How candidates can spoil your Applicant Tracking System

5 out of 6 candidates enter inaccurate data

If your organisation is about to implement an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) then you may be shocked to learn how inaccurate they can be in providing candidate source data.

A white paper published by AllRetailJobs.com, suggests that organisations that have Applicant Tracking Sytems (ATS) may be making strategic job board selection decisions on flawed data.

The paper claims that many ATS systems do not provide rigorous source tracking application method. Rather, they rely upon the candidate to indicate where they first saw the vacancy.

Drop-down boxes on web forms a problem

According to the paper, a number of ATS systems rely on simple ‘drop-down boxes’ to discover where candidates originally saw the vacancy.

Using this simple method, 83% of the 60,000 jobseekers incorrectly identified the source of the advert.

Don Firth, president and CEO of AllRetailJobs.com, explained the importance of investing in a more robust ATS solution. He described the drop-down box approach as a, “Mickey Mouse method of tracking valuable source-of-hire information.”

Instead of drop-downs, the better quality ATS systems use software ‘tags’ to automatically identify where a candidate is sourced from. Of course, these sorts of systems are more expensive initially. However, with truly accurate data, organisations can start to do useful things.

Keep the faith – ATS Systems will save you money

Depsite these negative findings, organisations that implement smarter ATS systems quickly begin to reduce the number of jobs boards and other sources they post vacancies to.

With accurate source information, organisations can build a greater awareness of how to use their recruitment budgets. They can quickly identify candidate patterns and gain a better understanding of which recruitment sources give them the most for their money.

If organisations go further still and integrate their ATS with other software systems – such as Payroll or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software – they can make sound strategic decisions on where to post vacancies .

Reliable source tracking is something all organisations, of whatever size, should be doing. Without accurate information employers are wasting money on ineffective arecruitment dvertising.

Read the whitepaper here (link opens a PDF).