As a recruiter, you must continually juggle talent droughts, cutthroat hiring competition, and pressure to scale at dizzying speeds. You also have to rigorously tackle the grunt work of hiring, such as inbound streams of applications that you need to screen, track prospects across platforms, and sync calendars almost every single day.
And that does not even include stakeholders demanding hourly updates on top of everything.
Thankfully, a modern applicant tracking system (ATS) can tackle these pain points and give you the extra bandwidth through:
- Automating rote screening and outreach
- Unifying candidate data and status onto a single pane of glass
- Minimizing the game of calendar tag with integrated scheduling tools
- Powering data-driven decision-making
Let’s look at these substantial benefits in detail.
8 benefits of an applicant tracking system
Here are the eight major ways an ATS helps solve recruiting issues:
1. Organized recruiting processes
Outreach tasks are repetitive by nature. Reviewing hundreds of applicants for each role and contacting the selected ones is your substantial task, especially in larger enterprises with new positions opening frequently.
In this scenario, an ATS brings unified automation and organization to your processes, for example:
- You can automate screening by setting knock-out criteria that filter out unqualified candidates without manual assistance.
- Before you worry about scrambling to get all your candidate data in order, an ATS can consolidate applications, resumes, assessments, and status updates onto a single platform. This way, you replace the noise of scattered emails and spreadsheets with a predefined workflow.
As an all-in-one ATS for hypergrowth companies, Kula ATS takes this further by organizing applicants into talent pools defined by skills, seniority, location, and other parameters for advanced sourcing. Search for a specific skill and find suitable candidates from the pool integral to the role you want to fill- it’s that easy.
You can seamlessly integrate candidate assessments directly into the recruitment workflow step, enabling automatic activation with just one click and without requiring provider support. On top of that, you can export LinkedIn profiles quickly and sync all LinkedIn In-Mail exchanges to the candidate record.
Kula also reveals the full candidate journey from application to offer within one record. Automated updates tell you where candidates are in the application process so that you can view their end-to-end availability.
2. Improved candidate quality
Any ordinary ATS may be able to source and screen candidates, but it lacks the finesse of an AI-powered workflow. Kula's machine learning models analyze skills, experience, and cultural fit to surface the most relevant candidates for each open position.
As a result, Kula ATS can ask relevant screening questions, and only the candidates with the highest scores make it through. This results in a highly targeted, qualified talent pipeline tailored to the criteria you seek, leaving you with more time.
Let’s picture this: you’re recruiting for a fast-growing startup that needs to hire 5 product managers quickly to own roadmap building. Kula can:
- Automatically source thousands of candidates from top MBA programs via integrated job boards
- Screen for required product launch and lifecycle expertise
- Ask pre-determined questions and rank applicants against the ideal product manager profile
- In this way, you learn the top matches without putting in a lot of effort
3. Enhanced communication and collaboration
An ATS can give you a single view of real-time applicant data through one centralized platform. But you often need more than a unified view to facilitate collaboration.
When scheduling interviews with candidates, there is a constant back-and-forth to find slots that work for both the interviewer and the candidate. The problem escalates into a recruiter’s nightmare for multiple roles with clashing time zones.
This is where Kula ATS’ calendar syncing comes in handy. The tool integrates with Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange, Outlook 365, and MS Office. It syncs recruiter, hiring manager, and interviewer calendars to map mutual availability for easy coordination.
Kula also provides AI-powered notes to automatically capture interview feedback, so you can give note-taking a rest and focus on the conversation at hand.
4. Scalability and flexibility
A quality ATS is easy to scale without disrupting your current set-up.
You need a system that can adapt to your needs when leading a five-person startup and your needs when that grows into a company with 2,000 employees without migration headaches.
Kula is a cloud-based SaaS platform designed to scale automatically with no limits on data volume, users, records, or candidates. Our configuration options allow you to set up unique workflows for every department and brand, among other parameters. We can integrate with other systems well, though we do strive to be the only HR tool you will need.
5. Unbiased hiring
An ATS helps you steer clear of workplace bias, accidental or not. It does this by anonymizing applicant data and administering standardized tests, ensuring candidates meet uniform criteria.
