Year-end is fast approaching and the door will soon close on budget approvals for your 2010 fiscal year. How do you “sell” your leadership on the value of an Applicant Tracking System? When the bottom line is the primary focus, you need to make the case for your ROI on the investment in new software. When compliance is the major issue, you should be able to make that case with ease!

ATS Return on Investment CAN be quantified, measured, and calculated:

1. Department efficiencies can reduce costs when a manual process is eating hours of the day that could be more productively utilized using an applicant tracking system.
* ROI Question: How many hours per month are spent manually handing applicant resumes and processing new hires?
* Compliance Question: Are the processes you are manually facilitating consistent and not inflicting adverse impact on candidates?

2. PAPER costs money and has to be touched, signed, filed, and hopefully easily retrieved. Most ATS systems can facilitate a completely paperless hiring process, even addressing new hire paperwork.
* ROI Question: How much paper, ink, wear and tear on a copy machine, professional printing costs, forms purchased, etc is used in your offices?
* Compliance Question: Can you actually document that your candidate processes are in fact meeting OFCCP guidelines?

3. Advertising costs can be reduced using an online process.
* ROI Question: Are your jobs getting any tracking on the web? SEO tools and maximized Web 2.0 programs come with most hosted Career Pages.
* Compliance Question: Is your internet job exposure meeting the requirements of the OFCCP?

4. Web-based software products are not a drain on your IT resources.
* ROI Question: How much storage space is needed to manage resumes and HR documents?
* Compliance Question: Does your IT department have the knowledge to support the needs of your HR department in the area of compliance?

Make your case using quantifiable information, and throw in the fact that companies without an efficient online process are perceived as lagging behind others when it comes to their recruitment processes.

Go for it and good luck!