Staffing firms today must always be one step ahead of their competitors and anticipate the needs of both clients and candidates.Who What Where One obvious way to make sure you are keeping current with the demands of today’s tech-intensive staffing industry is to ensure that your staffing firm’s website is responsive to mobile devices. Allowing individuals to apply directly from their mobile devices increases the overall candidate experience and encourages users to return to your site in the future. Another way to streamline the placement process and ensure a positive user experience is full integration of your website with your applicant tracking system (ATS).

Why Integrate?
A fully integrated website and applicant tracking system allows for a prompt response by your recruiting team and ensures your clients that their available positions are going to be filled in a timely manner. ATS providers such as erecruit, Bullhorn, Job Diva, Bond, Zoniac and Maxhire allow you to easily post jobs to your website. Interested candidates are able to access your career portal and the resume submission or online application is transmitted seamlessly to your ATS. Once your website is integrated with your ATS, any information input by a candidate is automatically propagated to your recruiting team and provides your recruiters with valuable information for their first interaction right off the bat. Your team is able to quickly determine the abilities of new candidates and whether the individual is the right fit for the position since all of the information is directly channeled to them from the ATS.

Choose Wisely
When selecting an Applicant Tracking System, an important factor to consider is how easy it is for the transmission of the data from the website to the ATS. If you are not yet using an applicant tracking system, do your homework before selecting your provider. Most of the top vendors have the ability to fully integrate your website with your ATS; however, there are differences in the levels of customer support provided, their functionality, and the levels to which you are able to integrate and download information. If your staffing firm is already affiliated with an ATS, contact their customer support and IT representatives to determine whether it is possible to integrate their particular software with your website.

Assess Your Candidate Experience
Enlist the help of a few friends to assess the overall candidate experience on your current site. Ask them to search your site for possible job opportunities and apply for an open position. Make note of any problems encountered or delays in response time. Then try it using a tablet and phone. Ensure that your job descriptions are clearly written and that your site is easy to navigate so candidates are drawn to the positions and encouraged to apply for available jobs. Check to make sure your job posts are SEO-optimized so that search engines bring interested candidates to your job board. Work closely with your provider to ensure that your listings reach the largest talent pool.

Linking to Your ATS
Although the process seems involved, (many even still think it is impossible), integrating your website with your ATS is definitely possible as long as you are willing to put in the time. The top ATS providers are able to collaborate with website designers to ensure a smooth delivery of information from the website into the ATS. Be sure to work closely with the ATS provider so you know exactly what your choices are regarding applicant questions, file uploads and job status codes.. All data provided by users is then categorized and made available to your recruiting team for immediate follow-up.

Social Media Recruiting
Reduce your team’s workload and expand your applicant outreach with automated posts to multiple social networking sites. Each time a new job opening is announced, an automated post is generated by your ATS to sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Saving time and resources in this manner frees up your team and allows them to focus their efforts on interviewing qualified candidates and filling available positions with your clients. Today’s candidates rely on social media sites to locate information on open positions, so capture their attention quickly and avoid having to log into each social media outlet to post available job information. Providing job seekers with an easy-to-access “Apply Now” link is attractive to those who do not want to complete a lengthy application process.

Key Takeaways for Integrating Your Website with Your ATS:S.J.Hemley Marketing

  1. Carefully consider all of the benefits of integrating your website with your ATS
  2. Do your homework before selecting an ATS provider
  3. Check out your own site and determine how easy it is to apply online
  4. Work with your vendor to link your website with your ATS
  5. Take advantage of automated job postings generated by your ATS

About S.J.Hemley Marketing
S.J.Hemley Marketing is a marketing and sales consulting firm focused on driving tangible results for professional services firms. Brand matters, but not without ROI. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience within staffing and recruiting, we have helped to drive successful branding, sales training, lead generation activities as well as defining marketing strategy for top organizations.