The bigger your company is, the more people you’ll have to manage—including new recruits and applicants. Unless you’re using the right enterprise applicant tracking system, that’s not a fun challenge to tackle.
In this article, we’ll cover exactly what an enterprise ATS is and whether you need one, along with the benefits and downsides that come with them.
For now, all we’ll say is that they’re well worth learning about, if only because they have the potential to revolutionize your approach to enterprise-level recruiting.
What Is An Enterprise ATS, and Does My Business Need One?
An enterprise applicant tracking system is a type of recruitment technology. It exists to help you track, manage, and support applicants and new recruits on their journey to become part of your business.
If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is—in the best way. An enterprise ATS is the kind of tool that helps with a lot of different things and empowers you to run a good chunk of your internal processes more efficiently.
But does that mean every business needs one? The simple answer is ‘no’. As long as you’ve got enough employees, it’s possible, in the strictest sense of the word, to do everything by hand. However, they’ll have to sort through every application, contact every candidate, and plan every recruitment strategy manually.
That’s why we recommend an ATS solution for any enterprise that expects to recruit at least some new candidates each year. These tools enable you to do things more efficiently and in ways that will help your employees get the most out of their working hours.
What Benefits Does an Enterprise Applicant Tracking System Offer My Company?
Applicant tracking systems are useful for a variety of reasons, particularly if you’re running a larger enterprise. Here are a few of the most notable upsides.
- Better, more diverse recruiting standards thanks to the removal of human bias, including and especially unconscious biases.
- The ability to streamline high-volume recruiting and simplify the process of sifting through potentially hundreds of applications each day.
- More opportunities for accessible recruiting thanks to the fact your ATS can help you easily record (and thus accommodate) the needs of applicants.
- A single, accessible spot to store all your information on applicants, so you can find what you need right away.
- A paper trail of evidence for any disputes or disagreements that may arise, so these can be resolved in a fair and fact-based way.
- The opportunity to form stronger bonds with new recruits, as you’re able to communicate and connect with them more easily via your ATS.
- Lower churn rates, since your company can stay on top of recruits’ needs more efficiently.
- The ability to gather data on your recruits so you can track metrics and compare your observed progress to your goals and projections.
- Faster, easier talent acquisition thanks to the automated streamlining of workflows related to bringing recruits on board.
The Essential Features to Look for in an Enterprise ATS
So, how can you start reaping these benefits as quickly as possible? The answer lies in finding the right kind of enterprise ATS, which is something we can assist with.
We’ve listed the following features to help you separate a good solution from a great one. The more of these an applicant tracking system offers, the more benefits it will afford you once you start using it.
Customizability
While the rest of this list is in no particular order, there’s a good reason why customizability is at the top. The more customizable a solution is, the more likely it is to fit your needs without leaving any gaps.
In other words, you should be able to adjust your ATS to include exactly what you need without paying for features you’re not interested in. This way, you get to access all the advantages of an applicant tracking system without paying over the odds.
Specifically, make sure you can adjust the workflows within your ATS to reflect your preferences.
User-friendliness
It’s also crucial to make sure your system of choice is easy to use. It should involve only a shallow learning curve. Employees who have questions about it should be able to find the answers to these with ease.
User-friendliness is important even after everyone has learned how to navigate your new solution. That’s because your employees will continue to rely on this software to help them with their daily work. If it’s simple to use every time, they’ll always know they can count on it to support their needs, as well as those of your applicants.
Workflow streamlining
For your recruitment funnel to work optimally, you must make sure your internal processes are efficient. That’s much easier when your ATS of choice supports you in streamlining as many workflows as possible.
Many cutting-edge ATS providers will help make this happen by offering automation.
Since automation lets you hand over repetitive workflows to bots, it frees up more time in your employees’ schedules while ensuring work is completed to your usual high standard. This leaves employees available to focus on tasks that require a human touch, like interviews, for example.
Anonymous screening
When you’re recruiting, you want to keep personal bias to a minimum. This is far easier when you’ve got access to anonymous screening features like the kind Oleeo offers.
By keeping applicants’ identities hidden during the initial screening process, you can ensure you’re not influenced by unconscious bias that could lead you to eliminate valuable candidates unnecessarily. This will help make your recruitment process fairer and more equal.
Artificial intelligence
We’ve already touched on the importance of automation, but what about artificial intelligence? Is it really that important to a good-quality ATS?
As it turns out, it is. Where humans need to work introspectively to unlearn their biases, AI can be trained not to have any in the first place. This makes it ideally suited to fair and diverse recruitment and an integral part of choosing the right ATS for your enterprise.
The Challenges an Enterprise ATS Can Present and How to Solve Them
As useful as they are, applicant tracking systems do come with certain challenges. Though these are minor in comparison to the benefits we covered, they’re still worth considering.
We discuss three of these below and show you how to overcome them.
Implementation and integration
Choosing an ATS can take a fair while, and the process of starting to use it doesn’t end there. You’ve also got to physically implement it within your company and make sure it works seamlessly with your existing tech stack.
To that end, user-friendliness comes into the picture again. Choosing an ATS that’s simple to set up and doesn’t require much technical expertise will save you time when it comes to implementation and help you troubleshoot issues if something does go wrong.
As for integration, it’s important to check whether your chosen solution is compatible with the ones you’re already using before you make your purchase. If it’s flexible and adaptable, it’s likely to integrate more easily.
Universal adoption
Whether it’s because they don’t want to learn how to use a new system, they’re confused, or they struggle to adjust to new tech, not everyone will automatically swap over to your enterprise ATS after it’s been implemented.
This can lead to friction between teams or within them. In particular, if half of a team is using your ATS and the other half isn’t, they’re likely to run into problems with workflow completion and task delegation.
Thankfully, you can resolve this relatively easily. All you’ve got to do is set aside time to explain to everyone what the new enterprise ATS will look like and how it works.
You’ll also want to let your team know in advance that you’re exploring the option of an enterprise applicant tracking system. This keeps miscommunication to a minimum and ensures everyone’s prepared for the changeover.
Swapping all workflows over
The process of digitizing and/or moving your workflows from your old system to a more efficient ATS can take time. It can be complicated too (unless you’ve chosen an ATS that offers you lots of help and support).
That’s why choosing a user-friendly solution is vital. The easier it is to create new workflows within your ATS, the faster you’ll be able to transfer your daily tasks across to it. This also simplifies the process of automating and streamlining existing workflows.
Perfect Your Recruitment Process with an Enterprise Applicant Tracking System
The enterprise applicant tracking systems you consider need to complement your business needs, as well as adapt to your preferences. Additionally, they should offer you all kinds of benefits while minimizing risks and challenges.
Oleeo is ideally suited to this. Being both AI-powered and highly flexible, it enables you to get your ATS set up and running smoothly in no time. Try it for yourself to experience its many benefits and transformative capabilities!
