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Best Applicant Tracking System for Small Business

Not too long ago, the idea of a small business using an applicant tracking system (ATS) was unrealistic. Most solutions were geared to larger companies and were too expensive and complicated for smaller and medium-sized organizations. Thankfully, times have changed and you have options for finding the best applicant tracking system for small business.

Now, even very small employers are seeing advantages to using an ATS. At the same time, the list of providers offering this type of software has expanded dramatically. While there are a number of very good options from which to choose, there is arguably a larger number of “bare bones” offerings that may not help an organization as expected. To that end, below are some things to consider to make sure you can select the best recruiting software for your small business:

  • Will you want/need to push to external job boards — i.e. Monster, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, colleges, Department of Workforce Development, etc.?
  • Can the solution reinforce your web branding?
  • How user-friendly is the process for your applicants?
  • Is there flexibility to allow for both applications and/or resumes to be gathered from applicants?
  • Is there additional cost for multiple users in or out of HR (hiring managers, executives, etc.)?
  • Are there limits to the number of jobs that may be posted at a single time or how many applicants are allowed to be kept within the system?
  • Will the vendor help you get the ATS configured and ready for live use?
  • How is training done?
  • Is live support available when you have questions?
  • What is your budget for something like this?

Giving thought to some of these factors will help you better define your particular needs and more readily identify a short list of providers who can meet those needs.

To learn more about ExactHire applicant tracking system for small business, please visit our resources section or contact us.

SMB Pre-Employment Screening Guide Ebook

Image credit: The Office by John (contact)

Hiring Solutions and Technology for Auto Dealers

With the automotive industry rebound in recent years, we’ve had the opportunity to customize our applicant tracking system technology for auto dealers around the country. In doing so, it dawned on me that there are some common reasons many of these automotive groups are looking for help with their hiring process:

  1. Turnover — With the improved economy, turnover figures are trending back to pre-recession levels. Salespeople, automotive techs and customer service representatives are the main positions where dealers experience turnover.
  2. Demographics — A high percentage of the applicant pool for auto dealers are job seekers who are very tech savvy. These applicants are used to doing things online and expect potential employers to follow suit.
  3. Limited resources — Managers in most dealerships are busier than ever with their day-to-day jobs. This means they don’t have a lot of excess time to review resumes and try to decide which applicants are qualified for their openings. These managers are looking for ways to automate as much as possible.
  4. Cost — Dealers are seeing margins squeezed like everyone else. This means they want technology solutions with low upfront costs, low ongoing costs, and no long-term contracts.

While not unique to auto dealers, these core reasons certainly seem to resonate in this industry. In particular, these issues are magnified for those dealers who happen to have multiple locations — a more common occurrence than years ago.

Popular Applicant Tracking Features for Car Dealers

Below are some of the features to which our clients have gravitated when using our HireCentric applicant tracking software (ATS):

  • Branded career portal to match the rest of your corporate web presence
  • Flexible employment application setup to gather what’s important to a particular dealer’s needs — this includes the ability to break the application into more than one step, if desired
  • See multiple applications for an individual tied to a central applicant profile — especially helpful for “serial” applicants
  • Track all notes, email correspondence and internal feedback for each applicant in a single database
  • Reach out to previous good applicants when positions open up unexpectedly
  • Communicate with groups of applicants simultaneously to keep them informed of progress in filling a position — this protects your brand for applicants who may also be existing or potential customers
  • Easily see what the “pipeline” looks like for any given position or group of positions

Using applicant tracking software isn’t right for every automotive dealer. However, if any of the features mentioned above resonate as potential options for your organization (automotive industry or not), please contact ExactHire to discuss whether this type of solution is functionally and economically viable for your group.

Use our pricing calculator for HireCentric ATS.

Image credit: Honest John’s Used Car Lot, Los Angeles CA, 1947 by Alden Jewell (contact)

Posting Jobs To Job Boards – How To Automate

Automate posting to job boardsI talk with groups frequently about the use of social media tools to help drive qualified candidates to their open positions. While I believe strongly in those efforts, the fact remains that job boards still account for a significant amount of applicant traffic for most organizations. Naturally, then, clients typically want to know where they should post jobs and how to keep track of them.

The first part of the question (where to post jobs) is a separate conversation unto itself. The second part of the question (how to keep track of which job boards are being used) is my focus here today. To break this down a bit, I see this in two phases:

  • To which job boards have certain positions been posted (and what is it costing)?
  • What is the payback from these ad sources (what kind of applicant traffic are they generating?)

