I noticed a very interesting blog yesterday about a new recruiter inquiring about choosing and the validity of:
ATS. A woman responded that they, ATS"s, were a waste of time unless you have a data entry person, and even then there value were was questionable.

My situation is different, but has similarities. I do have an ATS system that I have never really developed or used fully. It also only cost 200 dollars. It will do some automatic data entry, particularly if you set up a good data dictionary.

My concern, and request for feedback, revolves around having 20,000+ resume attachments in Outlook, going back ten years. They are just taking up kilobyte space. I started using Outlook 2007 and it does
have a very good keyword search functionality. However, I would like to get more value out of these resumes.

I have a recruiter friend who meticulously puts any potentially placable resume, or other relevant peace of information into a self designed ATS with over 300 job categories. It is built on ACT with a SQLserver back-end. When he gets a new job to work on, he sends emails to all candidates in his database in that category, and typically gets over 10+ responses, which averages him a placement and a half in a month in an OK job market. He describes himself as being "extremely anal" (i. e., compulsively super organized). He encourages me to do what he does, but I don't have his compulsive drive (he and I are networking solo recruiters).

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions, that doesn't include a sophisticated ATS, how I can get more value out of my inbox resume attachments, and over one thousand resumes I have put into word?
However, if there isn't anything else I can do, then I'll probably have to get an ATS or use the clunker I have.