Directly to Your Desired Candidates with the Right Applicant Management

1. Definition: What is applicant management?
2. What are the tasks of applicant management?
3. What are the goals of applicant management?
4. What does the applicant management process look like? 
5. Conclusion: He who brakes loses
6. Conclusion on applicant management

People are the most expensive and valuable resource in a company. That's why HR professionals carry a particularly large responsibility, which directly affects the success of the company. Applicant management software helps them to work efficiently and get to their desired candidates as quickly as possible. How you can save time and money with the right software and what other benefits they can offer you, you will find out in this article.

Definition: What is applicant management?

Anyone who is looking for new employees for their company will not be able to get around the efficient design of a recruiting process. The recruiting strategy, the analysis of the recruiting KPIs and the selection of the best recruiting software are part of the process. Another area of the company that is part of recruiting – the employee acquisition – is applicant management. It includes all methods, resources and processes that guide applicants through the application process.

What are the tasks of applicant management? 

Source: Recruitee

The applicant management deals with the entire application process. The tasks that arise can roughly be divided into the points of sourcing (applicant procurement), application management, pre-screening (pre-selection), applicant evaluation, job posting management, and optimization of the applicant process.

Tasks of applicant management:

• Post job advertisements
• Place job ads, conduct CV search and CV parsing
• Manage candidates and their applications
• Communicate with applicants
• Make pre-selections (technical competence)
• Plan and conduct job interviews or video interviews (social competence)
• Make a decision with relevant team members
• Offer jobs and reject applicants
• Employer branding

Applicant management software supports HR professionals and recruiters in applicant management in designing smooth and time-saving processes for external and internal personnel procurement.

What are the goals of applicant management?

Source: Assono

With the introduction of applicant management, the aims are:

1. To reduce costs and save time,
2. improve employer attractiveness or the employer image, and identify suitable candidates.

More time – lower costs

Process automation in applicant management:
⁠The faster the right candidates are found and hired, the better. An applicant management system with automated and coordinated processes ensures quick processing. As a result, neither applicants nor companies have to wait long for each other. This significantly reduces the drop-out rate of applicants.

Data analysis in applicant management
⁠In applicant management, data is continuously collected that tells you what works best for you. You find out exactly where you can pick up applicants and at which touchpoints in the process potential candidates drop out.

Improve the employer image

We have been living in an employee market for quite a while – some industries feel it more, others less. However, almost all are affected. That's why employers apply to employees – even if they are not the ones writing applications. Especially in industries with an enormous shortage of skilled workers, the employer image is crucial.

A professional web presence and functioning processes are positively noticed by potential talents at the first touchpoints. Candidates almost always have several employers to choose from. They usually decide on the company with the best and most trustworthy image.

What does the applicant management process look like? 

Source: Metajobs

An applicant management process does not always have to be built in exactly the same way. It should fit your company and your desired candidates. As a guide, we have created an example process for you:

Step 1: Create and post job advertisement

In exchange with the appropriate department, you receive all necessary requirements such as technical knowledge and skills for the content of your job advertisement. Don't just pay attention to content and language, but also to design and user experience. All this must match the abilities and taste of your desired candidates. Design the career page in an appealing and intuitive way. Choose preferred platforms to get the job ad out to people.

Step 2: Spread the job advertisement

Your goal should be to make as many and especially suitable people as possible aware of your job advertisement. Depending on the behavior of your desired candidates, you can take action and benefit from social media recruitment, recruiting events and/or active sourcing. Also, don't forget to sift through the (unsolicited) applications you have collected in your talent pool.

You don't necessarily have to look externally for specialized staff. Internal personnel procurement is also popular. The costs are usually much lower. You can also motivate your staff by offering them new perspectives. Last but not least, you know that they definitely fit into the team, and that is a really important aspect. Perhaps you even have colleagues in mind who could fill your desired position in the near future through personnel development measures. Employee referral is also a proven tool.

