The success of any business is highly dependent on the quality of its employees. Hiring the right employees, training them and taking care of them should be a priority for any company that wants to grow and succeed in the market. As a result HR department plays a crucial role in making this successful. Unfortunately, these days HR departments have to deal with number of challenges, including job applicant screening, government regulations and so on.
The hiring process is one of the complex, yet most important, task that HR professionals have to perform. They have to identify the needs, advertise in right places to attract job applicants, screen them, perform interviews and finally make job offers. They have to also ensure that all the rules and laws are followed throughout this process. The time it takes to go through the entire hiring cycle has increased from 13 days in 2010 to 23 days in 2014 according to Glassdoor.
Technology can come to the rescue for HR professionals. A new breed of software solutions known as Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can help automate some these tasks and make it easy to track applicants through the entire process.
An ATS is a software solution that provides step by step instructions to HR professionals on the tasks they have to perform during the process of job posting to hiring. The software also tracks applicants, matches them against the needs, screens candidates, automatically responds and performs many such tasks helping ease the burden for hiring professionals.
The benefits of ATS software are obvious. It can reduce the time takes to complete the entire hiring process significantly. It can also find the right candidates that match closely to the needs of your business. It can also ensure you are following all the rules and laws to avoid getting in trouble afterwards. As a result, the HR professionals can focus on important task of finding the best candidates as opposed to follow the laborious and manual hiring process.
Here are some of the more popular ATS software solutions available in the market:
Taleo – Owned by the software giant Oracle Taleo is the most popular ATS software available in the market. It owns 54% of the ATS software market today. It is available in via cloud delivery model so that companies do not have to spend time and money in maintaining it themselves. Taleo software has functionality to help through the entire lifecycle of hiring process.
Jobvite – This is one of the newer solution that focuses on specific aspect of the hiring process – employee referrals and video interviews. It does not have all the end-to-end functionality available in Taleo, but it perform the tasks it is designed for very well.
iCims – iCims is one of the most user friendly software in the market, although it does not offer all the functionality provided by Taleo. iCims charges extra for many of the functionality no included in the standard offering, so it may not be suitable for smaller companies.
The software can come to the rescue of HR professionals grappling with the challenges of hiring right candidates. The three software solutions we have identified in this article are the most popular ones and should be considered by anyone looking to ease the burden of hiring process and finding the best candidates. Some of the universities, such as Concordia University in Texas are offering programs with a focus on Bachelor of Arts in Human Resource Management. These fully online program can lead to a successful career in human resources.
