The human resource expense of a company is by far among the largest of expenses. The same holds true when it comes to hiring new employees. Whether the result of turnover, retirement or expansion, the process is known to take much time and labour. Consider what happens when paper applications start coming in.
The Process
Even before applications are submitted, the human resources department must generate ads for the job opening(s) in order to improve talent acquisition. These may be posted in newspapers or through agencies at a cost. With the submission of each new application, human resource department staff must carefully scan through each.
This is an effort to identify the best and most qualified candidates. They will look through the resumes to uncover the best skill sets for the particular job. While doing so, they also want to focus on the quality of the grammar. This also reveals the type of employee you may potentially be hiring.
In a small business, the process may not be as time-consuming. Think however about larger operations, and therein lies their plight.
At the end of this process, the successful candidates of the initial phase will need to be contacted for interviews and then scheduled to come in. They may also be required to bring in additional documentation to support their resumes. This information must be added to their existing file. After a round of interviews has been completed,
This information must be added to their existing file. After a round of onsite or video interviews has been completed, a short listing follows. This involves sifting through once again to identify the winning points for each candidate. The candidates must then be contacted once again for another interview.
All of this is time and labour intensive for the department. Each time a new applicant must be interviewed, employees are pulled away from their regular job functions. The process though necessary can be made much more efficient through the use of Applicant Tracking Software.
What is Applicant Tracking Software?
Simply put, Applicant Tracking Software allows businesses to hire the best talent which exists for their organization. How does it do this? By using semantics to search through the pool of applicants and select the best ones based on set criteria. How is this any different or superior to what a human resources department would do? The key differences are time, cost, efficiency, and diversity. Let’s have a closer look.
Advantages of Using Applicant Tracking Software
Companies in Ireland now have a dire need for the top talent due to the extreme competition among businesses. If they make use of this existing Applicant Tracking Software, they can give themselves a competitive edge. This is what the system offers quite in contrast to the manual way of doing things.
- The interface allows access from any device with internet connectivity. This means that you are not limited to dealing with related application matters only in the office.
- A pre-existing or customizable form can be used to churn out a job posting with no hassle at all. After the post has been made on the platform it can be sent to multiple online locations in a single click. All social networking sites and platforms to which your business is linked will be posted on. This broadens your scope of applicants well beyond the newspaper’s reach. You get all of this exposure cost-free, which is good news for the budget.
- The Application Tracking Software will then sort through the submitted resumes by means of keywords. This allows a more specific and best list of candidates to be selected. If you had qualified applicants on your database prior, they will be included as well. You can set the parameters by which you would like the applicants to be screened. A profile is also created for each applicant in the database.
- Another advantage is that the recruitment software also seeks to ensure that the best-qualified candidates will see the ad. This is something the manual method cannot do. It eliminates a lot of needless viewing of applications for persons not suitably qualified.
- Another superior advantage is the ability to conduct interviews via video. This is a one up for convenience and cost-cutting. Also at the interview stage, you can administer tests and questionnaires to determine competencies. You also have the freedom to conduct the interview in a manner which will meet the needs of your organization.
- The software then simplifies the short listing of candidates, boosting the overall processing efficiency.
- Any interaction, communication, assessments, and documentation will be recorded on the software. They will be easily accessible and also available to other departments which may prove helpful in the decision process.
The simple three step process of recruitment, interviewing and selection is seamlessly packaged into this one solution. Recruitment times are cut by half as compared with conventional methods. The benefits are plain to see. Small to large businesses in Ireland do well to get on board.