Hiring great talents can always be tedious without the aid of technology. So, in the modern age of recruiting and hiring, almost all companies use Applicant Tracking Systems for hiring great teams and managing all the aspects of recruiting. There are various ATSs available in the market that can automate and optimize most of the recruitment tasks, including resume parsing. However, it’s important to not forget that everything has its drawbacks. Due to some technical downfalls, less skilled talents can beat the system and great candidates can be overlooked. Let’s take a look at how you can use an ATS to screen candidates better, without any loopholes.
How Does An ATS Work?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) has been a hiring aid for recruiters and hiring managers for quite some time now. One of the most tedious tasks of the complete recruitment process is resume parsing. But an ATS saves time per hire and helps recruiters hire the best fit by automatically parsing the resumes received and filter out the best matches.
Here’s how it works. When an applicant applies for a job, their resume, CVs, and cover letters are uploaded to the system and can be transferred through different sections within the system. Within this whole process, an ATS works by sorting out resumes that best fit or match the keywords and phrases that are predefined set by the recruiter.
What’s The Catch Here?
As useful as an ATS is for recruiters, it does make mistakes as well. Often, the system of an ATS can overlook words or phrases that are synonymous with the keywords set by recruiters. An ATS can also favor a candidate more for focusing on a keyword.
Also, most job candidates are aware of the fact that 40 percent of employers use ATSs for their hiring needs. Many candidates have figured their way around and use this to their advantage and manipulate their resumes accordingly to get shortlisted by the system.
Having said that, let’s look at how these drawbacks can be avoided. Here is how you can use an ATS to screen candidates.
Here’s How You Can Use An ATS To Screen Candidates Better
Don’t Set Too Many Restrictions
Sometimes, ATSs filter out valuable candidates just because of some irrelevant restrictions like lack of synonyms of keywords, font, format, etc. It may help you, screen candidates, better if you loosen up on restrictions. Don’t add too many complex keywords, and list as many synonyms for keywords as possible.
Ask Some Pre Screening Questions
It’s always a better idea to get to know your candidate a little before even proceeding with the hiring process. Some ATSs provide you with the feature of adding some pre-screening questions at the time when they apply. This helps you filter out candidates who lack the basic eligibility required to work for you and filter them out even before the hiring process starts. This makes it easier for an ATS to do its work with less room for mistakes.
Choose The Right ATS
There are a number of Applicant Tracking Software available in the market. However, that doesn’t mean you can use any of them randomly. Every company’s hiring needs are different and so are the features provided by every ATS. Not every ATS will provide you the smooth hiring experience that you desire. You need to analyze the effectiveness of the system, features, and analytics that an ATS provides you and make a choice accordingly.