ATS analytics zero in on diversity drop-offs in the pipeline so you can intervene if needed. You can also systemically identify and remedy bias without depending on employee goodwill. When it comes to fulfilling EEOC compliance, pick an ATS that offers customer demographic reporting under DEI requirements.
With Kula ATS, you can hide candidate demographic information during resume review so evaluators focus strictly on skills first. Later in the workflow, the details would appear for compliance tracking.
6. Data-driven decisions
An applicant tracking system allows you to tap into key metrics rather than operating from conjecture or gut calls on what's working.
You can:
- Visualize conversion rates and drop-offs on a dashboard to hone in on exactly where applicants fall off in your funnel, such as at the assessment stage.
- Compare channels to see whether niche boards or job fair folders yield more interviews over time, telling you where to concentrate recruiting efforts next.
- Calculate global spending analytics and precise costs for every applicant, interview, and hire.
- View overall job board expenses, staff agency fees, and assessment costs.
- Measure the full investment at each major step to see if spending aligns with the volume or quality of hires.
Kula offers embedded dashboards that track key pipeline performance metrics. You can include application volume by job title, sourcing channel efficiency over time, and fine-grained cost per hiring stage. Other metrics we offer are:
- DEI reports
- Pass through rate
- Aggregated and historical pipeline analytics
- Referral analytics
- Headcount plan reports
Instead of scrambling mid-year to course-correct, you can spot workflow redundancies every month and address them through data-backed insights.
7. Unified recruitment tech stack
Are you juggling an array of point solutions and bogged down with multiple platforms and interfaces? An applicant tracking system can integrate with your existing HR tech stack or serve as a one-stop solution for your hiring needs.
Through APIs and out-of-the-box connectors, an ATS can seamlessly integrate with your payroll software, email inboxes, and calendar systems without complex coding.
Candidate data and new hire details automatically transfer to downstream HRIS, meaning you can skip manual entry again. You can even use your ATS to publish branded career pages and candidate portals, easily creating job posts and tracking applications within the same platform.
Kula ATS features an OpenAPI for easy integration with HCM, ERP, and onboarding systems, enabling seamless, bi-directional data flow. This ensures efficient and synchronized recruitment workflows from start to finish. It can natively integrate leading HRIS/payroll solutions like Workday.
Also, you will have email conversations with candidates who have made it well into the pipeline. With Kula ATS, these communications are automatically logged within the candidate’s profile — keeping all interactions and stages visible in one place.
8. Compliance and risk mitigation
Let's face it - staying compliant with complex regulations around candidate data and fair hiring is tedious, labor-intensive work.
As applicants span countries and cultures, securing GDPR and EEOC consent grows exponentially taxing. You must juggle data retention norms across geographies, demonstrate unbiased practices, and pray no lawsuits to emerge from gaps.
To help you avert such a scenario, Kula is designed to safeguard your organization while respecting candidates:
- Our smart data retention automatically deletes personally identifiable information per geo-specific policies to contain exposure.
- Candidates can consent to data usage as well, with permissions fully logged for audit readiness.
- You can publish job ads and screening questions in localized languages to showcase inclusive access.
- You can monitor parity with built-in EEO and OFCCP reporting across sourcing channels and stages to intervene early if needed.
In this way, Kula lightens your compliance loads and upholds candidate dignity through ethical data handling.
Redefine recruitment with Kula ATS
An excellent ATS tool such as Kula automates repetitive tasks, enables collaboration and provides process insights through analytics. It also centralizes your HR tech stack for a seamless experience and brings transparency to each candidate's journey.
When information, activities, and people flow frictionlessly, recruitment becomes less about paperwork and more about people.
As you evaluate options, prioritize customization that works for your current and future workflows as your needs scale and evolve. Choosing an intuitive system is essential to minimize learning curves for you and your users.
With Kula ATS, you can customize application questions, scorecards, and pipelines without IT support. The AI takes on screening and outreach for efficiency. You can also tailor the platform as your talent acquisition strategy grows across business units, roles, and regions.
