With technology constantly evolving and growing competition in the workforce, the recruitment world is changing on a fundamental level.
To keep up with the current trends and business needs, investing in an Applicant Tracking System and Customer Relationship Management software has become crucial for many businesses. Read more to see why ATS and CRM software is crucial for your business.
Many organisations, big or small, are beginning to incorporate Applicant Tracking Systems and Customer Relationship Management software into their recruitment processes. Undoubtedly, Applicant Tracking Systems and Customer Relationship Management software have turned into indispensable tools for modern-day recruiters.
With advancements in technology and ever-growing competition in the workforce, investing in an ATS and CRM has become crucial for recruitment agencies across the world. Not to mention, traditional recruiting and sourcing methods are no longer yielding the top talent required for businesses. As a result, businesses incorporate feature-rich recruiting software to attract and retain that top talent, including ATS and CRM software.
Many recruiters and hiring professionals would say if asked that using recruitment software has positively impacted their hiring process.
Investing in the right tech stack can save you time and money, and put you leaps and bounds ahead of competitors. In the world of technology, ATS and CRM software have become the backbone of recruiting—providing an extra helping hand for recruitment tasks that can be highly time-consuming without them. Fortunately, many applicant tracking software solutions come with a built-in CRM tool.
To begin with, though, it’s important to understand the difference between an Applicant Tracking System and Customer Relationship Management software.
What is an ATS & CRM Software?
Both an ATS and CRM software are essential tools when it comes to recruiting. These tools function as systems that help streamline the recruitment process and significantly reduce the workload of recruiters. As a business, if you’re considering investing in an Applicant Tracking System, Customer Relationship Management software, or both, it’s important to ensure that you understand the difference between the two tools and if you truly require both for your business.
Applicant Tracking System: An Applicant Tracking System is a repository for applicants which helps manage the application process in one single place. An ATS provides an all-in-one solution for managing job applications, CVs, candidate data, emails, and job postings.
Applicant tracking systems are designed to automate manual administrative tasks and accelerate the recruitment process, ultimately preventing the wastage of valuable time. With the automation of repetitive recruitment tasks and a more streamlined process, recruiters are left with ample time for formulating strategic hiring plans to produce innovative business outcomes and an improved overall recruitment process.
An online survey conducted by Recruit CRM revealed that more than 98% of recruitment agencies with 10 recruiters or more used an Applicant Tracking System.
Customer Relationship Management software: To put it simply, a CRM—in the recruitment space—functions as an engine that drives your sourcing team, lets you create talent pools, and helps you build and nurture relationships with passive talent and previous candidates.
Therefore, investing in CRM software is crucial for recruiters as it helps build and maintain a well functioning candidate database without having to rely on countless excel sheets and files.
In essence, an Applicant Tracking System is a workflow and compliance tool that manages applicant data and eliminates unnecessary administrative tasks, leading to a more streamlined hiring process.
On the other hand, Customer Relationship Management software is an ecosystem of all passive and active candidates and previous candidates who applied for a position. Ultimately, an ATS and CRM software can function cohesively as a complete talent intelligence hub.
Some significant features you can find in Applicant Tracking Systems include:
CV parsing
Customer Relationship Management (a built-in CRM)
Integrations with other apps, including email
Advanced search
Reports & analytics
Candidate sourcing
If you’re considering investing in an Applicant Tracking System, something to take note of is the different types of ATS solutions available, and which type best fulfils your business requirements:
On-Premises: Suitable for existing IT hardware infrastructure that can be leveraged without extra capital investment. This type of solution is best for stationery offices.
SaaS ATS: Areaccessible anywhere, meaning that they are perfect for remote businesses. There are no fixed server costs, and implementation and updates are the responsibility of the applicant tracking system vendor.
Cloud-Based ATS: Cloud-based solutions are billed as SaaS. It can save costs associated with on-site IT support, rental fees for equipment, and even money to maintain a larger space and utilities for storing equipment.
Now that the basics are cleared, here are five reasons why ATS and CRM software are crucial for your business!
1. Enhances Candidate Experience
It’s pretty apparent that ATS and CRM software are lifesavers for employers, but not only do they benefit the employer, they also leave a positive impact on clients and candidates as well!
When employers work with much more efficiency and productivity, without a doubt, it leaves a positive impact on candidates—improving the overall candidate experience. An ATS integrated with a CRM is an excellent way for recruiters to engage and track candidates at different steps throughout the hiring process.
In addition, communication between employers and clients significantly improves through a well-functioning ATS and CRM combination. These tools help create and automate messages which helps to establish clear communication and keep clients in the loop.
Finally, an ATS and CRM software in combination provides a single space for all your communication and social needs, enhancing the candidate experience. Communication is critical for a positive candidate experience, and an ATS and CRM software together provide precisely that!
2. Automates Tasks
Automation is truly a gift when it comes to the advancements in technology that have taken place in recent years. With the help of automation and AI technology, the tasks that used to take hours are now completed within seconds!
With the help of an ATS and CRM software, employers no longer have to scan through piles of applications and CVs. Automation completes tasks by seamlessly scanning through candidate data—presenting employers with the most relevant.
Intelligent ATS and CRM software enable the automation of certain tasks like; sending customised updates and bulk emails, which take up a considerable chunk of your time without the help of automation.
