The Secret to Low-Stress Recruiting Events: Update Your ATS

Recently, there has been talk of applicant tracking systems (ATSs) becoming obsolete. These conversations often sound incredibly dreary, and many HR managers and recruiters are left wondering what on earth will be next.

However, the truth is that ATSs won’t disappear. Instead, they and other HR technologies will surely stick around — but only after being transformed into more useful, relevant forms for modern recruiting purposes.

Slight variations to existing tech can help recruiters leverage what they already have in their arsenals to new ends. For example, let’s look at some of the ways in which even small updates to recruiting technologies can turn recruiting events  from trying experiences to almost completely stress-free affairs.

Artificial Intelligence in High-Volume Recruiting

Recruiters have reason to be stressed. Seventy-six percent of hiring decision makers struggle to find quality candidates, and the average time to fill is a lengthy 36 days. Recruiting in itself is high pressure, and while high-volume events can be great sources of talent, they also bring with them additional stressors in the form of logistics, managing large numbers of candidates, and other factors.

But what if you had the ability to know ahead of time which candidates were most likely to accept an offer and stay with the business long enough to really make an impact? This would be a huge help at recruiting events, given the large number of candidates who will come to your booth. If you could easily separate top prospects from the rest, you’d spend less time worrying about unqualified candidates and more time engaging your top prospects.

There is a technology that can give recruiters this ability. It is called “intelligent selection,” and it uses machine learning to measure candidates’ skills, cultural fit, probability of offer acceptance, and probable retention.

You have plenty to worry about before, during, and after any recruiting event, from engaging with candidates on social media and via text to sorting and segmenting them once they’ve applied. Wouldn’t it be easier if you had less to worry about?

Update Your ATS

Your ATS isn’t going anywhere. Yours may seem out of date, but with a few improvements you can get it back up to speed again.

For example, let’s talk about intelligent selection again. When such an algorithm is added to your ATS,  you can move beyond your usual recruiting efforts and struggles to ensure maximum conversion of job seekers to applicants. For example, you can spend less time trying to uncover whether or not candidates have certain key traits that would qualify them as good matches. The algorithm does this for you, so your time can be better spent connecting with your candidates through focused nurturing and sharing more relevant content with candidates during every interaction.

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Your experience alone won’t get you ahead of your competition in today’s fierce talent market. You need the right tools in your arsenal — especially as technology improves so rapidly.

Your ATS should help you gather candidate information easily and make the best hires possible. If your ATS is not doing this yet, it’s time to get an update. Bring automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to your ATS today for a more robust talent management strategy — and less stressful high-volume recruiting events.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Oleeo blog.

Jeanette Maister is managing director of the Americas for Oleeo.