The act of getting positions posted to job boards can be time-consuming. Once you’ve created your job description, you typically must visit each board, log in, paste in your description, provide the additional information needed as required by the individual board, and confirm that the formatting looks correct. This allows the position to be posted. Then, when the position has been filled or the posting time limit is reached, you usually must then revisit the various boards and take the listing down.

As to the payback of various boards, most organizations don’t have the time to really consider this at all. For most, the only way to track the listings and the expenses associated with each is in a spreadsheet or manual file. Even if a company is willing to log this, they are still faced with the issue of not knowing how many applicants are coming from each board. The only way to know is to ask those applicants, which leads to yet another column in a separate spreadsheet that logs all applicants and from where they came. I think you get the picture at this point — this is way too painful for most.

The exception to both of these instances is when an organization chooses to use an applicant tracking software solution. The right ATS should allow you to automate the posting of your open positions to most any job board, alleviating the need to visit the individual boards and complete all of the steps I mentioned above. In addition, using a software tool like this should allow applicants to share what board led them to your open position, including tracking the costs of each posting and the number of applicants coming from each board. Our HireCentric ATS even allows organizations to review analytics documenting traffic to an organization’s careers portal, including a list of referral sources (i.e. job boards in many cases).

While this may not be the sole reason an organization seeks out a recruiting software tool, it is one of the more consistent points on which we receive positive feedback. To learn more about ExactHire, please visit our resources section or contact us. 

Image credit: tackscape by Joelk75 (contact)

How Do I Calculate ROI For Applicant Tracking System?

There are several ways to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for an applicant tracking system (ATS). But to start, you need to first determine the cost of your hiring activities without an ATS.

Equation #1: Time Cost

Let’s say we have an HR Employee who handles hiring (I’ll call her Joy). Consider the number of hours that Joy works on hiring activities in a week (H) and multiply that number by her amount of pay per hour (P).

If H = 40 hrs.

and P = $20 per hour

Then, H x P =  $800 per week focused on hiring activities without an ATS

An applicant tracking system could easily reduce that employee’s work by 25% and cost as low as $30 per week (C). So let’s look at the ROI in that scenario:

If H = 30 hrs.

and P = $20 per hour

and C =  $30

Then, (H x P) + C =  $630 per week focused on hiring activities with an ATS..a savings of $170 per week or a 560% ROI.

Equation #2: Labor Needs

But what if Joy can only review 40 applications per day and your organization really needs to review 60 applications per day? If you want to get through 60 applications in a day without a backlog–and without investing in applicant tracking software, you’ll need to hire another person.

So if one employee (E) can review 40 applications per day (A) and you need 60 applications reviewed per day (N), let’s determine how many additional employees you’ll need.

If N = 60

and A = 40

Then, N ÷ A = 1.5 employees to review 60 applications per day.

Equations #3: Labor Cost

Now, let’s combine the results of both equations to find the time cost for this scenario where hiring is the solution to meeting capacity requirements.

(H x E) x P = $1200 per week focused on hiring.

Now we have a ball-park figure we can use to see if the cost of the ATS is equal to or less than the additional labor cost.

Reducing Labor Cost With Applicant Tracking Software

An ATS can review applications more quickly than a human through the use of automatic scoring and/or disqualification filters associated with answers given for application screening questions. With the aid of these filters, the applications can be sorted and the reviewing process can begin with those applicants that most closely align with what you are seeking for that given position.

This means that Joy in our example above should have no problem reviewing 60+ applications per day, saving the organization from hiring a part-time employee and saving $400 per week in labor costs…or $1600 per month. When you consider that the price of HireCentric ATS starts at $120 per month, that’s a big return on your investment!

ROI for Applicant Tracking System Analysis Factors

Beyond the time cost savings, let’s consider some of the other items to factor into your ROI analysis:

  • Focusing on just the more-qualified applicants (as determined by the screening questions mentioned above) usually leads to better hires, because recruiters and hiring managers are no longer buried by resumes. Better hires tend to ramp up faster, perform better and stay longer. This means a better bottom line for your organization.
  • Candidates no longer “slip through the cracks” — the better ones are more quickly identified and may be contacted quickly to avoid them going elsewhere.
  • You’re now building an actual candidate pool from which to draw later. This means fewer postings to paid job boards and dollars saved because of it.
  • Jobs may be shared through social media by both your applicants and your existing employees. Again, this means more quality applicants without over-relying on paid job boards.