Step 3: Respond quickly to applicants

Applicants may have questions or just want to know if their application has arrived for you. Therefore, you should be prepared for the most common questions and be available as friendly contact persons for your talents. It is advisable to openly communicate the application process (e.g. on a career page). There you can also deposit FAQs and your contact data.

Step 4: Make a pre-selection

The faster the documents are viewed and compared with the job posting, the better. Initially, it is a matter of determining the possible difference between the target and actual state of the hard skills. Those who already (mostly) fulfil them will move on to the next round.

Step 5: Conduct job interviews

There are skills that no CV can tell you about. Whether the soft skills match and the chemistry is right, you will find out in the next step. Now you get to know the applicants who have matched the profile so far. This can be in your premises, on the phone or by video conference.

Step 6: Final evaluation

After the hard skills, soft skills and the sympathy factor have been checked, you will have to decide – probably together with the relevant specialist department – for or against applicants.

Step 7: Accept or reject

Have you decided? Then you shouldn't wait too long to tell the candidates your decision. After all, they usually also have other application interviews going on. Giving rejections is simply part of applicant management. It is important that you are legally on the safe side. There is a lot to consider here. Otherwise, your company could face a lawsuit.

Conclusion: He who brakes loses

You risk losing suitable candidates at every stage. They could decide against you due to a negative experience (e.g. long response time), an unorganized appearance or outdated procedures.

Applicant management software improves your external impact and accelerates your entire applicant process with just one tool. They help you to attract your desired candidates, automate your processes, and modernize them. They take routine tasks off your hands with comparison and evaluation functions as well as automated messages.

Within just a few seconds you have a meaningful decision basis in front of you. With the help of email and document templates, you act uniformly, quickly and legally compliant. This is how you catch the right talents before they bite at another hook. With analysis functions, you will automatically get better and better. Nothing is based on a gut feeling. Instead, you can view actual numbers and facts at any time.

What are applicant management software/Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and which ones are there?

OMR Reviews has asked HR professionals to rate various applicant management software and share their experiences with you. These are the currently most popular tools:

Personio

JobShop von talentsconnect

rexx systems

Greenhouse

talentstorm

softgarden

Zoho Recruit

Instaffo

onlyfy Bewerbungsmanager

Recruitee

The preselection is too small for you? Then take a look at OMR Reviews. There you will find many more Applicant Tracking Software. In a direct comparison of the best applicant management software you can see the advantages and disadvantages they offer for you. This way, you can quickly and easily find out which software solution is the best fit for you.

What are the benefits of applicant management software? 

With the use of applicant management software, you can speed up your processes and thus save valuable resources. You can use these elsewhere. With the right applicant management tool, you benefit from the following advantages:

• Your workload is limited to the essentials: everything that can be automated, you can cross off your to-do list.

• Fast response times, intuitive user interfaces, full transparency: your candidates will love the new candidate experience.

• If you have to spend less time on routine tasks, your company will be happy about the saved budget that can be invested elsewhere: your recruiting process becomes more efficient in every respect.

• More matches in your recruiting: processes that steadily improve as a result of automated analyses definitely bring more desired candidates into your team.

• You and your representatives know exactly what to do and can easily stick to the established process.

• Reporting and analysis functions not only show potential for optimization, but also automatically warn you of potential difficulties and bottlenecks.
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Conclusion on applicant management

Applicant management software offers many advantages for HR professionals, candidates and employers. No wonder more and more companies are digitalizing their applicant management. On OMR Reviews you can inform yourself about the functions and conditions. Many providers also offer free web demos and trial versions. Click through – the time is definitely well invested.

What all counts towards applicant management and how can you improve yours?

People are the most expensive and valuable resource in a company. That's why HR professionals carry a particularly large responsibility, which directly impacts the success of the company. Applicant management software helps them to work efficiently and get to their desired candidates as soon as possible. How you can save time and money with the right software and what other benefits they can offer you, you will find out in this article.