Modern-day recruitment is becoming more fast-paced. Hence, it’s best to improve ATS adoption to guide your recruitment strategy. Implementing the ATS has its stages, but overall adoption throughout the organization is the key to success.
Let’s talk about how to improve ATS adoption from training measures to customizing the system to fit your organization’s needs. Highlighting the benefits and best practices can also give insight into why your company should invest in ATS software.
Driving ATS Adoption: Key Strategies
Invest in support and training for all stakeholders, including the recruitment team, human resources, and hiring managers. Interactive workshops, online tutorials, and ongoing support are the key features for driving ATS adoption. Implementing ATS software will improve the candidate experience, so it’s best to innovate usage functions regularly.
Interactive Workshops
Host a hands-on workshop where each user sits at a computer and tests the ATS’s functions. About 65% of people are visual learners. Showing everyone how the ATS works while giving them time to explore the platform themselves is essential for maximizing ATS usage to its fullest potential.
Online Tutorials
If employees are having problems with accessing certain ATS features, you should have online tutorials available in a central location for them to review at any time. This allows for a self-service employee experience where they can solve their problems without involving upper management.
Ongoing Support
Have a virtual chat dedicated to asking questions about the ATS and suggested troubleshooting procedures. The virtual chat can be on Slack where employees and management can message back and forth with questions and answers. Create an FAQ page about the ATS that answers questions about the most common problems that could happen during operation.
Customize the ATS To Fit Your Needs
A scalable ATS is the best solution because it can be customized to fit your company’s needs. Based on your hiring process, you customize the ATS platform accordingly.
Custom Workflows
An ATS can institute customizable workflows based on how you want your company’s hiring process to pan out. Rather than one interview, some companies prefer 2 to 3 interviews during the candidate selection process. Hence, the first interview may be an Initial Screening, the second interview a Technical Screening, and the third interview a Panel Screening.
For each stage of the interview process, define the specific criteria necessary for moving to the next one. For example, a hiring manager and a member of upper management may have to approve the candidate after their Technical Screening to be approved for the Panel Screening. A panel screening could be a group interview with other candidates or an interview between one candidate and a panel of higher-ups.
Integration With Other Tools
Technological integration streamlines the hiring process. Hence, integrating an applicant tracking system with your HRIS, payroll, and other systems will make data transfer quick and seamless. Cadient’s ATS software integrates with
Highlight the Benefits
There are many benefits to utilizing ATS software for your company. Especially if your team hasn’t used an applicant tracking system yet, it can take some persuasion for them to be keener on trying it out.
Cadient has case studies that you can analyze for the retail, healthcare, and hospitality industries. Discover more information under the Industries tab on the homepage. Evaluating case studies to see how ATS software contributed to a company’s success will show employees its benefits:
- Streamlines recruitment.
- Enhances the candidate experience.
- Faster resume screening with AI-driven solutions.
- Improved compliance with all new hire paperwork available.
- Better security with encryption, controls, and data backups.
- Reduces the time-to-hire metric.
- Enlivens candidate sourcing measures.
Foster A Culture of Adoption
The best way to improve ATS adoption is to foster it within the company’s organizational culture. Remind everyone in recruitment, HR, and IT that learning and operating the ATS is essential for company growth. Setting expectations, offering incentives, and soliciting feedback can enhance these ATS adoption measures.
Setting Expectations
Be specific in what goals you want the company to attain when implementing this new ATS software. Maybe you want to decrease time-to-hire by 20% and reduce cost-per-hire by 15%. Set expectations for the entire team to be aware of the ATS’s features that can best help the company achieve these goals.
From there, designate roles to each team member on which part of the ATS in which they will be responsible. Perhaps one recruitment representative can handle candidate feedback surveys to collect data on each candidate’s application experience. An HR representative can analyze the resumes once AI has selected the best ones.
Offering Incentives
Reward employees who are using the ATS software effectively to advance these company goals. You can recognize employees with shoutouts at company meetings if they helped improve a hiring metric that past month. Giving a recognized employee something small like a $20 restaurant gift card could also show your appreciation for their hard work.
Soliciting Feedback
Ask your employees how the ATS software is performing. Is it completing manual tasks seamlessly with no issues? Are there loading or lagging issues while using the applicant tracking system? Collect all positive and negative feedback and make changes accordingly for a smoother process.
ATS Adoption Best Practices
Follow these practices while implementing ATS software into your company’s technologies.
Start With a Pilot Program
Host a pilot program before a full software debut. For example, have either recruitment or HR test the system before other teams do. This can evaluate if there are any issues during usage so they can be addressed during the full launch. This can also give a designated individual time to make video tutorials about the ATS to utilize as resources for future reference.
Ensure Clear Communication
Keep your team in the loop. Let them know why a new ATS is being implemented in the company. Again, it’s best to highlight the benefits and how the ATS will impact their daily tasks.
Measure and Monitor Usage
Track the ATS’s metrics to see how often it’s being used. Evaluate how often employees log into the system, how many job postings were made, and how many candidates are being managed. From there, you can see whether the system is being used enough or not to make improvement plans accordingly.
Continuously Improve
Adopting and implementing ATS software is an ongoing process even months and years after it starts.
Employee ATS Adoption Tips
Employees may not be keen on trying new systems, especially when they are used to normal operations.
Executives should lead by example by utilizing the ATS software. As leadership continuously uses the ATS to complete daily functions in recruitment and onboarding, then human resources will be led to do the same thing.
Not all people have a tech background. Hence, customizing the ATS interface to be user-friendly is important to improve ATS adoption. Have a select number of sections to keep each stage of the hiring process easily accessible for recruitment and HR.
Encourage collaboration with team members. Have them discuss what they have noticed about the ATS software and what best practices they do to make full use of the system.