My experience is that focusing ROI efforts on time savings alone tends to fall on deaf ears when approaching a CEO or CFO for approval. Using some of these alternative ideas, along with the time savings and low cost nature of an applicant tracking software tool, should improve your odds of making a business case to executive management and getting the solution your organization needs.

If you would like to discuss pricing and/or ROI for ExactHire’s applicant tracking software further, please contact us today.

7 Ways Human Resources Can Use Application Management Software

When you purchase software, it’s always nice to learn everything about what the software can do right away. However, we all know this is not always a realistic possibility depending on the extent of available features. Sometimes, you have to “grow” into the application. With ExactHire’s applicant application management software we are occasionally asked for ideas on other ways this employment application software can be used. Here are the highlights:

As An External Employment Application

Let’s start with the most traditional and primary use of the ATS – an external application to invite applicants to apply to open positions.

As An Internal Application For Interoffice Transfers

The ATS can also be used for existing employees that want to transfer to another position within the company. You can create an internal employment application and post jobs exclusively to your internal job board. If you would like to, you can also post the jobs to both job boards – internal & external. The advantage of a separate internal application is that you can ask your internal applicants different questions and allow the application to be shorter. For internal applicants you may want to know how long they’ve been in their current positions or if they have been on a performance plan in the last six months.

Additional Applications For Volunteer Management, Internships, Executive Candidates, etc.

If your regular external application won’t meet the needs of all your external applicants, you can have separate applications attached to job postings focused on volunteer opportunities, internships and/or executive positions. These applications may either ask different questions than your regular external application; or, they may just need to be shorter in order to engage these audiences of individuals to apply.

Build An Applicant Pool Over Time

You can also post jobs for future opportunities at your company. Adding screening questions that ask what type of job one would seek and/or why the applicant is interested in your company is a good way to help you review those applications. This helps you to have a reservoir of applicants for when you’re ready to begin an active search down the road.

Record The Applicants’ Movement And Notes

In addition to simply collecting applications, the ATS is really wonderful to help record where applicants are in the process for you and your team. First interview, second interview, etc. This work flow record keeping ability comes in handy when you have more than one person touching applicant records. Notes, in addition to statuses, can be recorded…including the author of the note.

Applicant Reporting

All of the recordkeeping comes in handy when it’s time to access reporting options in the system. If you are subject to Affirmative Action Reporting or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reporting, the software can help simplify that process. Some reports come standard with the software, and others can be built in the reports section. Even if you are not required to do compliance reporting for governmental purposes, chances are your financial department will want to see efficiency reporting to justify your recruitment spending…all of which can be pulled from the software, as well.

Requisition Management To Approve Positions

Requisition management is another feature available for use within the ATS. Requiring approval on potential positions is often a critical piece of the hiring process. After all, budgets are critical in successful businesses and if you’re hiring someone, it’s good to know if you have the budget, as well as management approval, for such activities.

There are many other benefits applicant tracking software can bring to your organization. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us. It never hurts to ask the question!

Image credit: Number 7 by Eric Gravengaard (contact)

Improve Your Hiring Process: Cast Wide Net for Talent by Going Social

Much of what I’ve addressed in my Improve Your Hiring Process blog series to this point has been about bringing efficiency and structure to your hiring process. Not to discount that by any means, as larger groups of unqualified applicants for open positions makes this more important than ever. But, ever think about why so many unqualified applicants end up in your pool?

Resume Blasting on Job Boards

The answer is job boards. Job boards have become the dominant tool for most companies to find applicants. For years, the lure has been getting the most applicants in the least amount of time. On the flip side, job boards present an excellent way for job seekers to have their resume available to thousands of companies, even allowing applicants to auto-apply for positions that match certain keyword criteria.

I’m not suggesting that job boards are bad — they are useful tools for most organizations. The primary issue is that technology isn’t advanced enough yet to determine that a candidate who manages a fast food restaurant shouldn’t be submitted for a “Manager of Global Logistics” position — even though that position has the keyword “manager” in it. So, most of us take the good with the bad…we can get lots of applicants, but we know a majority of them won’t meet our criteria.

The Elusive Passive Applicant

At the same time, the most coveted applicants are those we often refer to as “passive.” They’re employed, but not happy. Thinking about a change, but not yet to the point of acting on it. These folks aren’t trolling the job boards for openings, let alone visiting your career site. Everyone wants to reach these folks, but doing so is elusive for most companies. This is where social media is becoming a major factor.

Over the last few years, much ado has been made about the importance of human capital and intellectual capital. If you think about it, social media allows you to leverage both of those resources simultaneously. If you have good people in your organization today, they likely know lots of other good people, who know lots of other good people, etc. You get the idea. So, why not maximize those resources to find good talent?

