10 predictions about the evolution of applicant tracking systems

8/20/2019 10 Predictions About the Evolution of Applicant Tracking Systems

1/18

Matthew Kosinski

10Predictions

About the Evolutionof Applicant

Tracking Systems

www.recruiter.com

®

https://www.recruiter.com/https://www.recruiter.com/https://www.recruiter.com/https://www.recruiter.com/http://www.jobvite.com/?utm_source=recruiter.com&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=trendsebookhttp://www.jobvite.com/?utm_source=recruiter.com&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=trendsebook


2/18

Job seekers create anonymous profiles

Recruiter attracts top candidates who tell us what it would take for them

to change jobs and join a great company like yours. We engage our

candidates on a daily basis.

Recruiter sends curated jobs to candidates

We leverage our proprietary technology to find the right talent for your

company from our pool of passive job seekers. Our algorithm learns over

time to provide more targeted matching.

Recruiting professionals step in and engage

Our team of professional recruiters hand pick potential targets and workclosely with your hiring team to set up a job interview. Recruiter’s platform

is efficient and saves you time and money.

You’ll love working with this Recruiter.

“Recruiter makes finding greatemployees easy. It cuts through

the clutter and gets back to the

basics of finding and hiring

great people.”

- Robert RyffDevelopment Datalytics Technologies LLC

LEARN MORE NOW

www.recruiter.com

https://www.recruiter.com/https://www.recruiter.com/https://www.recruiter.com/https://www.recruiter.com/


3/18

What’s Inside

Intro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

I. ATSs Will Begin to Look–and Act–

More Like a Social Network . . . . . . . . . . 6

II. ATSs Will Help You Makethe Right Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

III. ATSs Will Turn Rejected Talent

into Future Hires Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . 9

IV. ATSs Will Prioritize Data,

Metrics, and Analytics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

V. ATSs Will Become More

User-Friendly – for Candidates . . . . . . .11

VI. ATSs Will Make It Easier

to Onboard Employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

VII. ATSs Will No Longer Need

“Power Users” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

VIII. ATSs Will Make

Resumes Obsolete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

IX. ATSs Will Go Visual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

X. ATSs Will Accommodate

for the Gig Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

https://www.recruiter.com/http://web.jobvite.com/Q315_Content_Recruiter.com_AllThumbs_.LP.html


4/18

MILLENNIALS. THEY’RE ALL THUMBS.43% of job seekers have used their mobile device to look for work. With Jobvite Mobile Career Sites 100% can now apply.

Find out more at bit.ly/all-thumbs

http://web.jobvite.com/Q315_Content_Recruiter.com_AllThumbs_.LP.htmlhttp://web.jobvite.com/Q315_Content_Recruiter.com_AllThumbs_.LP.htmlhttp://web.jobvite.com/Q315_Content_Recruiter.com_AllThumbs_.LP.htmlhttp://web.jobvite.com/Q315_Content_Recruiter.com_AllThumbs_.LP.htmlhttp://web.jobvite.com/Q315_Content_Recruiter.com_AllThumbs_.LP.htmlhttp://web.jobvite.com/Q315_Content_Recruiter.com_AllThumbs_.LP.html


5/18

5 ©2015 Recruiter.com | 10 Predictions About the Future of ATSs

Perhaps the most basic and essential of the recruiter’ssoftware tools, the applicant tracking system is perched

on the cusp of a new era. Indeed, the ATS is evolving

right before our very eyes, thanks to advances intechnology and the efforts of some passionate and

talented recruiters, programmers, and entrepreneurs.

What will the ATS look like when all is said and done? What’s

in store for the applicant tracking system? Here are our ten

predictions on the future of the ATS, all based on excitingdevelopments happening right now.


6/18


Remember when chat clients like AOL InstantMessenger were the best way to connect with

people on the Internet? Back then, we had little to

represent us but our buddy icons and our screen

names.

Nowadays, of course, things have changed for the

better. Thanks to social networks like Facebook, we

can all maintain much more robust presences on

the Web. Through our pictures, our comments, our

“likes”, our status updates, and our profiles, we can

really show other people who we are.

For a long time, ATSs were stuck in the chat-client

phase, representing candidates as little more than

names and tokens of information. Now, however,

we’re watching the ATS enter its Facebook phase.

I. ATSs Will Begin to Look–and Act–More Like a Social Network


7/18


As more and more people rail against the ATS’s

overemphasis on keywords, more and more ATSs

are finding ways to present fuller pictures of

candidates as human beings.

Soon enough, a candidate’s presence in an ATS

will be more like a Facebook profile than a

traditional ATS database. Candidates will be able

to upload photos, share stories about themselves,

and, of course, explain their experiences and

qualifications in much more detail.

For recruiters, social-style ATS interfaces offer more

than just the chance to get to better know their

candidates – they also offer an easier way to make

hiring a collaborative process. Just as multiple

people can all look through and comment on one

person’s Facebook profile at once, so, too, will multi-ple recruiters from the same team be able to peruse

their candidates’ profiles, share their thoughts on

the candidates, and discuss the candidates with one

another – all without ever leaving the ATS. No more

emailing back and forth; no more wrangling

everyone into one room.


