Comment by Tom Dimmick on November 3, 2011 at 10:12am

I think that the objective for the implementation of the system should carry most of the requirements.  If the objective is to make a seamless, paperless transition from applicant to employee that's fine but if the unstated objective is to reduce headcount in HR, that must be surfaced and made a priority.  If all of the expectations have not been articulated, now is the time to do it. 

Any ATS can and will reduce paperwork.  However; a clearly defined set of objectives . . . . nothing hidden . . . . will help to insure that your get what you want/need/pay for. 

Comment by David Sanders on November 3, 2011 at 10:26am

We've had a pretty focused "requirements gathering" meeting to define our objectives and the number one thing that came across is increased organization and candidate tracking.  Our company has grown almost 3 fold in a little over 2 years and as you can imagine, there have been some huge growing pains and the need for defined processes and organization has come to the forefront.  I appreciate your feedback Tom.

Comment by Mark on November 3, 2011 at 11:46am

We're going through the same thing here.  We've looked at Bullhorn and a couple of others.  Tom, I like your comment about any ATS...  Which ones have you used?

Comment by Tom Dimmick on November 3, 2011 at 1:34pm

As an HR Guy . . . Oracle/PeopleSoft

Comment by Tom Dimmick on November 3, 2011 at 1:49pm

My comment was really directed at the folks that are going to use the system.  The IT people should be asking the questions like: "OK you want to have candidates accessible on our system.  Who can see it?  For what purposes? Can they edit records?  For what purpose? If the candidate is hired, what data comes with them into the HRIS? 

All of these are really detailed questions that must be answered based on your needs.  It's a big deal and I wish you the best with it.

 

Comment by Megan Flynn on November 3, 2011 at 2:11pm

I have used CATS as my ATS since my start in recruiting and I absolutely love it. I have heard horror stories about other ATS's and I haven't had any of the same problems with CATS. It sometimes feels a little outdated, but they are currently working on an entire website revamp which will hopefully make it feel a little bit more modern. They have webinars once a week that walk you through different parts of the site and I found those really helpful in utilizing all of the tools CATS offers. They have great customer service too which I really enjoy.

Comment by Judi Wunderlich on November 4, 2011 at 4:27pm

When I started our firm, WunderLand, a staffing firm, two and a half years ago, we used CATS (www.catsone.com) for candidate handling and job order handling. It doesn't have a robust sales application at all, but the recruiting part was paramount to us then.

 

Now we too have grown (from 2 people in one city, to 20 people in 5 cities) since then, and we needed to get a better system, one that is web-based and has great sales tools as well as recruiting tools. Enter eRecruit (www.erecruit.com). We had demos from all the usual ATS out there - Bullhorn, Maxhire, etc. - but eRecruit was by far the better system. That doesn't surprise me too much, since it was designed by people who used to be in the staffing/recruiting business.

 

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