Lay the Foundation for Social Recruiting

Making this an effective part of your strategy really relies on having the other elements I’ve discussed in place. You must:

Once those elements are in place, you now have a platform to leverage social media to find those passive applicants. From there, your next step is making it simple for you and your current employees to let others in the various social media circles know about your open positions. This is a step where using an applicant tracking software tool with a solid focus on social media can be invaluable.

The right applicant tracking system will make it very easy for your employees to quickly alert their social media contacts about open positions, including auto-generation of links for those contacts to click in order to learn more about the positions. It will also help track sources for applicants, including those sourced through social media channels. Ideally, it will allow those applicants (if they’re not at a point to proceed right now) to “follow” your company for future job openings. Finally, it will allow you to share open positions via your corporate social media tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Going social will ultimately allow you to reach passive applicants, reduce job board related expenses and hire more quality employees. Be sure to look for the next installment in this series…”Keep Your Applicants Informed”.

Image Credit: Paulo Batista (Flickr) CC-BY-SA-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

5 Ways to Use Video in Your Recruiting & Hiring Process

Looking for ways to spice up your company’s recruiting brand? Check out this quick list of five ways to use videos in your recruiting and interviewing processes. Then, start converting more of your career site visitors into actual applicants, and eventually, new and engaged employees.

1 – Highlight Videos on Your Company’s Careers Portal

Use Video to Promote CityThis may be the most obvious and already widely used idea; however, it just might be one of the most effective for engaging your site visitors to stay on your pages longer. A wide variety of subject areas can be covered on the branded careers portal available through your applicant tracking system (ATS). Videos might focus on the following topics:

  • Testimonials given by current employees about why they enjoy working at the company
  • Highlights from various company events and charitable projects to demonstrate the company culture to potential applicants
  • Informational videos about the city or region in which your business resides – this is particularly helpful if you do a great deal of nationwide searches for candidates and relocate new employees to your area

2 – Make Your Confirmation Emails Memorable & Informational

These days it can be very difficult for even medium-sized businesses to personally respond to each individual that submits an employment application. As a result, its quite common for organizations to use their ATS to set up auto-generated email responses whenever a new application is received. These are critical as they confirm to the applicant that his/her submission was successful, and they can greatly reduce the number of phone calls received by applicants who want to check on the status of their application. However, even though personalization strings can be used in these email templates, how exciting is email text for the applicant who is anxious to learn more?
 Use Video in Application Confirmations
In your email message, why not embed or link to a video that your company has created to explain the steps involved in the hiring process:

  • In the intro, thank the applicant for his/her interest in your company.
  • Explain how long it might take to process all applications for the position and when responses are generally sent to inform applicants of next steps.
  • Describe the different interview phases that are usually involved in the hiring process – including time intervals between each phase as well as who is generally involved from the company.

Not only will applicants be impressed that you have created a video for this step, but they will come away from the experience with more information about what to expect — without additional effort from your recruiting staff.

3 – Embed Video in Job Descriptions in Your Applicant Tracking System

When adding a new job listing to your ATS, embed code from your video hosting website to feature relevant videos from right within your job description. In this scenario, videos focusing on your office or field environment, and/or interviews with other employees in the same position or department would be well received. ExactHire applicant tracking system even has a designated field allowing video embed code to be pasted in when adding a new job description.

R+L Truckload & Global Logistics in Fort Myers, Florida, is a big believer in incorporating video into the organization’s job listings. Many different employees have roles in the videos it has produced. Here’s how one of its videos appears within the ATS on a recent job description:
 Use Video in Job Descriptions | ExactHire
And, check out their video:

4 – Insert Safety Videos Into Employment Application & Survey Applicants

Embed Safety Video on ApplicationsIf certain positions available in your organization require heeding important safety procedures or following certain protocols, then consider the benefits associated with embedding a video for applicants to watch during their employment application submission. This can be a powerful way of better qualifying your applicants for a position that normally attracts a high volume of application submissions – especially if many of the submissions have traditionally been from people who aren’t qualified or truly engaged in the role.

A short video might discuss certain steps that are followed as a regular part of the job. In the application, ask applicants to watch the video and then answer a series of short questions about the video. Serious applicants who want to work for your organization will watch the video and then answer the questions correctly. Candidates who are just applying for anything and everything will hit the video speed bump and think twice about taking the time to finish. For those candidates who do answer the questions, utilize scoring and/or disqualification filters in your ATS to rank applicants based on the number of questions they answered correctly.

