How an ATS Improves the Applicant Journey
The article explains how ApplicantStack's ATS enhances the applicant journey by providing branded recruitment marketing, automating stage-based communications, simplifying application submissions with resume parsing, and creating a seamless, personalized experience from job posting to candidate communication.
Welcome to our How To Hire Your Next Employee Series. Whether you are a new or veteran hiring manager, this series can help you improve your recruiting processes, find employees faster, and reduce costs.
The Applicant Journey
This post describes the hiring process from the applicant’s point of view, known as the applicant or candidate journey. The applicant journey is crucial, and the ApplicantStack candidate interface is designed to create an exceptional experience.
Branded Recruitment Marketing
With ApplicantStack, you can brand your recruitment marketing or use default layouts. Branded postings reflect the look and feel of your website, allowing candidates to engage with your employer brand from the first point of contact.
The Applicant Moves Through Stages Along The Applicant Journey
A stage refers to a specific step in the hiring process, such as the interview or manager review stage. As applicants move through the process, their stage changes in the system, which can trigger automated actions like sending personalized emails. For example, changing an applicant’s stage to "Do Not Pursue" can automatically send a rejection email.
The Applicant Sees Your Job Posting
The job posting is the first point of contact. Candidates can find your posting on job boards, social media, or your careers page. Branded postings help engage candidates immediately.
Application
When candidates click your posting, they are taken to your application (called a ‘Questionnaire’ in ApplicantStack). The system makes it easy to upload resumes via Dropbox or Google Drive and allows for flexible settings, such as enabling or disabling cover letter uploads.
ApplicantStack Eliminates Redundant Processes
ApplicantStack parses contact information from uploaded resumes, so applicants don’t have to reenter their details repeatedly, reducing frustration and saving time.
Personalized Candidate Emails
After submitting an application, candidates receive a personalized confirmation email. If they are a good fit, you can reach out immediately. This prompt communication shows professionalism and respect for the applicant’s time.
Candidate Screening
ApplicantStack allows for prescreening using questionnaires, including knockout questions that filter out unqualified candidates. If a candidate is eliminated, the system can send a personalized rejection email. If they pass, they may receive a more extensive questionnaire, depending on your process.
No-Hassle Reference Checks
Applicants can enter references during the application process. If they reach the ‘Reference Check’ stage, ApplicantStack automatically emails the references, saving time and eliminating bottlenecks.
Interview Scheduling Reinvented
If candidates pass screening, they are invited to schedule an interview. ApplicantStack integrates with Google and Office365, showing only available time slots for all interviewers. This self-scheduling feature keeps the process efficient and reduces drop-offs due to scheduling hassles.
Job Offer
Once background and reference checks are complete, you can send a job offer email with an electronic signature option, allowing applicants to accept immediately. ApplicantStack ensures candidates move through stages as quickly as your team processes them, with task reminders for hiring team members to maintain momentum.
ApplicantStack Reports
Reporting features help identify bottlenecks in your hiring process, allowing for continuous improvement of the applicant journey.
How to Hire Your Next Employee
This post is part of a series covering each step in the hiring process:
- Create a Job Description
- Define Your Hiring Criteria
- Post Job to Job Boards
- Candidate Screening
- Schedule Interviews
- How to Conduct Interviews
- Collecting Team Feedback
- Making Your Selection
- Extending The Job Offer
- The Onboarding Process–Steps and Checklist
Related
The Job Offer: The Offer Letter [with Templates]
The article outlines the final step in hiring—extending a job offer—emphasizing the importance of promptly making a clear, enthusiastic phone call to the selected candidate that includes all key details such as start date, job title, compensation, and any contingencies, followed by sending a formal offer letter via email and awaiting their acceptance.
Post Your Indeed Sponsored Jobs Directly from ApplicantStack
ApplicantStack’s new integration with Indeed Sponsored Jobs enables small businesses to post sponsored job ads directly from its platform, allowing targeted outreach to high-quality candidates, budget control via pay-per-click, detailed hiring analytics, and streamlined applicant tracking to accelerate and optimize the hiring process.
Using Paid Online Advertising for Recruitment Marketing
The article discusses how traditional recruitment methods are being supplemented by paid online advertising, emphasizing that with 62.3% of the global population active on social media and a $36 billion industry growing 15% since 2015, businesses can effectively reach both active and passive job seekers by leveraging targeted, thoughtful recruitment marketing informed by data-driven insights into their candidate pool.
ApplicantStack Product Overview
ApplicantStack is a comprehensive hiring and onboarding platform that streamlines recruiting by enabling job posting, candidate qualification, interview scheduling, and communication via email and text, while also offering customizable onboarding checklists, e-signatures, centralized paperwork, and workflow customization to help employers hire top talent faster, reduce employee turnover, and maintain efficient candidate engagement.
A Guide to ATS Recruiting - ApplicantStack
The article explains that an applicant tracking system (ATS) is a recruiting software that centralizes and streamlines the hiring process by tracking candidates from application to hiring, benefiting organizations of all sizes by efficiently identifying top talent, and highlights key ATS features such as analytics, reporting, and advanced candidate tracking tools that help recruiters manage and evaluate applicants effectively.
ApplicantStack | Recruiting and Onboarding for Small Business
ApplicantStack offers a simple, easy-to-use, no-installation-required applicant tracking and employee onboarding system designed for businesses of any size, featuring social media recruiting, job board posting, applicant scoring, flexible workflows, excellent customer service, and a free 15-day trial with no credit card or contracts required.