, if you can’t communicate easily with desirable candidates and applicants, then what is the point of putting your job posting up in the first place?
A good ATS should have integrated email that doesn’t require users to leave the ATS to communicate with candidates. However, a great ATS will also support unlimited text recruiting, allowing you to communicate with job applicants through text messaging and meet them where they are…on their phone.
For both email and candidate text messaging, the ability to create message templates is vital. A great ATS will allow you to create and save as many communication templates as you need for use with email and text recruiting.
Sometimes you will need to share documents with candidates. For this, look for an applicant tracking system that allows you to attach or link additional documentation to applicant communications.
Finally, applicant communication can be dramatically improved with features that support interview scheduling. By integrating your calendar with your ATS, you can simplify the process of scheduling candidate interviews and more quickly arrive at a hiring decision.
As you can see, having a great ATS is a tall order. There are many things that it should do to make for an easy, efficient, and effective hiring process. From applicant tracking, to HR reporting, to applicant communication, your ATS should have all the feature boxes checked in order to be considered a viable option.
ExactHire offers every single one of the above features…and more. If you would like to learn more about our solution, please click here!
It is easy to think that an ATS is only beneficial for large companies, or for companies who have a high turnover rate. The former have the most funds to pay for software, and the latter get the biggest benefit from an ATS since they are hiring so frequently. However, this is not necessarily the case.
While it is true that 98% of fortune 500 companies utilize an ATS, a small business has much to gain from using an ATS as well. In fact, small businesses may stand to gain more from an ATS than larger organizations do.
Let’s take a look at some characteristics that would make a small business a good fit for an ATS.
First and foremost, a company that is growing is often best suited for an ATS. This year, 55% of HR managers at small businesses are hiring for new permanent positions. This puts the majority of small businesses in a position where they need to find readily available, quality candidates quickly.
These small businesses are competing with each other to hire the best talent for their new positions, but many are also competing for customers. Each day that a business delays in hiring, is time taken away from growing and achieving the next competitive advantage in the market. This can negatively affect year-end sales and revenue reports.
By utilizing an ATS, small businesses can greatly increase the efficiency and quality of hiring, and more importantly, find the talent they need to achieve a competitive advantage and put themselves in a winning position.
Secondly, small businesses that rely on external recruiters to find mid to low level candidates are often a good fit for investing in an ATS.
While external recruiters have their place in the hiring world, they may be best saved for high-level, very hard to fill roles that are tough to recruit for–not always the case for a small business. So if a small business finds itself going to a favorite recruiting team every time there is a need to hire for a new position or to fill a vacant one, it might be time to look into an ATS instead.
By utilizing an ATS, employers can set up their own customized hiring process that removes much of the manual processes and time often associated with hiring. An ATS will deliver an easy-to-use hiring pipeline that delivers candidates just as good, if not better than, those received from an external recruiter. This saves a small business from spending big bucks on low and mid-level positions, which impacts expense reports and overall profits.
Thirdly, if a small business’s hiring process takes weeks, or even months to produce new hires, then an ATS can help speed things up.
The hallmark of an ATS is its efficiency and time-saving capabilities.
In fact, you would be hard pressed to find an ATS vendor that doesn’t advertise “efficiency” as a primary benefit. These ATS vendors promote efficiency as a benefit because:
1.) it is the overwhelming consensus from thousands of companies that use an ATS, and
2.) ATS vendors know that small businesses are still spending large amounts of time and money hiring new people–and their ATS could drastically reduce that spend through the efficiencies it brings.
If a hiring manager finds themselves or their small business posting a job ad, then waiting weeks to find applicants that suit their needs…then spending even more time to contact and schedule rounds of interviews, hoping to find the diamond in the rough–then they should consider investing in an ATS.
Good applicant tracking software will automatically post job ads to multiple job boards at once. This alone will save many hours of logging into separate job sites, posting jobs, reviewing applicants, and moving applicant data into another system…or worse a spreadsheet for job applicants!
Beyond job ad posting, an ATS excels in helping employers manage applicants through the hiring process. For example, the ability to filter applicants by qualifications helps quickly identify the best job candidates that can then be moved onto the next stage of the hiring process. And when it’s time to communicate next steps to an applicant, an ATS provides candidate message templates for common tasks like scheduling an interview
All in all, an ATS can make the hiring process up to 52% faster, while also freeing up HR professionals who will spend up to 67% less time recruiting! Results will of course vary from company to company, but one thing is guaranteed, when using an ATS employers will see a time reduction in their hiring process.
Lastly, if a small business is receiving plenty of applications, but it is still struggling to find the right candidates, then an ATS might be the solution.
One of the biggest headaches for hiring managers is seeing an influx of applications, only to spend hours going through them and seeing few qualified candidates. Precious recruiting time is lost to ten’s or even hundreds of irrelevant resumes. An ATS can help clear up this issue in two key ways.
First, an ATS allows for custom screening questions on the job application. These questions could address relevant work experience, a degree in a certain field, certifications needed for the position, or maybe just skills determined critical for the role. Employers can add screening questions in the early stages of the application to sift out unwanted candidates.
Secondly, an ATS organizes job applicant data which hiring managers can review and filter. This allows employers to quickly and easily disqualify groups of applicants they deem unfit for a position. A hiring team can then narrow its focus on candidates that are the cream of the crop.
With just these two examples, small businesses can save hours and hours of busy work, end up with better candidate job fit, and develop a happier hiring team.
