ATS, otherwise known as an Applicant Tracking Systems. Love them, or loathe them, it is pretty safe to say that in today’s digital recruitment world they are an absolute necessity. However, something that still baffles me, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one, is the number of systems where the end-user is either unable to track the source of applications or where you do have a way to track, that method is a simple drop-down menu with an extensive list of options. Worse still are those where the source option is limited to a choice of ‘job board’ or ‘career fair’ two give two examples. Not all systems are bad and I'm certainly not getting on an orange box to berate any of them.
As someone who works across print and digital recruitment as a media owner, in an era where applicant tracking and ROI measurement is crucial, why have such a limited method of measurement? It should be relatively straightforward, shouldn't it? Our business (as well as the wider recruitment media industry) works with a diverse range of providers and in most - probably all – cases, the provider does offer a system where you can accurately measure the response from source. So why not build this feature in as standard?
We come across situations (thankfully a rarity with us, but it does happen on occasion) where we are told that our site or that of a competitor isn’t delivering and naturally our teams ask what reporting metrics are used, drop down options are a scarily regular answer.
I think I would be safe to say that all of us have been guilty of being lazy when presented with having to choose from a selected from list of 'where did you hear about us' options. What is made all the worse is when a potential candidate is offered 20, 30 or even 40 or more options to choose from - trust me, it happens!
Now, it is worth mentioning at this point that we as a business, have used drop down reporting ourselves. On the most recent occasion, the option at the top of the ‘where did you hear about us’ list was the most selected option. We added it purely as a control and our fears were confirmed when over 90% of respondents selected it even though we hadn’t actually used the selected option for marketing!
If measuring ROI is crucial, an accurate way to track applicant source is absolutely essential. Drop-down menu’s rarely deliver accurate reporting and I’m almost certain that there are job boards, magazine or recruitment agencies that are delivering significant numbers of hires for which they are not getting credit for, simply because of the lack of tracking.
So how do you go about changing this? The answer would at first glance be a simple one. Have this function built in and made mandatory when agreeing contracts with your ATS provider. However, it seems that a number of providers are charging exorbitant fees for this facility and is probably one of the major reasons for going down a drop-down route.
I'm not anti-ATS in the slightest. But, and there is always a but sadly, at some point there has to be a cultural shift towards standardising the tracking functions so that accurate reporting doesn’t come as an expensive, paid-for, add-on. I, and indeed many of my colleagues, both from a media background and who are in-house recruiters are eagerly awaiting that turning point. How long it will take or even if it will come, is something I think that will be discussed for many more years to come.
Oliver Andrew
Account Director
Together Communications
What are your thoughts on ATSs? Have you got any advice on how to approach them? Or any disaster stories where they haven’t worked as expected? Let us know in the comments…
