What constitutes a company that is “best-in-class” when it comes to hiring practices and employee retention? According to a 2013 study by the Aberdeen Group, those companies that earn that distinction achieve high employee retention at the one-year mark, employee performance that exceeds expectation, and consistent year-over-year improvement in hiring management satisfaction.

Admittedly, that is a high standard for which to aim, but it is not an impossible one. The Aberdeen study found that one of the factors that best-in-class companies have in common is their use of excellent applicant tracking systems. In fact, 84 percent of those companies either had a great applicant tracking system in place already or were planning to invest in a state-of-the-art applicant tracking system rather than rely on traditional human resources management systems.

What about your business? Are you currently using a strong applicant tracking system, or are you limping along with technology solutions that do not address your actual talent management needs? If you are considering investment in an applicant tracking system, what factors should weigh in your decision? How can you choose the right ATS for you?

Key Criteria for a Good Applicant Tracking System

Since ATS solutions abound, it is more important than ever before to weigh your choices carefully. Implementing a new applicant tracking system is labor-intensive and can also be quite costly, especially if you choose poorly.

SHRM’s “How to Choose a Next-Generation Applicant Tracking System” provides some basic factors to consider when making your choice. To be truly useful to your organization, an applicant tracking system should:

  • Allow for easy customization.
  • Contain adequate compliance tracking features.
  • Provide an excellent candidate experience.
  • Integrate with other platforms such as LinkedIn and GitHub.

Of course, these are not the only items to take into account, but ensuring each of these things is a great step in the right direction.

Other requirements for your applicant tracking system include:

Process efficiencies: Implementing a new ATS should not have to be like reinventing the wheel. Rather, when choosing an applicant tracking system, it is wise to look for a system that will work well with your established recruiting, hiring, and onboarding process. Your ATS should be a centralized point for job requisitions, tracking, management of employee referrals and transfer programs, and onboarding initiatives.

Scalability: Ideally, your applicant tracking system should allow for your future growth as an organization. It should facilitate high-volume recruiting in a cost-effective way when needed.

Robust reporting capabilities: A state-of-the-art ATS will serve as much more than a simple repository for your active applications. It should include analytics and reporting features that give you a global view of your talent pool in real-time.

Communication and collaboration: Those involved in hiring decisions should be able to collaborate and quickly come up to speed on every candidate when needed. Your ATS should also facilitate communication with candidates, leading to a better candidate experience and higher levels of engagement.

Additionally, your applicant tracking system should be mobile-ready, should integrate well with your website and other recruiting platforms, and should simplify your current recruiting process.

The Takeaway

To achieve your talent management goals, it is necessary to embrace the right technology. An applicant tracking system, when chosen wisely, adds value to your organization and easily nets a positive ROI for your hiring processes. ThriveTRM is a state-of-the-art talent management system that meets and exceeds the expectations of both candidates and hiring managers time and again. Schedule a demo today to explore the features that make ThriveTRM a standout among applicant tracking systems available today.