Season's best

The season is good considering the number of hirings happening across the spectrum of the economy. Most of the majors have seen huge additions in terms of headcounts in the last two quarters, especially in the infotech industry. The drive comes from the IT-enabled services leading the pack, closely followed with the ERP and Web technologies. Auto, engineering, finance, insurance and energy are the other sectors which are witnessing fresh recruitments.

The current environment is putting more pressure on senior executives and hiring managers to deliver the best quality people in a cost effective manner. At the same time, the HR team needs to focus on finding and speaking to the right applicants.

Applicant attraction is just the first stage in building a relationship between employer and potential employee. A quality, two-way application process is vital in projecting a positive image of the company.

A comprehensive communication process ensures you continue the employer/applicant relationship.

Managing huge quantum of applications that come through has become humanely impossible. Sometimes in big IT organisations, resume numbers cross one lakh every quarter making things go out of control. It is an Herculean task of classifying, shortlisting and prioritising these applicants. The West for long has been using “Applicants Tracking Systems” (ATS) to get through with such issues. ATS simply reverses the disadvantage of managing large number of applicants into a huge opportunity of receiving and managing these applicants.

ATS acceptability comes immediately for an organisation which has a definite Internet Recruiting Strategy. An organisation which has benefited through online recruiting will definitely consider and look at ATS. This makes an excellent backend for a corporate website and also on the online job boards. Coupled with corporate employment, branding and media planning are some of the advanced features.

Key advantages

1 Corporate website Integration with the ATS.

2 Supports multiple mediums like online job boards, print media, e-mail, recruiters etc.

3 Proactively sources candidates externally.

4 Provides a central database of candidates, both internally and externally.

5 Eliminates process duplication across the organisation.

6 Measure effectiveness of advertising campaigns and recruitment processes.

7 Automated two-way communication tools throughout the hiring process.

8 Defines clearer succession path helps to retain talent after they’re hired.

9 Develops private communities globally of highly talented resources in advance.

10 Automating the process of matching, notifying, inviting and screening of candidates.

11 Management of candidate workflow, offers creation and approval process.

12 Automating applicant information storage makes it easy to comply with data protection legislation in all countries.

Indian scenario

We still do not have any major Indian corporate using ATS effectively. A number of them use software built in-house integrated into their corporate website as the front end. The most popular in-house ATS in India is Wipro’s “Synergy. TCS’s in-house online system also has integrated recruitment consultants into it and Infosys also uses similar in-house application. Few of the industrial and energy majors use Oracle HRMS and Peoplesoft HRMS mainly for backend HRIS.

There have been a number of products developed by small software vendors in the market, most of them do not meet the requirements and are not scalable.

An effective implementation of an ATS for an IT services firm in India can make HR function truly a profit centre given the quantum of savings in time and cost per hire and also the skill mapping and relationships that will bring in the additional business edge globally. ATS perhaps is the best brand building tool for any corporate with major numbers and budgets. Resource management is not just about external applicants. The best people for the job may already be in your company. By providing a full, self-service environment for internal vacancies, employees are encouraged to be proactive in their personal development and, as a result, reduce turnover.

Global ATS players

The surprising factor in the ATS market is for except Peoplesoft most of the other players are niche products specialists. ERP vendors market their HR modules more for the backend HRIS than anything to do with Applicant Tracking. Mostly we see implementation of Peoplesoft, SAP or Oracle HRMS. The other ERP vendors practically have no say at all in this marketspace.

Some of the key products available in the current market place are Restrac from Web Hire, Resumix, RecruitSoft, Brassring’s Enterprise, Hire.com, Peoplesoft, Skillset, Hot Jobs, PeopleClick, Bernard Hodes, Icarian etc. There are probably a few hundred Applicant Tracking Systems available in the US, starting from as low as few hundred dollars. The big rated ones are the ones which will give continued support and scalablity in future. A good topline ATS global implementation will cost anywhere upwards of $100,000 for a large conglomerate.

Conclusion

The best ATS will provide a front-end solution for a corporate with a seamless transition for search and application facilities. Online recruiting with an effective backend ATS is now one of the most successful and cost effective strategies for quickly reaching many potential applicants. Indeed, the average cost per hire from the Internet was shown to be just 10 per cent of the cost from print advertising in the Employment Management Association Cost Per Hire and Staffing Metrics Survey.

Online medium is also the fastest growing sources for applications, with 91 per cent of Global 500 companies using their corporate website and Online job boards as their key recruitment tool. HR professionals are expected to increase their online recruitment spending more than 50 per cent by 2004, according to Forrester Research.

Success means much more than just posting jobs to multiple job boards. Success means being able to effectively and efficiently manage the responses both from these postings and those from other pro-actively implemented recruitment strategies. And that means implementing an ATS.

The author is CEO, HumanCapital Consulting Pvt Ltd. He can be reached on e-mail: murthy@humancapital.co.in

Issue BG33-34 Jan04