Is your firm dependent upon talent acquisition to grow your revenue and bottom line? Are you struggling with the decision about buying an applicant tracking system (ATS) because of cost?
The cost of a fully automated ATS can range from several thousand dollars to greater than $30,000 (depending upon the size and complexity of your firm, number of users, customizations, etc.) For many organizations, justifying this type of expense can be difficult. But keep in mind, there are some clear advantages to automating applicant tracking just as there are hidden costs to your organization when using a manual process to track applicants.
If you manually track candidates, here are some typical problems you may face:
- A laborious and inefficient process to sift through a high volume of incoming resumes in order to separate out the best qualified candidates quickly.
- An inability to quickly manage candidates by skill type resulting in longer search time and the lack of ability to “mine” your own resume collection.
- Time-consuming and inconsistent communication to your candidates.
- A clunky or inefficient way to collect required EEO data from applicants, which is not consistent.
- Inconclusive candidate source data which leads to the lack of good decision making regarding how to spend recruiting dollars and determine which sites yield the best quality candidates.
- Manual production of applicant flow. Data is frequently incomplete and/or inaccurate.
Contrast to some of the features and advantages of using an automated ATS--
- Quickly search (using keywords) and find candidates for open positions or proposals. Actually mine your own system for candidates for which you already have resumes and pertinent data.
- Automate communications to candidates (and increase your ability to communicate with candidates in an efficient manner). This is a huge time saver and an excellent way to improve your reputation with candidates.
- Include screening questions as part of your application to more quickly find the most qualified applicants.
- Increase efficiency to manage candidates into skill types which can lead to faster identification of candidates for future openings.
- Consistently capture and track candidate EEO information in accordance with OFCCP requirements.
- Capture source information on applicants.
- Quickly parse resumes into your system.
- Post roles easily to your career site.
- Quickly produce reports such as applicant flow, source of hire, time to fill, etc. to enable better compliance reporting and improved decision making regarding advertising dollars.
- Share job information via social media to increase exposure to your openings.
- Via an ad feed option, automatically post jobs to job boards saving you time.
- Integrate with your HRIS and Onboarding systems to automate hiring.
While the cost of an ATS may seem like a significant investment, the hidden price your recruiters and firm pay every day for inefficient and time-consuming manual applicant tracking may exceed that investment. The advantages of a properly implemented ATS could include improved decision making and analytics, faster identification of qualified applicants, more accurate applicant reporting, successful audit results, an enhanced candidate experience and even a reduction in recruitment advertising spending. If your company plans to scale, can you afford NOT to implement an ATS?
