The advantages of an ATS for candidates (and companies)
Recruiting tips |

The advantages of an ATS for candidates (and companies)

ATS is an acronym that may be familiar to HR professionals, but less so to candidates. However, an Applicant Tracking System, i.e. software for the management of recruiting processes, allows people who send their CVs to register for a job advertisement to ensure that their applications are followed up, and not overlooked, by recruiters. It also allows companies to better manage the whole process of recruitment and selection and talent acquisition.

Let’s take a look at what ATS software consists of and what the advantages are for both companies and candidates.

What is an Applicant Tracking System

An ATS is software that helps manage the recruiting process, but not only that: it also helps you to have all your candidate information in one digital place. With an ATS software you can do a lot of things.

Here are some of them:

  • group the CVs you receive according to type, origin or other criteria you consider important;
  • optimise the selection and screening of CVs by researching skills;
  • keeping track of how the selection process is going and all the actions taken such as sending e-mails to candidates, scheduling calls, interviews or video interviews, feedback to candidates, etc.;
  • publishing one’s job advertisements on several notice boards thanks to multiposting;
  • facilitating teamwork. It is not only the individual recruiter who can manage the job application, but the whole HR team can check the status of the selection, the progress of a job application in the hiring pipeline, add a comment or other elements, share feedback, etc;
  • search the ATS for CVs received in the past from qualified people who had gone through the recruitment process but were not chosen or changed their mind, thus creating a talent pool;
  • updating the company’s career page;
  • minimise company costs by reducing the time to hire as well as saving energy and the number of people constantly involved in selection;
  • have integrated reporting.

These and many more are the functions of an ATS such as In-recruiting, which becomes not only a powerful but also a very effective tool to help you do Talent Attraction (i.e. attracting talent to your company) and take care of all stages of the candidate journey.

Giving answers to candidates as well as automatic feedback on how the selection process went also helps with employer branding and corporate reputation.

Want to know more about our ATS software?

Try In-recruiting for free

Can an ATS also be useful for candidates?

Of course it can. All of the above sometimes frightens recruiters and even more so candidates because it is thought that recruiting software automates the selection process so much that people risk not being considered properly for roles that would be suitable for them.

It is thought that a BOT is behind the final decisions and not a human person, but in fact this is not the case. It is always the recruiter who sets the filters and does the actions mentioned above that then lead to the hiring of a candidate.

To make it even clearer: ATS software helps in the screening of CVs to see if in fact the people who have applied have done so for the position sought, but it is then the recruiter who makes the final assessment.

This, however, can help candidates to stand out from the rest because of their skills. What does this mean?

Let’s say 500 people apply for a job as an experienced project manager, but none of them have ever held the role, which they aspire to do. If the company is looking for someone with experience, and not someone who has yet to be trained, then an ATS will help to identify someone who has already worked in that role.

With an ATS software, all things being equal, different skills will emerge.

If this is only done by a recruiter who has to look at 500 applications in a single day, you will realise that at the end of the day they will be tired and will not have all the energy they had when they started looking at the first CVs. As a result, he/she might not give the right attention to profiles that might be suitable.

Being human also means having limited resources – whether due to time or fatigue – whereas if these initial tasks are entrusted to an ATS, the recruiter will focus on making his or her own personal contribution to the recruitment activities. Maybe he/she will notice that a person has done a course abroad or that a few months earlier he/she did an online course and so on.

As well as optimising the recruiter’s work and giving him or her time to manage other activities or to get to know people better, an ATS such as In-recruiting allows candidates to access their private area, view job offers in line with their skills, record a video CV to associate with their profile, read communications, confirm an appointment, answer prescreening questionnaires, update privacy consents, edit their profile, etc.

Moreover, thanks to the willingness to integrate with artificial intelligence solutions, the ATS can make the most of candidates and their skills. Features such as semantic search, job matching and Inda‘s suggestion of similar candidates allow recruiters to stay in touch with the talent pool and keep all candidates interesting for a position in mind.

What’s more: ATS does not exclude candidates from selection! Also thanks to the contribution of some AI algorithms, recruiting software helps to minimise the cognitive biases that may emerge during the recruiting process. If a first screening is carried out by the software, for instance, it will focus on the real competences of the people found in the CV, without being influenced by other elements and without running the risk of excluding qualified profiles and prejudicing the selection.

The advantages of an ATS for candidates

video cv vantaggi ats candidati

Staying in the range of benefits, here are the advantages for candidates:

  • the possibility of finding vacancies more quickly thanks to multiposting (and not only on LinkedIn or the company’s career page, for example);
  • quicker applications thanks to the auto-completion of a form;
  • registration from mobile;
  • possibility to send a video CV;
  • inclusion of your CV in the company database;
  • progress in the hiring pipeline;
  • automatic feedback on CV receipt and interview;
  • frequent communication between recruiters and candidates;
  • possibility to interview online (i.e. wherever the candidate is);
  • more possibilities for passive candidates who may be able to interview online without taking time off work;
  • possibility for those living abroad to interview remotely.

All this implies that candidates should pay more attention to their merits, to the things they have done rather than to who they are.

Moreover, recruiters often give a lot of space to companies that you have worked with before – especially if they are large – but it is not certain that the person in question has had much experience. However, thanks to an ATS that does an initial screening, even someone who has worked in a small company of five people, but has played an important role, can find their place.

In other words: an ATS software gives advantages to recruiters, but above all to those who aspire to find the ideal job.