"Nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people," General Electric COO Lawrence Bossidy once said. "At the end of the day, you bet on people, not on strategies."
The problem is that hiring and developing people can be costly, especially when it comes to the recruiting process. In fact, SHRM reports that the average cost-per-hire is $4,425, and the average time it takes to fill a given position is 36 days — and this isn't even considering positions that are more specialized and can take even longer (costing more money).
This means if you need 50 more people in one year, you can expect to spend $221,250 extra on hiring expenses. Fortunately, using software like Applicant Tracking Systems helps minimize costs associated with hiring, so you can keep growing without the added stress.
Here are some of the advantages you can enjoy when you use an Applicant Tracking System.
Automates Resume Sorting
Sorting through hundreds or thousands of resumes by hand takes up a lot of time that employees don't typically have. With so many important tasks that need to be handled, small responsibilities can lead to time-consuming (and therefore, more expensive) constraints. However, ATS takes the added load off workers and speeds up the process by automating resume checks.
This means more free time for your workers to give to tasks that are more essential to their jobs and expertise. Automation is a multi-billion-dollar market thanks to its big boost in productivity and efficiency.
Forbes reports that more than half (53%) of employees state that they can save up to 2 work hours a day (which can add up to about 240 hours per year) through automation.
Speed Up Recruitment Cycle
Another money-saver worth mentioning is the ATS advantage of speeding up the recruitment cycle. Having all applicant information centralized and organized means faster access to candidates.
The quicker you can get to your applicants, the quicker you can get them into your open positions and back to business. Not to mention this advantage can also increase the likelihood of hiring top talent and reducing your losses.
With talent shortages nearly doubling in the last ten years, and 54% of companies globally reporting talent shortages, the key to getting job positions filled is in the speed of your responses (ideally before the competition swoops in for the steal).
Streamline Interview Scheduling
After sorting through remaining resumes, ATS makes it easy to schedule interviews and set reminders.
This can be useful since Zety reports that each open position can have anywhere from 4 to 6 interviewees on average, with the average time from interview to job offer somewhere around 20-40 days, depending on the industry and location.
Having reliable software to track all your interviews and send reminders can make all the difference when you're juggling several tasks at once.
Improves Quality of Candidate
An Applicant Tracking System can also weed out all the unqualified applicants that apply, allowing you to give more attention to the ones who are. Since only candidates who pass the pre-screening questions will appear, the overall quality of the candidate will rise.
This means less time wasted on the wrong candidates and more time available getting to know the right ones — learning more about their skill and personality to ensure it matches well with your company culture.
It can sometimes be challenging to genuinely get to know your candidates and their potential in your company before hiring, but an ATS can change that.
With all the time saved using an ATS software, you'll be able to give more focus to the quality of your candidates.
Post to Multiple Job Boards Simultaneously
With an ATS, you can also post open positions to multiple job boards with a single click. The time you can save in just posting on several job boards at once can save you a significant amount of money, not to mention the time saved by creating and posting a quick offer.
Meaning in as little as five minutes, you can both create a job offering and post them to job boards. This kind of efficiency can go a long way in reducing the person-hours put into getting the word out there. It can also speed up the process of reeling in potential hires.
The key is to get straight to the benefits, qualifications, and work details without repeating yourself over and over for each new platform. Even if the cost wasn't a factor, this can get messy, disorganized, and possibly lead to lost applicants that were a better fit.
Saving Time = Saving Money
By lowering the time-to-hire for your company and increasing the average quality of hire, you minimize the costs associated with recruiting. When you minimize the costs associated with recruiting, you allow your business to continue growing and expanding into everything you've always wanted it to be. Hiring top talent isn't ever going to be inexpensive, but it doesn't have to break the bank — Applicant Tracking Systems are the answer.
Tedious manual work can become problematic. Kick this 'old way' of recruiting to the curb and cut hiring costs with a more modern, improved approach to recruiting top talent.