8/18


Today’s recruiters know that cultural fit is often just

as important as – if not more important than –

credentials and qualifications. As a result, many more

companies have taken to integrating personality

assessments and psychometric

testing tools directly into their

hiring processes. When we

have a better picture of our

candidates’ personalities, we can

better decide which ones will

really thrive in the company culture.

Meanwhile, many ATS-makers

have been working feverishly to

create ATSs that can freely integrate with all manner

of hiring tools – including personality assessments

and psychometric tests. When ATSs and personality

testing collide, we end up with predictive ATSs – that

is, ATSs that can help us make better hiring decisions.

The idea behind hiring for cultural fit is that people

who can thrive within a

company’s culture are more

likely to be better hires. Predictive

ATSs can take this one step

further: they can compare

the personality profiles of top-

performing employees with the

personality profiles of current

candidates. Recruiters can then

use this information to identify

the candidates who are most likely to succeed at the

companybased on how those candidates align with

the people who already do succeed in the company.

II. ATSs Will Help You Makethe Right Decisions


9/18


Today, when a candidate doesn’t make it throughthe ATS’s screening process, that candidate is

essentially condemned to a black hole, their resume

filed away in a void into which recruiters are

unlikely to ever look again.

The problem with this set up is the underlying

assumption that a candidate who isn’t right at this

moment won’t be right later on down the line.

Many recruiters are already challenging this

assumption by cultivating talent communities, which

serve as pre-filled talent pipelines. By maintaining

relationships with high-quality candidates in the long

term, recruiters can more easily find the best talent

when positions open up in the short term.

As talent communities become a more prevalent

sourcing method, ATS-makers will take notice.

They’ll see that recruiters want a more dynamic way

to manage long-term relationships with candidates,

and they’ll create ATSs through which recruiters will

be able to directly manage their talent communities.

When this happens, it’ll be goodbye keyword filters

and goodbye black holes for those not hired. Instead,

ATSs will be more like customer relationship

management software solutions(recruitment CRMs),

allowing recruiters toengage with candidates as if

they were sales prospects. Given how much

better our treatment of potential customers is

than our treatment of potential employees, this is

a development to look forward to.

III. ATSs Will Turn Rejected Talentinto Future Hires Analytics


10/18


Previously, we predicted “socialized” ATSs thatpresented fuller pictures of candidates as human

beings, rather than resumes. We still believe that’s

the case, but we also believe

that these same social-style

ATSs will put more data

analytics power into the

hands of recruiters and HR

professionals. Data is the

buzzword in recruiting and

HR today, and for good reason.

HR pros and recruiters alike

both want to demonstrate their

impact on their organizations’ bottom lines. Similarly,

as the C-suite increasingly understands the

importance of recruiting as a business strategy,

executive leaders want to measure their companies’

hiring efforts in tangible ways.

The ATS of tomorrow will

meet the needs of both re-

cruiters/HR pros and top

executives by putting critical

metrics directly at everyone’s

fingertips. Through in-depth,

customizable reporting

features, users of ATSs will

be able to track, analyze,

and share data related to

everything from the number of applicants to a

recent job to how long it takes new hires become

productive team members.

IV. ATSs Will Prioritize Data,Metrics, and Analytics


11/18


V. ATSs Will Become MoreUser-Friendly – for Candidates

Has any candidate anywhere ever been happy with

the experience of submitting their information

through an ATS? We’d wager that the answer is a

resounding “no.” Today’s ATSs are cumbersome,

inelegant systems – and they often ask candidates

to keep entering the same info over and over and

over again. Highly qualified job seekers often get so

fed up with ATSs that they ditch the application

process before it’s over.

This makes for bad recruiting in any economic

climate, and doubly so today, when it is clearly a

job seeker’s market. Recruiters want to be able to

engage with candidates more easily – and they want

to make the application process as hassle-free as

possible in order to attract the best of the best.

As a result, we can expect ATSs to become more

user-friendly in the very near future – with the “user”

here defined as the “candidate.” No longer will

candidates have to wade through page after page

and form after form, filling and refilling the same

fields over and over again. Instead, job seekers will

enter their information into ATSs the same way they

build their LinkedIn or Facebook profiles: through

clean, intuitive interfaces with no needless repetition.


12/18


VI. ATSs Will Make It Easierto Onboard Employees

In keeping with the increasing focus on hiring forcultural fit – as outlined in an earlier prediction – we

can expect to see ATSs that allow for seamless

transitions from applying to onboarding.

Nowadays, companies want to begin onboarding

employees before they are even hired. They want to

offer engaging, employer-brand-specific content that

interests candidates. That way, job seekers can learn

about the company, its culture, its values, and its

mission prior to joining the team. This allowscandidates to determine whether or not they’ll fit

with the culture, and they can either self-select in or

out – making recruiters’ jobs much easier by decreasing

the amount of pre-screening they’ll have to do.

