Is Your ATS Driving Candidates Away?
What is your Career Site Telling Your Candidates?
…HR ideas from Jeffery Giesener – CEO – SourceMob.com
One of the biggest complaints we get from candidates is that they hate to fill out long applicant tracking system (ATS) forms when applying for jobs. This becomes a bigger issue when candidates are applying to multiple employers (the norm these days) with each organization is using a different ATS system. These systems may help employers stay organized (questionable), but they also hurt the candidate experience and can even scare away good applicants.
What’s worse if your candidates want to communicate with your on their mobile or Tablet devices. Can you take their applications into your ATS?
If you’re trying to attract candidates in computer science, engineering, and allied health and your career site is not candidate friendly or your ATS is not mobile ready for search, job descriptions or can’t take a mobile apply – you can bet that these folks will most likely forgo applying to your organization and will take one of the many alternative offers that are already being put in front of them.
Here are some factors to consider when “selling” candidates on applying to your organization:
Use simple online forms: Don’t force your candidates to jump through hoops to apply for your position especially when it comes to mobile apply. Don’t ask them for repetitive information. Don’t require them to fill out silly information or information not needed before taking the next step in the apply process. Help them easily navigate through the apply process removing any roadblocks. Better yet, fill out your own ATS application and see how you do and whether you would complete or defect. Time yourself from start to finish.
Offer ATS integration. As an organization, you’re most likely using two or more media channel partners (like LinkedIn or Facebook) to attract and source candidates. If so, offer the ability for your vendors to integrate with your ATS in order to provide a seamless application process for users. A good ATS will offer tools for third-party vendors to pass candidate information to them. If the media vendor is able to integrate with your ATS and pass candidate information seamlessly, make sure you have an ATS that is willing and able to integrate. The burden should be on your ATS or on your media vendors to do the work. Don’t put the burden on the back of your candidate. If your vendor can’t or won’t easily help you it is time to select a new ATS partner who can.
Enable Candidates to Apply on a Smartphone or Tablet device. It is critical in today’s marketplace for you to enable your ATS to accept applications from candidates on their smartphones and Tablets. This means enabling them to easily apply on a mobile or Tablet device. Nothing can be more frustrating than trying to apply on a bad mobile platform. Did you know by 2015 Morgan Stanley estimates there will be more than 3 Billion mobile connections. Computer Science, Engineering and Medical positions are using mobile heavily to apply for jobs today. Now to test your mobile candidate experience, try and apply to your organization on your mobile or Tablet device.
What is your Career Site Telling Candidates About Your Organization? If you are simply using ATS Search functionality right from your home page career link – boy are you missing out on great candidates. Why because today, candidates want to know why they should work at your organization. They want to know what is in it for them? They want to hear from your hiring managers and employees to get to know your company (use short form video, they are affordable and quick to build). Your best most talented candidates often want to lurk and hold off applying instead opting in for passively following your jobs through notifications (email and text), chats and career alerts. Again look at your Career Site through your candidates lens and let it speak to you. Would you hire yourself?
Career Fairs and On Campus Interviewing. These on-campus venues are very popular with students, and are two of the top ways students like to connect with employers on campus. When meeting students, especially top prospects, offer to accept their resume on your Tablet right there and then. Do you have a mobile QuickApply™ solution for events like these? Then drop these candidates into your Talent Community. The worst thing you can do is tell them to go later online and submit their resume via the ATS. If you’ve put in the effort to show up on campus, you should take those resumes online, stat and make sure they go where they need to go.
In an increasing competitive job market, competition for top college talent is growing and getting fierce. Make it easy for college students and grads to apply to your jobs. Take your Tablet or Laptop to the event and have your candidates apply right there and then. First impressions count, so make your application process a welcoming experience. Your Talent Brand will make you memorable and remarkable.
Stop Defection with Good Analytic Visibility. Knowing where your defection is within your ATS will save you tens of thousands in lost campaign spending, applications lost, cost of missed applies and hires. And what’s worse – bad analytics visibility is the dirty little secret in the ATS world that no one wants to talk about. Why is this? I think the answer is obvious. Accountability. When was the last time you asked your ATS vendor to be accountable for defection or your cost per apply/hire?
Why not check out SourceMob’s Mobile ATS and Mobile DirectApply. Now candidates can submit application on desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablet devices seamlessly and easily. There is also a tablet career fair solution included plus a solid set of analytics to prove ROI.
When you are ready to talk about what’s new in mobile ATS and candidate experience including mobile apply using your Talent Community, simple give me a call. Just ring me up at 952-417-6955 or email me at jeff@sourcemob.com
Playing Catch Up or Leading Your Industry?
Today It Is Your Choice To Decide!
SourceMob is helping to educate our Recruiting Industry and it one of the many factors why we are growing. Catch one of the many SourceMob Webinar, as most of these webinars are FREE.
To check out our latest Webinar Education schedule go to SourceMob.com and look for the Events link off the navigational bar http://sourcemob.com/events/
Next Webinar – August 25th – 12 PM CST
Where Are My Candidates? – The Necessity of Talent Acquisition Analytics
Presented by Jeffery Giesener – CEO – SourceMob; Jared Law – VP of IT – SourceMob; Don Geronimo – Social Expert – SourceMob, &Lemonte Wilcox – Social Listening Expert
The Webinar is FREE!
ABOUT SOURCEMOB: SourceMob integrates Internet, social, talent community. HR Analytics and social listening solutions, HR Marketing Services and mobile recruiting solutions to help talent acquisition professionals recruit the very best candidates for tough-to-fill positions. SourceMob’s solutions seamlessly distribute conversations, engagement and job content all done on autopilot providing a job posting springboard to over 3.5 million candidate profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and all of the major search engines. We help you engage with your candidates and capture niche Passive candidates. Our solutions also enable Mobile Quick Apply and candidate application management services to create more efficiencies and lower recruiting costs. Plus you won’t need your IT Team or HR Department to implement them. That is beauty of the SourceMob platform.
Looking forward to hearing from you…
Best,
Jeffery
Jeffery Giesener
CEO/Founder
SourceMob.com
jeff@sourcemob.com
942-417-6955
Twitter: @thegies