As you can see, small businesses face many challenges that can be overcome with the use of an ATS. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and and there are a litany of other issues that an ATS can resolve.
If you’re curious whether an ATS can solve your specific hiring challenges, schedule a quick call with us here at ExactHire to get an expert opinion!
One thing you often hear touted in our blog and website is how an ATS makes the hiring process easier. Well, who would we be without explaining our reasoning behind these claims?
An ATS makes the hiring process easier in a few key ways, some of which we’ve already covered. However, let’s discuss two items that make the process particularly easier: Integration and Automation.
First off, an ATS integration is the ability for your ATS software to “talk with” other software in a relatively seamless way. This is not to be confused with “all-in-one HR software” that claims to handle almost all HR functions within one system.
Not all ATS integrations are created equal, and some may prove to be unnecessary or function in unintended ways. A good example of a necessary and useful ATS integration is one that connects with employee onboarding software.
An ATS that integrates with onboarding software pushes basic applicant information into the onboarding software with a couple clicks from within the ATS software. The ability to do this is not only a time-saver, but it cures a lot of headaches associated with duplicate data entry and inevitable data entry errors. Here’s how that integration could work:
This integrated process makes the onboarding seamless and easy, whereas the manual process can be a headache-filled, tedious nightmare of transcribing data into new software and deciding which tasks to assign to which new hires.
This is just one example of how ATS integrations can save you time and trouble!
ATS automations can handle a lot of problems too. So, what exactly can an ATS automate?
An ATS can automate everything from the creating job posts and job application questions, to thank you emails, interview scheduling, and candidate scoring. Automation is great, but to achieve the best applicant experience, a delicate balance should be struck. Automate hiring tasks to save time and relieve tedious work, but allow for opportunities to add personal touches to the process as well.
Here are a few ATS automations that we view as most beneficial to the hiring process.
Often times ATS automation can benefit both job seekers and employers. That’s the case when an ATS allows job applicants to apply for multiple positions with just one application. On it’s face this wouldn’t seem like an automation–it’s just one application that can be used for many positions.
But a great ATS will enable employers to ask different questions based upon the positions for which the applicant applies. The ATS works in the background to essentially combine two applications and present it as one to the applicant, removing duplicate screening questions and drastically shortening the time it would take to apply for both jobs individually.
Applicants save time. And employers don’t lose great (though rightfully impatient) candidates.
A good ATS gives you access to hundreds of job boards and recommendations on where to post. Then, in once click, the ATS automates the job posting to multiple job boards. This saves hiring managers a ton of hassle in finding all the appropriate job boards for their company and open position, not to mention the time saved logging in and posting to each individual site.
Instead, ATS users receive a comprehensive list of job sites, the ability to see which ones are worth posting to through the ATS’s scoring system, and the ability to post to as many boards as you want in one click.
Additionally, employers can automate job posting through programmatic job advertising. This feature allows users to set and forget by letting algorithms do the work. The ATS places job ads on relevant sites that produce qualified candidates based on previous performance data. This allows employers to continue receiving high quality applicants for months and months with just a few initial clicks.
Though not a straight-forward ATS automation, there’s no doubt that eliminating the need to write a customized email for each job candidate represents a huge gain in efficiency. As mentioned above, balancing the human touch with the power of automation is tricky. An ATS excels at providing out-of-the-box features that provide an easy way to strike that balance.
Job candidate email templates allow for users to reuse common messaging, while also providing the ability to merge in information from the applicant record. The result is quick, easy message composition that supports an employer’s brand, while also providing a personalized, warm outreach to candidates.
The automation of HR compliance reports is a huge time-saver. By default, a great ATS will include equal employment opportunity reports, as well as affirmative action reports that employers can begin using right away. Additionally, custom reports can be setup initially and saved so that users never have to worry about creating them again.
This automation relieves the hassle of creating reports every time they are needed. It also eliminates the potential of forgetting to include them all together.
These four areas of ATS automation are great examples of saving time, but without removing the all-important human component into the hiring process. An ATS’s goal should to be to get rid of time-consuming busy-work, not eliminate humans completely. In these four automation areas, employers can maintain a great balance of human touch and automation.
Hopefully you can see the importance of integrations and automation, and the ability of each to create new efficiencies for your hiring process. These two aspects of an ATS allow you to really reduce the time spent on the hiring process and focus all of your attention on the important parts of hiring like analyzing candidates, interviewing, and assessing your options.
If you have any additional questions about ATS integrations or automations, or how these can potentially help your company, please contact us here at ExactHire and we’ll do our best to help!
We’ve talked a lot about ATS’s, what they should offer, how they help your business, what types of businesses they help, and how they make hiring more efficient.
We have referenced features and integrations that a “great ATS” should have and hopefully you now know what those feature and integrations are. We would be remised, however, if we didn’t point you in the direction of a specific ATS to fix your hiring issues–ExactHire.
ExactHire offers an applicant tracking system, employee assessments, and employee onboarding software that are best-in-class. Our software provides every single one of the features, attributes, and integrations listed in this piece and more. In combination with this, we have a team of SHRM certified strategists to assist you in getting the most from our software. This truly will provide you with the best 1-2 punch of software and strategy in the job market!
If you find yourself needing an ATS or are unhappy with your current ATS, please reach out to one of our team members and learn how we can help you get more qualified candidates–fast!