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How to Use Applicant Tracking Software to Source Internship Candidates

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It’s that time of the year…the grass is green, the birds are chirping, and many new faces are popping up as potential employees (and perhaps as new LinkedIn followers) for your organization as students dive full throttle into the internship search process.

Let’s say you are pretty satisfied with the questions asked on your employment application, and it helps you capture appropriate, job-relevant information from experienced job seekers and recent college graduates. But is the same application appropriate for your potential internship applicants? Will these interns-to-be take the time to complete the whole application thoughtfully? What will they think when they get to questions like “please list all applicable licenses and certifications,” etc.? They probably don’t yet possess such credentials and might abandon the effort to complete the application thinking it won’t result in any employment fruits for their labor.

With this scenario in mind, how do you customize your applicant tracking software to engage potential interns to apply and capture the right type of information on the internship employment application? Here are some tips:

  1. Create a link dedicated to internship opportunities on your ATS site’s landing page. By specifically calling out your organization’s focus on internship opportunities, you are establishing credibility and making it easy for students to navigate your careers page.
  2. Establish a secondary employment application dedicated to internship applicants and/or recent college grads. This version will likely be shorter than your regular application (i.e. not as much room will be necessary for previous employers, certification listings, etc.), and you may use it to capture student-focused information such as: school and permanent home address, extracurricular activities, and expected graduation date.
  3. When posting job listings, make sure one of your available employment types is “internship.” When sorting through available jobs, students may quickly hone in on the positions relevant to them. NOTE: Take it a step further and give students a direct link to your job listings already filtered down to available internships only. This can easily by placing some strategic hyperlinks on your “Internship Opportunities” page (see tip #1 above).
  4. Be sure and include specific information about the compensation, benefits, hours and responsibilities associated with the internship when crafting the job listing within your applicant tracking system. It is important for employers to take care in determining whether an internship will be a paid position, stipend, or unpaid. There are very specific rules to follow in order for an internship to be eligible to be unpaid. For more information about internship pay guidelines, visit the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division site.
  5. Take advantage of Bookmark & Share Icon links to promote your internship opportunities on social media sites – especially Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Your applicant tracking software should allow you to promote links to your listings on your own social profile pages, as well as allow applicants to easily share interesting employment options with friends.
  6. Give students (and this goes for all of your other applicants, too) the ability to sign up for automated job alerts on your careers portal. They may not be in the market for your specific internship opportunity this semester, but if they receive an email alert with new open opportunities the next time you post, it will be easier for them to apply sooner in your selection process.

Build a Recruitment Brand, And They Will Come…(Part 2)

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You may recall from “Part 1” of this story the emphasis I placed on creating and nurturing a recruitment brand for your organization. Because whether or not you address it, you have a brand…so make sure it is a recruitment brand you are proud to support!

In this post, we’ll take a quick look at how you may use applicant tracking software to help maintain the recruitment brand you worked so diligently to create. Specifically, we’ll look at an ATS as a launch pad to social networking platforms; as well as, a means by which you can easily use status codes to move candidates through the selection process–while keeping those candidates informed.

But first, after my last post I invited ExactHire client, Right On Interactive, to share how they create and maintain the Right On Interactive recruitment brand.

Here are Right On Interactive’s President Troy Burk’s thoughts on the subject:

  1. “We educate as much as we evaluate. We realize that throughout the entire recruiting process we must continue to show the value of the opportunity, the potential for personal growth, and future direction of our company. The candidates are interviewing us as much as we are interviewing them.
  2. Be honest with the candidates. We talk about the specifics of the position, the requirements, and what our expectations are for performance. False expectations on either end will end in disappointment (on either side).
  3. If a candidate is not a good fit for the position, we will try to help them network with others that might be a better fit. We have done this with several individuals and helped them find the right position (with another company).”

It is clear that Troy’s organization understands the importance of mutual respect in the selection process, as well as how to leverage networking to help candidates.

So how can you use an ATS to exponentially increase the size of the audience that has access to your job postings? With ExactHire’s applicant tracking software, you have the ability to allow candidates to “share” your job listing with friends and colleagues via the biggie’s like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but also over 285 other Internet sites! And, if you have been paying special attention to your recruitment brand and how it dictates that you treat your applicants, you are much more likely to have site visitors that want to share your openings with others. Your recruitment brand is creating fans for your organization.

Social Networking Links | ExactHire ATS

When you have the social networking under control, then it is time to keep applicants engaged by managing them through your selection process within the ATS. The administrative side of the ExactHire ATS allows you to use both applicant status codes and job status codes to assign a progress label to every applicant for each position to which he/she may have applied. Then, you may run a quick report that allows you to use status codes as search criteria to drill down to specific lists of applicants that deserve a follow-up email from your organization. Use the ATS to send emails to multiple candidates at once, and create a recruitment brand that embodies consistency in candid communication. Your applicants will note your efforts, trust me.

Image credit: Road Herd by Ed Thomes Photography (contact)

ExactHire Partners with Orr Fellowship

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We’re excited to be working with the folks at the Governor Bob Orr Indiana Entrepreneurial Fellowship, or Orr Fellowship for short!

For those of you who are not yet familiar with this exciting initiative, the mission of the Orr Fellowship is to “retain and inspire Indiana’s brightest minds. It serves as an applied training vehicle for the State’s future entrepreneurs and organizational leaders.” Participants in the Fellowship program serve two year stints at some of the state’s hottest, fast-growth and entrepreneurial-minded companies.

ExactHire just launched Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) for the Orr Fellowship, and we’re proud to be part of the effort to battle “brain drain” in Indiana. The Orr Fellowship ATS creates a central repository of individuals who apply to Orr Fellowship and Orr Internship positions.

ExactHire’s ATS solution creates a technologically-savvy means by which Orr Host Companies can quickly view the applications and qualifications of applicants, as well as contact these applicants for interview consideration, directly. These companies will have the cream of the crop from which to choose as Orr Fellows are some of the sharpest recent graduates in the state.

To explore whether or not Applicant Tracking Software is a fit for your organization, please contact us.