Borrowing from the seven-step theme above, there are many similarities that you should consider in your recruitment advertising and talent acquisition strategy.  These seven steps are:

1. Attract Job Applicants – Your Applicant Tracking System and overall talent acquisition strategy should include extensive online marketing reach, with each of your job openings registering with hundreds of online job databases.  There should be Social Media integration with the ability of every employee to easily share the position, recommend friends or colleagues with the click of a button.

2. Capture Potential Future Employees – What if people who visit your job today are not ready to move, or would be a better fit for future openings?  Your talent acquisition software should be able to capture these passive seekers, and your applicant tracking system should be able to follow up with them when a more appropriate job becomes available.  

3. Nurture Future Employees – Find recruiting software that allows job seekers to sign up for job alerts for your company.  Allow them to stay abreast of what is happening at your company, and what new jobs are becoming available with an applicant tracking system that automates this follow up for you.

4. Get Them to Apply –Just because you have a job opening posted online doesn’t mean people with apply.  Sometimes you need help crafting job descriptions and marketing campaigns that entice potential applicants to take action.  Does your current applicant tracking system come with dedicated hiring consultant resources that are available to help you with this?

5. Create a Satisfying Application Process – Remember the application process is part of your employer brand.  Every applicant is a type of customer, who will have a customer experience that they will share with colleagues.   Have recruiting software that has automated follow up and communication capabilities that keeps all applicants informed of where they are in the process, each and every step of the way.  Nothing is worse for your employer brand than for applicants to feel like their applications went into a black hole.

6. Gain Feedback to Improve Your Process – Your Applicant Tracking System should follow up with every hiring manager and every job applicant after a successful hire is made, to find out what went well, and what could be improved upon.  This feedback allows you to refine your process, while making your employees (both manager and new recruit) feel valued.  You have just turned applicants into advocates!

7. Get Referrals – Your applicant tracking system should be a referral acquisition system as well.  Make sure your recruiting software handles social media, referral tracking, and can turn previous applicants into referral sources!

If your company is looking for a feature-rich applicant tracking system that functions more like a CRM system, allowing you to attract massive amounts of traffic, create and convert leads, and build a steady stream of employee referrals, contact TalentWoo today for a demo.

The post The BIG 7: CRM Principles for Your Applicant Tracking System first appeared on Talentwoo.

If you do a Google search on ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems), you will find no fewer than 80 different software packages or online recruiting software services offered by various vendors.  All of them help you, the HR Manager or Hiring Manager, to track applicants who have applied to your job postings.  They will all, to one degree or another, allow your company to receive and store resumes, track these resumes to a specific job opening, display contact information, and/or monitor a candidate’s status as they move along the hiring process.  These are vital tools in your hiring panoply, for sure; but there’s something missing!  Is your biggest staffing challenge rooted in the fact that you need software to better organize your job applicants, or that you need to find QUALIFIED talent that you can on-board now?  Stated another way, is your goal to “Track Applicants” or to “Hire Employees?”   In our two decades of recruiting experience, we have found that most of our hiring companies are exasperated by the lack of qualified applicants who apply for their job openings, and the real financial pain they feel stems from an inability to accept, engage, or complete projects due to resource constraints.  It is not, we assure you,  a pain that comes from poor tracking of job applicants.  For example, at the time of this writing, a technology company in Phoenix, AZ who wishes to hire a .NET Developer of any kind would find their job post competing against 257 other .NET openings, listed by 141 other employers, who are all fighting over a tiny pool of only 18,000 developers (all of whom are gainfully employed).  This technology company does not need software that TRACKS applicants.  They need something more.    Might we suggest a Recruiting ARM (Applicant Relationship Management) solution?  A Recruiting ARM is an automated recruiting platform that takes recruiting to a completely different level (ahem, “a hire level”).  Instead of merely “tracking” applicants, an ARM will help you with: Maximum online marketing reach for your job posting Does your current ATS, or the recruiting software solution you are considering implementing, come with job board postings to all the major job boards:  Careerbuilder.com; Monster.com; Craigslist.com; Dice.com;  Salesjobs.com; TheLadders.com?  Does it allow for your job to be tweeted, shared, emailed, and reposted? Does it leverage and integrate easily with your existing employee referral programs? Does your solution include targeted email marketing campaigns to the world’s largest resume databases, as well as unlimited inmails to passive applicants on LinkedIn?  Automated Screening Many recruiting software packages offer rudimentary online interview questions in addition to the option to upload resumes, but almost none have built-in, intelligent decision-making systems. That means you still have to review hundreds of resumes PLUS hundreds of online interviews.  Consider a time-saving system that filters out applicants for you, and then ranks the ones that qualify, based on key competencies most important to the hiring manager. Automated Follow-Up Each and every time you, as an employer, post a job you are simultaneously marketing your brand.  You must remember that job applicants are also future: customers, vendors, suppliers, partners, prospects (at their new job), stock-holders, fans, etc, etc.  They could also very likely be bloggers, tweeters and social media users, all  with the potential to take their experiences viral.  While we’re sure this is common sense to the reader, we do wonder why over 90% of job applicants never receive the courtesy of a “No Thank You” response.  Consider a recruiting ARM that handles this for you so that 100% of prospects that interact with your company receive closure. Relationship Management A recruiting ARM will allow you to create and nurture leads, create and tap into referral networks, and create opt-in opportunities for candidates who want to stay in touch.  To find out more about how a Recruiting ARM can help your organization, contact Talentwoo.com today!

The post Getting Your ARMs Around the ATS first appeared on Talentwoo.