So your ATS is a dumpster fire. I hear that mate. In the past 8 years I have implemented 6 new ATS so I know the pain for a recruiter who is:
(a) being asked to do more with less
AND
(b) having to spend more and more time doing admin due to a barely functioning ATS.
I could go on for ages with tips on ATS which would break my five minute rule. So I'll break my ATS advice up into parts. I'll re visit the ATS wrangling series as and when something about my ATS annoys me.
So part one, here's three low level things anyone can do, with almost any ATS to make more hires for the same effort.
Right. Here are three basic things you can do with your ATS right now to improve the level of effort to make a hire.
1. Templates
In all ATS, you can save your Emails to templates.
You may have the odd nurture sequence templated up, but this is massively underusing the template function of your ATS.
Any email you need to send more than once should be a template!
It may only save you 3-5 minutes per email, but 250 manual emails turned into 2 clicks is a saving of Two and a half working days!
So I recommend you do this. First, write out the ideal workflow for a piece of recruitment from start to finish.
Next, write templates out for as many eventualities for each stage as possible.
For instance here are four common eventualities you want to template if a candidate replies to an outreach:
1. They agree to a screen call, in which case you should have a template to schedule a call.
2. They get back to you declining, in which case, a lovely stay in touch email
3. They ask about salary and comp, in which case a template about your comp philosophy and an invite to a screen to discuss in more detail.
4. They ask about remote work. So a template describing the working format and an invite to the screen.
These are super common replies to outreaches. if you spend half an hour writing out really good templates for these common eventualities, you save yourself DAYS of value add time.
This isn't just for top of funnel by the way. Go all the way through your process and write up good templates for each eventuality, interview invites, interview prep calls, everything.
You don't have to have boiler plate info for every candidate, you can personalise each one, particularly at the bottom of the funnel with more specific details.
This turns writing an email into writing a sentence. Still a huge time saver.
2. Tags
Your ATS will have a tagging function. When you search them they are either empty, ie you don't use them, or they are full of random tags and it's impossible to search through them or gain any insight.
I recommend you do this:
1. Write down a list of your own tags in a document. People often use tags for one off things, but if you have a doc that acts like a glossary, it's easier to structure any future searches, chop up your candidate pools and get insights.
2. Have tags that help you re-engage. So if you have a candidate who withdrew but was great, have a tag like "Quality Candidate Q2 2024"
this means you can really easily re engage quality candidates from say, 6 months ago.
3. Track A/B testing of messages. You can tag two groups of candidates you are A/B testing ans its really easy to find them through the process and see what messages convert best.
3. Quarterly Re-Engagement
How often do you re-engage with previous candidates in your ATS? Not as often as you'd like I bet. And I know why too. You don't re-engage candidates consistently, because you don't have a plan. Here is mine :
1. Week 10 of every quarter is now "Re-engagement Week" for your team. Put it in the calendar right now and invite your team.
2. Have your recruiters search the ATS for candidates in your version of the following rejection buckets :
No response
Offer Declined
Candidate withdrew
3. Write a 2 stage nurture campaign. Email one is a business update (new features, investment etc) with a call to action to book a call with a recruiter. email two is a short, to the point request for a catch up call.
4. Track the conversion of outreach to candidates back in process .
5. Celebrate good news stories to re-enforce the benefit of re-engaging with candidates.
When we first started re-engagement campaigns with a team of 6 recruiters, we got 9 additional hires. Not bad for a piece of work that took about 30 minutes per recruiter.
Awesome Recruiter Spotlight
Every week I will use this segment to highlight a recruiter I know personally who is exceptional at what they do, and in this brutal market, is available.
Meet Charlie Qazi
- Charlie is an exceptionally knowledgeable Senior Technical Recruiter based in London. I worked with him at Scede where he was consistently the top recruiter for a pipeline of the most technically challenging roles on the market.
- He has a bachelors degree in computer science so his screens doubled up as light technical interviews.
- This made is tech interview conversions remarkably high, so happy engineering managers who see mostly excellent candidates.
- He also knows more about the late eighties tv show Only Fools and Horses than anyone in the world.
- In any other market, tech companies would be in a bidding war to secure Charlie.
Connect with Charlie on LinkedIn. Link him any roles you are aware of in your company or on the wider market. Add him in any "I'm hiring" posts.
He's available just now for remote or London based roles.
It would make my month if this small but mighty group of recruitment nerds pulled one out the bag for one of our own.
Well... that's issue six! As the newsletter evolves, I'll be adding a few more voices into this newsletter from my network of friends who are mega-brains when it comes to data driven recruitment. I'm overwhelmed with the positive feedback so far! If you have any feedback on this issue of The Data Driven Recruiter, grab me on LinkedIn for a chat.
I'll see you next week!