Feeding your Applicant Tracking System with Talent

There's been a lot of buzz lately around Talent Generation and as Recruiters, what we can do to ensure we drive the best quality candidates into our Applicant Tracking Systems. This is another great post by my colleague Mike Vilimek (@mikevilimek) about exactly this topic. Take a read...

I recently read a great article titled, The Future of Applicant Tracking Systems: Executive Roundtable by Kyle Lagunas, HR Market Analyst from Software Advice. In the article, Kyle interviewed executives from 3 leading applicant tracking software vendors. While discussing what trends will have the largest impact on the ATS market in the future, the following was said:

Jason Barnett, CIO & co-founder of EON Applications - "HR and hiring professionals, as well as third party recruiters are all focusing more on finding passive candidates. To accomplish this, they’re using social media to tweet jobs and share information via Facebook and LinkedIn.”

Mark Dresser, President and CEO, Dresser & Associates - “These companies need a system that can automate the process – that helps them find ways to attract the best candidates.”

Susan Vitale, CSO, iCIMS - “We're seeing organizations becoming more progressive with their recruitment efforts by leveraging networks – social media sites, social networks, employee networks – to bring talent in.”

What is consistent among each of their views is the need for organizations to feed their ATS with better talent. Many ATS are capable of storing candidate information, managing the interview and hiring process and even onboarding and talent management. But if you’re not starting with the best talent in the first place, the rest of the process is not nearly as valuable.

What any organization with an ATS really needs is Talent Generation (What is Talent Generation?)

The Talent Generation market is made up of solutions that help organizations find the best talent available, faster and cheaper, and help capture them into the hiring process. This includes solutions to help you proactively source great candidates, marketyour open positions while strengthening your employer brand, and better engage with candidates by easily capturing more of their information and keeping that information up-to-date. Learn more about Talent Generation here.

It’s similar to the relationship between marketing automation (MA) software and customer relationship management (CRM) software. MA software is designed to feed the best leads into CRM software, while CRM software is designed to manage those leads and help convert them into customers. Talent Generation software is designed to feed the best candidates into an ATS, while the ATS is designed to manage these candidates and convert them to employees.

Are you feeding the best candidates into your ATS?

Comment by Martin H.Snyder on September 2, 2011 at 10:36am: Talent Generation software?

The problem with the nomenclature is that "applicants" are just about the last stage of recruiting.   I think "recruiting software" still has some run left as the most descriptive term.   To me "talent generation" is something that families and schools do......

The other dynamic is that people try, try, and try to impose industrial and process thinking to recruitment, and while there can be some benefit in doing so, losing sight of the unique human aspects of choosing which tribe to belong to and pull for at any time is going to be a loser.

This has to be one of the few areas where "passive" is ever considered superior to "active".   One of the other areas like that is dating and romance- and the connections to recruitment should not be overlooked.

You want to recruit better ?   Study the ways of the master Yente......

Comment by Terry Ledermam on September 2, 2011 at 12:28pm: Stepanie,

Thanks for the article on ATS. You outlined perfectly the shortcomings for the typical corporate ATS like SAP Erecruiting.

Comment by Stephanie Weirich on September 6, 2011 at 4:00pm: Martin,

Thanks for your comment, it's very accurate in the big picture. Indeed "Talent Generation" does truly commence at home and in school. It starts when you put together apprentice programs for youth in fields of work which will be in demand in the future. It start when you work with your children in understanding and developing their passions and designing the paths in which they want to live their lives.

In the sense in which we discuss Talent Generation it is in the sense of the Company, and what actions they can take to find the appropriate talent and help guide them into the applicant tracking systems in place. It identifies and catches the attention of a prospective candidate BEFORE they are an applicant and does come before the final stage in recruiting.

In the aspect of recruiting candidates to work at jobs in your company today, you need to look at what you can influence in terms of Talent Generation. We can't be expected or realistically look 10-20 years ahead and develop systems with the school for the jobs we need to fill today... and at the speed at which things change and evolve in our companies and with the technologies we use, are we the best to determine what these programs for students will be?

oh... we've unleashed a big topic here... one we could talk about in a lot of depth...

Thanks for the comments! I totally get where you're coming from.

Stephanie

Comment by Stephanie Weirich on September 6, 2011 at 4:01pm: Terry,

Thanks for your comments!

Stephanie

Comment by Keith Plesha on September 7, 2011 at 10:12am: So basically this article has no real point unless you click on links to your products...there is nothing invoking discussion or talk of strategy...mindless links pitching products. I'm not a robot or a slave to an ATS or other "talent generation software"...I use an ATS as necessary for the amount of applicants we receive daily. The whole point of being a recruiter is talent generation on a proactive basis and building relationships; an endless stream of getting the word out about your company. If you want to talk about strategy, let's talk about strategy; not your specific company's product.