Escaping the Infinite ATS Black Hole
Before Interstellar, black holes seemed to most of us like distant, sudden emptiness in the sky. Even now, for recruiters, the applicant tracking system (ATS) black hole is closer to something out of our childhood imaginations than Interstellar‘s Gargantua. That’s because the ATS black hole doesn’t announce its presence by distorting time, space, and gravity. Instead, it lurks quietly inside an inefficient ATS, sending unsuspecting candidates into the void, often unbeknownst to you. In short, the ATS black hole is destroying the efficiency of your hiring process.
What Is an ATS Black Hole?
You archive a candidate’s profile, thinking you will follow up with them sometime soon — but sure enough, you never see that candidate profile again. Perhaps too much time passes and you simply forget, or maybe your ATS’s search feature just isn’t as powerful as you need it to be. Whatever the case, no matter how hard you look, you just can’t find the profile in your candidate database.
Is your candidate database really a database if adding information is easy but retrieval is nearly impossible? It’s probably easier to find a needle in a haystack — after all, they’re silver, pointy, and liable to prick you. The recruiter’s ATS black hole is slightly different from the ATS black hole that frustrates candidates; the latter has the power to render candidates “unqualified” and prevent them from ever entering a recruiter’s pipeline in the first place. In this article, we’re going to focus only on the ATS black hole from a recruiter’s perspective, but the information we cover here can be valuable to candidates, too.
When a Job Opening Closes and an Offer Is Made, What Happens to the Other Candidates?
It usually works like this: When a job opening closes, recruiters make note of those candidates who almost received an offer for backup purposes — i.e., in case the chosen candidate ends up not accepting the offer. The other candidates’ profiles are generally archived out of the active candidate list.
When a Candidate Applies for a Job That Isn’t Open, Where Does Their Profile Go?
Some applicant tracking systems conveniently provide a snooze option so you can revisit these applicants several months or years down the line. But what if a recruiter needs a candidate’s profile sooner because they know that candidate would be a great fit for a new opening, but they can’t remember the name of the candidate?
If a Candidate Applies for One Job But Is an Excellent Prospect for Another Job, Where Does Their Profile Go?
Some recruiters circumvent the ATS black hole by using spreadsheets. They maintain candidate lists with as many custom fields as their hearts desire to make sure candidate profiles are easily searchable. However, the spreadsheet approach requires a person to manually update it every time a new candidate comes in, which makes it quite a hassle to maintain.
What if you receive an excellent candidate you want to pursue in the future, but not yet? Most recruiters live with the regret of losing out on great talent to the ATS black hole, never to retrieve it again.
The most popular and appealing myth about black holes is that they could be portals to other dimensions. What if the ATS black hole were such a portal instead of sending candidates spiraling out into infinity? We’re talking about an ideal talent pool feature, one you can search easily and access at will. We’re talking about something that might even be intelligent enough to suggest the profiles of great-fit archived candidates while a new job opening is being created.
An example of intelligent profile suggestions for a procurement specialist can be seen below in the screenshot from Freshteam’s talent pool. All you need to do is archive candidate profiles you like. If needed, you can tag profiles according to skills, categories, and certifications for easier access.
What You Can Do to Make Sure the ATS Black Hole Doesn’t Affect Your Hiring Process
The good news is that this portal to an ideal talent pool is real. You can overcome the ATS black hole and make your hiring process more efficient. This portal is probably your best bet in building a highly reliable source of quality candidates. To ensure you get the best out of it:
- Choose an ATS with a talent pool feature that can resurface profiles no matter when and where you want them. An acceptable alternative is an ATS with good search capabilities and a snooze feature.
- Make sure your recruiters follow protocol closely. If they don’t carefully tag profiles, your ATS won’t be able to surface the right candidates when you need them. Recruiters need to bake tagging into their approaches.
Freshteam by Freshworks is a smart ATS with intelligent features that transform your recruitment process. The talent pool of Freshteam is a much-loved feature that lets you save your favorite candidates for later without giving in to the notorious ATS black hole. It makes your hiring process more effective and hassle-free from start to finish, helping recruiters source, screen, interview, and hire the best candidates with ease. You can check it out for free here.
This article by Freshteam is built on the original article that first appeared on the Freshteam blog.
Recruiter.com regularly features reviews, articles, and press releases from leading businesses. This featured article may include paid promotion or affiliate links. Please make every effort to perform due diligence when selecting products and services for your business or investment needs and compare information from a variety of sources. Use this article for general and informational purposes only.