Article updated in February 2024
Are you eager to transform your recruitment process and take it to the next level? Implementing an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can be a game-changer for your organisation's hiring efforts. In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk you through the steps needed to successfully implement an ATS.
According to the McLean 2024 HR Trends Report, recruitment remains the top organisational HR priority. The benefits of a well-chosen and implemented ATS can be immense. A survey from Capterra reported that 94% of recruiters and hiring professionals say their ATS or recruitment software has positively impacted their hiring process. However, to ensure success, it's crucial to avoid common mistakes made due to a lack of understanding, as highlighted by Information Age, where 19% of IT projects fail completely.
Define your metrics for success: Start with understanding why you're implementing an ATS. Common recruitment challenges that an ATS can address include:
The success of your ATS implementation relies on assembling the right project team. Involve HR professionals, IT experts, and relevant stakeholders early in the project. categorise stakeholders based on their roles, responsibilities, and involvement levels, using the RACI model (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed).
Before implementing an ATS, evaluate your existing hiring process. Identify what's working well and what issues need attention. Ensure that your processes are efficient and effective. An ATS is an enabler, not a solution to broken processes. Mapping out your hiring process and producing a visual flow can help highlight areas that require improvement.
Understand that implementing an ATS brings change. Prepare for change management by clearly communicating the benefits of the new system to your team. Engage with your ATS vendor and other partners early on. Ensure that your ATS provider has a dedicated implementation success manager/consultant to work actively with you.
Once you are clear on the outcomes and improvements you expect to realise from the implementation of your ATS, you should take time to consider what the metrics for success will be and how you will measure these. Most commonly, these will fall into two categories - quantitative and qualitative measures.
Quantitative data is very much like a measuring stick. If it can be counted, measured, and given a numerical value, it is quantitative.
Examples of quantitative data:
Examples of qualitative data:
Consider doing an audit of your recruitment process before you start. By doing this, you will not only sense-check your thoughts on what challenges you face but also establish benchmarks for your continuous improvement journey.
If you are wondering how to undertake a recruitment audit in your organisation, I can recommend a quick but effective solution from our Talent Intelligence Unit.
Once you've decided on the key success measurements and KPIs for your project, take a measurement on each before you start the implementation. This will provide you with a clear benchmark to start from and with a successful implementation, a highly impactful and compelling report to share with the organisation on the success and impact of the project.
Your ATS provider should be open and very willing to work actively with you on this, as these measurements can form the basis of a valuable case study for you both to build and benefit from!
If you're working in Talent Acquisition and Recruitment, it may seem that all the responsibility for choosing and implementing an applicant tracking system solely falls to you, but that should never be the case. A successful implementation project will always be one that effectively utilises relevant skills and expertise across the business.
You will no doubt have access to a whole team of talent and skills in IS/Technology, HR, and Marketing that you can draw on, so involve them early in the project. Their expertise will be invaluable, and they'll appreciate being consulted and involved. If you fail to do this, they could even prove to be blockers just when you least expect it and hamper the progress or even success of the project.
In the 20 years' experience I have, I've seen hundreds of ATS implementations, and this must be one of the vital contributing factors to the success or failure of implementation projects.
It's useful to categorise all stakeholders across the organisation and a project team of colleagues that will support you. This is sometimes called the RACI model. Those people who are:
Always bear in mind that an ATS, like any technology, is an enabler and not a solution in itself.
Before even considering a tech solution, look first at your end-to-end hiring process as it is today; what elements are working well and what are the key issues and why? It’s critical that you analyse and fix the basics in your process first, or at least produce a ‘to be’ process which will help inform you which platform best suits your needs, not just today but in the future.
If elements of your hiring process are inefficient, or worse still, broken, implementing an ATS will only accentuate these issues, not fix them.
It’s a good idea to map out your process and produce a visual process flow. This can be shared with stakeholders for their input and will often highlight areas that can be refined and improved way ahead of the first scoping meeting with your ATS.
If produced early enough, this can also be shared with prospective vendors for them to better understand your processes and evidence how their solution will support them.
At Jobtrain, we map out all our clients’ processes in just this way!
When selecting the project team, do ensure that each has a clear understanding and appropriate knowledge of the areas they are responsible for. Ideally, the team should have been involved in the building out of the requirements and ATS selection process so that they understand all aspects of the project and have at least been consulted and informed during the ATS selection.
I have seen external and internal 'analysts' and consultants appointed with no knowledge or understanding of the business, its practical hiring processes, needs, and its nuances. These scenarios invariably cause delays, confusion, and can severely impact on the successful outcome of implementations.
Don't miss another vital stakeholder – your vendor! They are a vital partner and should be keen and willing to take their share of the responsibility for delivering your ATS, plus the commercial and strategic objectives for the implementation and beyond.
Ensure you have a dedicated implementation success manager/consultant from your vendor. We will come onto what support and guidance you should expect from your vendor later in this guide.
If you have other partners and suppliers such as Employer Brand Agencies, Testing Providers, other technology solutions, and an HR Software vendor that will require collaboration or integration they should all form part of the project group. You should engage with them and your chosen ATS at an early stage (ideally during the demo and selection process) to discuss and agree the scope and requirements for any technical integration work.
Of course, the most important thing when it comes to implementing an applicant tracking system is clear, transparent communication! The implementation team at Jobtrain pride themselves on their speed, efficiency, and clarity through the whole process. So if you’re looking at applicant tracking systems today, drop us a message.