Your business should have an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that gives you the best return on investment. After all, the software is meant to improve efficiency and increase productivity. In order to achieve this, it’s important that the ATS used by your company is modern, reliable, and user-friendly.

Researching the right ATS takes time. However, in the long run finding a system that best fits your needs will save money, decrease the number of lost clients/candidates, and reduce overall frustrations.

Great applicant tracking systems have come a long way in the last few years. Nowadays, these are some of the key features your software should have:

1. SOPHISTICATED UNIFIED COMMUNICATION

Email Integration

Email integration is critical to maintaining strong relationships with both your clients and candidates. This makes it necessary to invest in an ATS that has sophisticated communication capabilities. At the very least, your ATS should integrate with commonly used email providers – such as Microsoft Outlook and Gmail – allowing you to track emails, as well as schedule calendar meetings and follow-ups from within the system.

2-Way Text Messaging

A great applicant tracking system will also provide two-way texting for quick and efficient communication. With true two-way texting when you send an SMS message, replies will be tracked in the system, and you will be notified upon their arrival. This is a paradigm shift in efficiency – eliminating time spent individually phoning uninterested candidates. Ideally, your ATS will be able to send batch texts and match replies to the outgoing message in order to keep data accessible and organized.

Telephone Integration

However, if you’d prefer calling a candidate directly, an integrated Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology gives you the ability to call anywhere in the world using a broadband connection, rather than a standard phone line. With VoIP technology, a desk phone is still used for improved sound quality and simplicity, but signals are transmitted through the Internet rather than traditional phone transmissions.

Some applicant tracking systems optimize this feature particularly well. Mindscope CURA has integrated VOIP calling in such a way that users have ‘click-to-dial’ capabilities, for fast and effective phone calls. Also, when a candidate or client calls in, CURA’s VOIP integration will automatically link to their record. Their profile will instantly pop-up in the system, giving you immediate access to the appropriate information and notes, and improving conversation quality.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEBSITE INTEGRATION

Candidate job search habits have substantially shifted online. Therefore, social media and mobile friendly, “responsive” website integration have become critical ATS features for better candidate access and visibility.

Social Media

The prevalence of recruiting via social media (also known as social recruitment) is increasing. Using an ATS that integrates with sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter will enable you to post and distribute jobs to a worldwide audience, as well as monitor applicants’ personal social profiles for deeper insights. Knowledge acquired from the online social practices of your candidates will help to improve the recruitment process. Data garnered from social media integration allows recruiters to analyze the success and short-comings of their candidates matched to particular social qualities. Another benefit of social media integration is its impact on SEO, as frequent social media posting helps to enhance your company’s SEO standing.

Website Integration

Website integration enhances productivity with the ability for new or returning applicants to search and apply for jobs online via your company’s branded site. This powerful recruiting tool enables candidates to take care of data entry, so you can focus on placement. However, arguably more impressive is the ability of a responsive ATS website integration to create and maintain your company’s unique talent community.

Talent Communities

Talent communities are an innovative way to pool job seekers and gain access to top talent that aligns with your employer brand. Talent communities are cultivated by harnessing modern communication methods to create strong candidate networks. Your website has potential to be an excellent venue for communicating your brand and enticing top candidates. By investing in a great applicant tracking system your business will be able to garner the benefits of its own talent community.

ATS website integration allows you to use your company’s branded career page as a hub for various types of applicants seeking particular positions and/or work environments. When a candidate details their jobs interests during the application process on your career page, a great ATS will automatically notify them of new job postings that align with their expressed interests. This is an excellent tool for enticing top talent.

Beyond this, with an ATS such as Mindscope CURA, you can create smaller networks known as ‘hot lists’ from within the applicant pool. These hot lists allow you to categorize candidates based on a variety of customizable criteria such as skills, status, and interest level. Hotlists enable more powerful follow-ups and communication by appropriately targeting specific audiences, leading to enhanced relationships with active, as well as passive candidates.

By creating a talent community for your business, you can enhance hiring quality, grow the talent pipeline, and improve your overall company culture.

3. JOB BOARD INTEGRATION

Job publishing via job boards, such as Indeed, is a critical venue for attracting an increased number qualified candidates. This type of integration saves valuable time by eliminating manual job posting, as well as data entry for your interested applicants. Not only does this simplify the hiring process – allowing you to post to multiple channels from within one system – it also provides an improved application experience for active candidates.

 4. AN INTEGRATED CRM

Finding an ATS with a truly integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a strong competitive advantage. It enables you to greatly enhance client relationships. A smart ATS/CRM integration will be able to manage your customers who have a dual client/candidate role, allowing users to easily navigate through highly organized data.

Further, an integrated CRM gives recruiters the ability to create campaigns, as well as monitor activities and results. It also helps users stay organized by scheduling follow-ups and creating opportunities (or ‘likely deals’).

Mindscope CURA takes this a step further by empowering your business with a unique CRM feature that also enables you to capitalize on the progression of leads within job orders to predict future revenues. Unleashing the potential of this type of CRM integration provides your company with the the ability to strategically map out business plans, and prevail steps ahead of competitors.

5. CLOUD-BASED, BROWSER/PLATFORM INDEPENDENT, MOBILE FRIENDLY SYSTEM

The increased mobility of the global workforce means people are required to work from various locations, on-the-go. Fortunately, leading applicant tracking systems are cloud enabled and mobile friendly – allowing users to access the system from nearly any device, platform, and browser with an internet connection. This type of intuitive software provides unparalleled freedom and efficiency.

Regardless of whether you meticulously post jobs, make phone calls, and conduct follow-ups – if your ATS does not improve productivity, you and your entire recruitment team will be dragged down.

Great Applicant Tracking Systems have evolved to generate higher performance and enhanced features. Take advantage of the capabilities new software has to offer. These 5 ATS must-haves can create a strong competitive advantage – so find a system with all of them.