To facilitate smooth transitions from application toonboarding, ATSs will be made to integrate with

onboarding and employer brand management

systems with minimal fuss. That way, recruiters and

HR pros can begin “pre-onboarding” employees

through the same systems they use to screen and

track candidates. Plus, the earlier candidates are

onboarded, the less time they’ll need to get adjusted

when they join the company.


13/18


Today, recruiters often focus on social mediaplatforms as reliable sources of high-quality

candidates. Rather than navigating through the

esoteric sourcing channels of old, recruiters often

walk right into the spheres of public life to find

prospective talent.

Similarly, many companies have redoubled their

efforts to build and maintain employee referral

programs (ERPs), because candidates sourced

through ERPs tend to be of a higher caliber thannon-referred candidates.

All of this is to say that the “power users” of the old

days – those experts who knew everything about

their complicated applicant tracking systems, the

people without whom others could never get

anything done – are no longer necessary. Now,

companies want to recruit from the trenches: they

want their employees to put candidates into the

system, and they want their recruiters to learn the

ins and outs of social media.

As a result of this shift, ATSs can no longer be

designed with highly specialized power users in mind.

Instead, they need to be created expressly for use by

average employees. That way, employees will be

more encouraged to tap into their own networks,share job openings with trusted contacts, and bring

in more referred talent. Recruiters too, will benefit:

they’ll be able to focus more on sourcing candidates

and less on reading user manuals.

VII. ATSs Will No LongerNeed “Power Users”


14/18


VIII. ATSs Will Make Resumes Obsolete

Remember our first prediction, the one about social-media-style ATSs? We’d like to return to that idea for a

moment, because we think it points to another advance

in the world of recruiting and hiring – namely, the end of

the resume.

As ATSs come to look more and more like social media

platforms themselves; as they gain the capacity to integrate

with social media platforms; and as they become more

user-friendly for candidates, resumes may die out

altogether. When candidates can log into ATSs and create

comprehensive profiles that delve deeply into their

professional lives, they won’t need the stodgy,

limiting bullet points of traditional resumes.

Recruiters won’t need those one-pagers, either:

who needs a resume when you can pull up a

candidate’s profile and really get to know them?


15/18


IX. ATSs Will Go Visual

Our workforce is more mobile than ever. Freelancers,contractors, flexible work schedules, and remote

employees are the new normal. This shift comes with

lots of benefits, but there’s

also a major

downside we can’t

overlook: when ourcandidates and employees

are spread all across the

globe, how can we really

get to know who they are?

ATSs will help us solve theproblems of connection

in a mobile world by incorporating more video

capabilities in the future. Video interviews, video

resumes, and video introductions will all become

standard ATS functionality. That way, recruiters andremote/flexible employees will be able to meet eye

to eye – even when they’re sitting across the ocean

from one another.

Another benefit of video

technology is that itallows everyone in the

recruiting department to

sit in on an interview –

even if they can’t be there

in person. A recorded

video interview can bepassed along from recruiter

to recruiter, and in that way, everyone on the team

can have a say about a given candidate’s suitability.


16/18


Speaking of our mobile workforce – we now live in

the age of the gig economy. Full-time, lifelong

employment is no longer the only way to go. Plenty

of workers in today’s world operate in flexible, free-

lance capacities, doing a number of jobs, or “gigs,”

all at once. A person, for example, can drive for a car

service in the mornings, book some handyman work

through an app in the afternoons, and write content

for a company’s blog in the evenings.

The problem is, ATSs are not designed to track

these sorts of employees. ATSs were designed with

traditional full-time employees in mind. That makes it

difficult for HR pros to keep tabs on freelancers,

gig workers, and flexible workers.

Expect ATSs to respond to the rise of the gig

economy by introducing more fluid candidate

management capabilities. Future ATSs will allow

recruiters to sort through candidates according to

the types of jobs they’re applying for. More

importantly, however, future ATSs will make it

easier for employers to see the kinds of work that

candidates have already done for them in the past.

Have an applicant for a contract position? See what

kind of short-term work she’s done for you already

by logging into your ATS.

ATSs will allow recruiters and HR pros to engage with

gig workers in much the same way that they’ll allow

X. ATSs Will Accommodatefor the Gig Economy


17/18


recruiters and HR pros to manage talent

communities. The focus will be on building and

maintaining long-term relationships, rather than

on immediate full-time employment.

The applicant tracking system’s future is a bright one.

These trusted software solutions have long been

critical to every recruiter’s success, and as they

evolve, we can only expect that they will grow more

and more indispensable. Recruiters, rejoice: your

ATSs will soon be more powerful than ever.


18/18

www.recruiter.com

You’ll love working with this Recruiter.

Brought to you by
https://www.recruiter.com/http://www.jobvite.com/?utm_source=recruiter.com&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=analyticsebookhttp://www.jobvite.com/?utm_source=recruiter.com&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=trendsebookhttps://www.recruiter.com/https://www.recruiter.com/

10 predictions about the evolution of applicant tracking systems

Documents