5 – Video Resources for Long Distance Interviewing

There are times when it isn’t practical or cost-effective to interview candidates in person. Luckily, a number of affordable (and in some cases free) tools are available to enable organizations to video conference with applicants. Companies that conduct nationwide searches for specific positions can especially benefit from the modern convenience of interviewing applicants on-screen. Applications such as Skype, Google Hangouts, FaceTime, and GoToMeeting are just a few that can meet this need.

Take it a step further and record the video interview to make it available to other managers who are unable to participate in the interviewing process. Or, reference the recorded session to remind yourself of interviewee answers when you are comparing final candidates and near making an offer.

Image Credit: Indianapolis at Night by Rob Annis

 

[VIDEO] Job Requisition Approval Process

Is your organization struggling to get job openings approved by relevant managers across multiple locations in a timely fashion? Do delays in the job requisition approval process cost your company money, time and lost applicants?

If so, then consider incorporating an automated job approval tool into your hiring workflow. In this video, learn how the optional requisition management feature within the HireCentric applicant tracking system can help organizations to better control the time frame and costs involved with the recruiting process.

Schedule a live demonstration to see the job requisition management feature in action.

Transcript:

An easy-to-use job approval process is key to a consistent, controlled approach to managing your hiring efforts and staying within budget.

ExactHire’s applicant tracking software has an optional requisition management feature that allows small and mid-sized companies to digitize the job approval process.

With the flexibility to allow both hiring managers and HR administrators to start new requisitions, companies can customize the approval process by business unit or even by job listing.

It’s easy for hiring managers to access the Requisitions tab and click the green plus icon to start a new request.

Configure user logins to give managers access only to templates within their department.

Then, managers complete the quick and easy form, customized for your company, to capture whatever job info you require…for example, number of openings, salary grade, job board preferences, and budgetary considerations.

The management approval chain can vary by user or job. With HireCentric, HR Admins may pre-configure approval layers for groups of users; or, allow them to choose the appropriate requisition approval layers for themselves.

Once a request is launched, the first recipient logs in to view details and then may simply approve or deny it. Leaving comments is optional.

If declined, the requesting manager receives a notification and may make edits. Once approved by all layers, an HR Administrator receives notice.

Then, with just a few clicks, the HR Admin can push the job to external job boards and social media sites.

Having a paperless job approval process allows your business to streamline hiring…getting jobs posted and applicants sourced more quickly. Forget the pains of paper pushing and waiting for wet signatures – ask ExactHire about requisition management and our applicant tracking system.

To see the HireCentric requisition approval feature in action, please schedule a live demonstration or request a free 14-day trial.

[VIDEO] Social Recruiting Tools

Considering the ever-increasing number of social media users, savvy recruiting and human resources professionals are now, more than ever, pushing job postings to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media sites in order to generate a larger potential pool of applicants for career opportunities with their organizations. With the right applicant tracking software, reaping the benefits of social recruiting tools can be fast and easy.

In this video, see how ExactHire’s applicant tracking system integrates with social media networks and simplifies the task of promoting your job openings.

Transcript:

Using word of mouth in the recruiting process is one of the most effective and long-standing ways to attract talent. Imagine its power amplified through the use of social media networks.

ExactHire’s applicant tracking software offers many different social recruiting features. There are hundreds of millions of users on Twitter and LinkedIn each month – even over a billion on Facebook. Therefore, leveraging social media in today’s talent acquisition landscape is a must!

Your careers site visitors can easily share your jobs with friends on many different social networks. Encourage your own recruiting staff and employees to regularly visit your Jobs page and share openings, too.

While HireCentric ATS engages your active job seekers with a branded careers portal and job postings optimized for search, passive applicants can also interact with your employment brand over time by subscribing to automated job alerts via email.

Use our Facebook app to install a Jobs tab right on your company page. That way, your Facebook visitors can see all your current openings without leaving Facebook. The fewer clicks applicants must make to get to job info, the more employment applications you will receive.

If you’re spending too much time announcing new jobs on company social media sites, you’ll want to use an integration that automatically posts status updates to your company Facebook wall or Twitter page each time you create a new job listing. Post to personal LinkedIn pages, too.
Choose how often the posts occur and include hashtags to make it easy for job seekers to find your updates.

Social recruiting allows your company to exponentially increase its talent pool with little effort. With the power of social sharing, attract the best talent by improving your odds of reaching people with the right opportunity at the right time.

To see our recruiting software’s social media tools in action, we encourage you to schedule a live demonstration or do a free 14-day trial.

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