ATS and CRM software come with many intuitive features which automate numerous tasks and make collaborative hiring much more effective.
Suppose managing time is what keeps you behind. In that case, this software automatically manages most of the manual and time-consuming work—leaving you with more time to focus on other elements of recruitment and growing your business.
3. Improves Cost-Per-Hire & Candidate Quality
Employers who utilise an Applicant Tracking System have an improved cost-per-hire rate and higher candidate quality than those who do not use an ATS.
Applicant Tracking Systems reduce the manual efforts of the employer by automating a majority of tasks.
Consequently, the automation of tasks increases productivity and reduces time spent on administrative tasks, lowering cost-per-hire and increasing efficiency. In addition, enhanced communication through an ATS and CRM software allows recruiters to build a rapport with candidates, which can play a significant role in the acceptance for a position by those candidates.
When it comes to recruitment, communication is key! If a candidate experiences positive communication with an employer, the chances of them wanting to work with you increases. Therefore, investing in an ATS and CRM software is an excellent way to establish positive relationships which directly improves candidate quality.
4. Accelerates the Recruiting Process
As previously mentioned, feature-rich recruitment software significantly increases efficiency and productivity by integrating intelligent features in the completion of day to day tasks. The most prominent advantage of investing in ATS and CRM software is the amount of time it cuts down for performing tasks.
With automation and the management of countless tasks through ATS and CRM software, the recruiting process becomes much more streamlined and easier to manage. With the help of automation, most of the tedious and manual administrative tasks are completed effortlessly, saving you hours of time!
This gives recruiters time to focus on more important tasks and ideas that directly benefit business outcomes for the future.
ATS and CRM software is designed to optimise and manage the entire recruiting process for businesses by offering an all-in-one solution for communication—ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks. As a result, the process becomes immaculate for businesses!
5. Helps Maintain a Talent Pipeline
Building and maintaining a robust candidate database is essential for any employer or recruiter. When you have an updated, well-maintained pool of candidate data, sourcing and hiring become a breeze!
In addition, a talent pipeline stocked with candidates significantly reduces the time spent on hiring and sourcing for new hires. If building a relevant candidate database is on your checklist, CRM software is a must-have.
An intuitive Applicant Tracking System, Customer Relationship Management software, or ideally both in combination, will let you source candidates from your website and social media directly into your database. An ATS also includes powerful search and filtering features that help find the ideal candidate for any position.
Importance of CRM Integration With an ATS
As a business, it’s apparent that streamlining the recruitment process and delivering a stellar candidate experience is of great importance in order to drive top-quality hiring results.
In order to achieve these goals, an ATS solution is highly beneficial for effectively tracking prospective job candidates. But for the improvement of candidate engagement, recruiters require an advanced CRM system for increasing and managing candidate engagement across different stages of the recruitment process.
To make all this easier, recruiters and hiring staff should opt for an Applicant Tracking System that provides seamless integration with a Customer Relationship Management tool.
A CRM integration within an Applicant Tracking System is an excellent way to make informed decisions with ease. One of the most notable advantages of an ATS and CRM integration is that it allows recruiters to foster long-lasting relationships with exceptionally talented and top-quality candidates for future openings.
By integrating a CRM tool with your Applicant Tracking System, you’re able to access a single tool that merges your recruiting processes with everything you need to know about candidate information, recruitment activity, and job opportunities, all within a single solution under a well-organised, efficient, and time-saving system.
With technology and the job market rapidly changing, investing in the right recruiting technology is essential for time management and eliminating hiring costs. This is why it’s crucial to consider Applicant Tracking Systems and candidate relationship management tools for ensuring the long-term success of modern recruiting teams.
Consequently, make sure that you invest in sophisticated all-in-one recruitment software that features both an ATS and CRM to fulfil the unique hiring requirements of your business with the utmost efficiency.
Key Takeaways
As the job market evolves and grows, Applicant Tracking Systems and Customer Relationship Management software are the key to helping recruiters and employers reach a broader scope of qualified candidates and maintain their productivity.
From gathering and parsing CVs to scheduling interviews and sending emails, a feature-rich ATS and CRM software combination can streamline the hiring process end to end. With more and more businesses opting for recruiting software, their indispensability in the hiring process is unequivocal.
An intelligent ATS and CRM setup will help raise hiring standards, cut costs, save time, and enable automation in candidate sourcing and tracking. As a result, employers will be left with more time to focus on other crucial tasks, leading to a reduction in time-to-hire.
Many businesses invest in high-quality Applicant Tracking Systems, but they often don’t realise the true potential of CRM systems. CRM software goes beyond what an Applicant Tracking System can do.
A CRM tool will detect if a candidate is actively seeking and if other jobs could interest them with its thorough algorithms. That is the charm of investing in this system. It enables employers to dig deeper and discover which skills a candidate can develop by analysing their patterns. On the other hand, it can read a client’s hiring scheme to get insight into what kind of employee they are seeking.
In essence, if you’re interested in a more automated workflow and in streamlining the recruitment process, investing in an intelligent Applicant Tracking System and Customer Relationship Management Software will take your business to a whole new level!
With the growing competition in the market and the availability of talent, these collaborative tools are essential for any employer.
Originally published Mar 09, 2022, updated Jan 16, 2023
