Why buy a new ATS?
By now every organization should have an ATS in order to drive down recruitment costs and increase hiring efficiencies says Mark Kieve, Chief Executive at The Internet Corporation (Amris eRecruitment). In addition, candidates now expect to have a positive experience during the application process. Kieve believes buying a new ATS is always preferred to creating your own. “Building your own system will not be viable, it will take a lot of time and ongoing costly IT resource and will most likely be out of date by the time it actually goes live.” An ATS from an experienced provider with a good reputation in the marketplace will help you stay up to date with the latest trends, integrating mobile friendly practices and providing links to social media. Kieve advises that your new ATS should be able to integrate with other recruiting tools and platforms; for example, linking your ATS to an HR system may significantly improve your onboarding process. On top of this, integrating with video interviewing, assessment tools, background checking and referencing will all help you on your journey towards creating an efficient recruitment process.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the number of 3rd party integrations with our Amris ATS,” comments Mark Kieve, “For example, the combination of Amris and Zao’s employee social referral platform provides an even stronger tool for producing high quality candidates and increased referral hires.” There are significant financial benefits of course, for example Ricoh takes on around 750 people each year and had been making 80% of its appointments through recruitment agencies. With an agency fee of approximately 3.5k per placement, the recruitment bill was adding up to over two and a half million pounds a year. Twelve months after going ahead with Amris, 70% of placements were direct and the agency bill dropped to something in the region of £600,000 per year.
Why buy a new ATS?
Are you currently working with a ‘spread sheet’ system or do you already have a good functioning ATS, but are you just missing some (key) features, such as CV parsing, effective candidate search or mobile support? Asks Philip van Leeuwen, Partner manager at Textkernel- Semantic Recruitment Technology. In the latter case, perhaps you don’t need to dismiss your ATS after all. He suggests it might be worthwhile to investigate if there are third-party options out there that you can add to your system to meet your needs. Textkernel specialises in multilingual CV parsing and semantic search and matching software to provide ATS-vendors and their customers with powerful candidate capture and semantic search tools. “Our parsing and search technology allows you to easily build a valuable talent pool, and find candidates based on meaning rather than keywords.” Textkernel’s matching technology is able to automatically build a search query from your job ad and explore your database to see if it already contains suitable candidates. This could save valuable time and advertising costs. Van Leeuwen comments: “Many vendors have already integrated our software into their system. Our aim is to connect with many more systems to empower end-users with the most efficient recruitment technology. By being able to add third-party tools to your ATS, you can choose best-of-breed solutions that fit your recruiting process. If this is not possible at your current supplier, it’s time to look for a vendor that does offer the features you need and the flexibility to add new functionalities in the future.”
Future needs
In this changing world of recruiting, you’ll need to be flexible and able to adapt. Most job seekers nowadays use mobile as part of their job seeking and application process. Van Leeuwen points out that five years ago that was unthought of. Specialised parties like Textkernel are able to quickly respond to these changes and offer add-on tools that can be embedded in existing systems and processes. Textkernel developed the “apply with” widget, to enable one-click application (also on mobile) with a profile of choice, while you still receive all information structured in your ATS. Its intelligent semantic matching technology can match directly from a job ad or profile to both internal and external profiles and jobs, being able to make smart recommendations. Replace mobile limitations by mobile possibilities, recommends Van Leeuwen. “Is your new ATS able to quickly respond to changes? Don’t choose the ATS that meets your current needs; go for the one that can still help you in the future.”
Checklist- what questions should you ask when buying an ATS?
Provided by Roy Snart, Managing Director, First Choice Software.
Always give your supplier an opportunity to show you what you could be buying. It sounds obvious doesn’t it? If you insist on only allowing a short time for a demo it’s the equivalent of going into a car dealer and simply confirming that your dream car has four wheels and a steering wheel! Never be afraid to ask for a longer demo. If a potential supplier runs out of exciting stuff to show you after an hour or so – walk away.
Where will you be in five years’ time?
Considering the benefits it provides, the actual cost of purchasing and using an ATS/recruitment software is very low. It does however start to become expensive if you have to change your system every two or three years because you make the wrong decisions. This can mean discussing their own business strategy, looking at their accounts or even asking how committed they are to HR and recruitment. If any of these do not meet your expectations, regardless of how good the software is, they are unlikely to provide a long term partnership.
Can you show me how to do this?
Run through examples of your key processes and defined scenarios, in real time, to ensure that they are possible – don’t assume that just because the last supplier showed you that their software could perform a piece of magic that the one you are now looking at can. If you are unable to see the workflow during a demo but are told that it can be done, ensure that you have the functionality and any development costs confirmed in writing before you sign a contract!
What is your partner programme?
It is highly likely that in five, possibly even two years, your business will be reliant on 3rd party software provided by companies that don’t yet exist. Ask if there are there are any restrictions on who they will integrate with or if there are any pre-existing relationships that would limit future partnerships.
If a software provider is selling you a solution on the basis that it will be future proofed, ensure that you are provided examples of how the software has moved with the industry before.
What is the ratio between your sales team and support functions?
A sales-led business may be better positioned to close the deal but as soon as you have signed an agreement you’ll be hoping that they are service-led. Ask for their average client lifecycle and follow this up by asking how many salespeople they employ compared to how many employees they have in support functions such as training, client services and development.
How many deals do you walk away from?
Recruitment software providers are very similar to niche recruitment businesses in that they are built on expertise, they have a specialism and set their pricing to allow them to maintain the levels of excellence you’d expect.
If, during negotiations, a potential supplier is willing to drop their price dramatically without hesitation you have to ask yourself if you were being quoted too much in the first place or what compromises will have to be made in the future to cover the shortfall. If they are prepared to offer dramatic discounts and you are seduced by that, at least make sure that you get confirmation that future licenses will be at the same price.
What is your personal motivation?
When you speak to individuals, ask for their own story and ask them to explain why they sell recruitment software. A final decision can be made based on many different factors however never forget that it takes people to develop, maintain and support recruitment software.
If you are required to sign a long contract, ask for the reasons why
Anything longer than a year is being put in place because the software provider is afraid you’ll leave. You should look for the shortest contract with the shortest roll over. A year initially going to a monthly rolling should be your target and anyone with confidence in their product should be happy with that.