If you’re managing the recruitment for different areas within an organisation, you may have experienced the administrative difficulties of a disconnected recruitment process.

What’s the benefit of centralising recruitment? Well, let’s take the example of a global business, with localised recruitment teams in each country. You could be paying for a number of separate system licences, instead of investing in one global ATS. Centralising your recruitment activity would enable you to run reports across the entirety of your recruitment activity, ensuring you understand the full scope of your spend. And what about that global talent pool at your fingertips? What an asset!

So how can an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) help you implement a joined-up process?

1. It can facilitate centralised and local viewpoints

Centralising your recruitment processes shouldn’t mean losing autonomy. In a recent case study with The Harris Federation, a group of 38 Academies in and around London, the Head of Recruitment and Talent Management talked us through the Federation’s transformation to a centralised recruitment function:

‘With a growing number of Academies, each offering a variety of opportunities for talented people, it was essential to bring everything together into one central recruitment process. What was equally important, however, was that each Academy could retain autonomy over tasks such as candidate screening and job posting. We needed a recruitment system robust enough to deal with the volume of applications our Academies receive but with a flexibility that would retain local autonomy.’
– Harry Bond, Head of Recruitment and Talent Management

An agile system should enable you to set different permissions for various users. As an example, the HR administrator of a local office could view their country-specific recruitment activity, whilst members of the central recruitment team could review the full breadth of recruitment activities.

This wide overview reduces the duplication of tasks, and aids a transparent and efficient process. In addition to saving time and resources, it can facilitate a more personable process, as all candidates can be communicated with quickly, simply and with on-brand messaging.

2.  It keeps all your data in one place

‘Pushing our social media presence is of key importance to me, and integration with Twitter and Facebook has proved invaluable, especially when we’re trying to reach out to attract the next generation to the profession’
– Harry Bond

Typically, you’ll be using multiple platforms in order to engage with candidates and promote vacancies. These channels may differ depending on the role in question, from social platforms to a variety of job boards, but an ATS should enable you to link all your digital and even print resources for a joined up view of your recruitment marketing.

You’ll be able to track the exact source of all your applications so you can see which have been the most effective in delivering candidates. You’ll also be able to map your recruitment spend, to ensure you’re using the most cost-effective platforms and are adhering to budgets.

With an ATS, you have a wealth of data and a multitude of reporting tools right at your fingertips, so use these to carefully manage and monitor your recruitment across the whole organisation.

3.  An ATS can connect to your other tools and processes

Your ATS should integrate with a range of other solution providers and technologies for a totally connected experience. From screening tools such as video interviewing and psychometric testing to your on-boarding platform, a seamless integration will ensure your data is securely and efficiently shared across all platforms.

It’s equally important that your Applicant Tracking System can integrate with your HR system. Once candidates have experienced a professional and sleek application process, it’s vital that similar levels of efficiency are offered upon them joining the company. It also, naturally, relieves the administrative burden on the HR team, which is always a plus point!

An ATS cannot guarantee you a fool proof, centralised recruitment process; it also requires a cultural shift within an organisation, and a re-education of recruitment and HR teams to buy in to new processes, roles and technologies. But what an Applicant Tracking System can do is to help you connect the disparate dots of a recruitment process. From interview schedules to candidate communications, an ATS is the secure, central and online system within which all these dots connect.

Discover more:

Read the whole Harris Federation case study…

Find out more about our ATS…

Or talk to us to find out more