ATS + CRM: The Key To A Seamless Candidate Experience

HR teams look to complementary recruiting tech to solve new challenges

Over the years, a lot has changed in talent acquisition and management, especially as time-saving technological advancements have become more mainstream across HR. One thing that’s remained a top priority? Being able to track and engage applicants as effectively and efficiently as possible. 

That job has been the primary responsibility of applicant tracking systems (ATS) — and with more than 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies using an ATS to streamline their recruiting processes, there’s no question about the considerable value they offer. But just because the majority of companies use an ATS doesn't mean that TA leaders are satisfied with their performance, in particular from a candidate’s perspective.

Aside from mobile capabilities, job seekers expect a shorter, simplified application process, which many ATS platforms don’t provide. In fact, most candidates encounter the opposite when they’re taken from a brilliantly executed career site to a static landing page requesting copious amounts of information that they’ve filled out dozens of times before. The result is a disjointed candidate experience which often causes job seekers to abandon the application process completely, leading to high drop-off rates and less return visitors. 

Companies prioritizing their candidate experience are also aware of the challenges a subpar ATS presents to recruiters. Systems with rudimentary search and ranking functions allow stellar applicants to slip through the cracks. And unfortunately, an ATS alone is unable to capture and engage passive leads (career site visitors who haven’t applied yet) — an essential function for recruiters trying to nurture potential hires throughout the talent journey. 

While tracking applicants and optimizing the hiring process is a necessity, building relationships with job seekers is the heart of successful talent acquisition and management today. It is this focus which precipitated the need for candidate relationship management (CRM) systems. Designed to maximize and streamline communication between recruiters and candidates, CRMs have grown in popularity alongside increased demands for talent teams, unexpected changes in 2020's job market, and emerging capabilities of AI and automation.  

The growth is not a surprise. CRM systems work to scale a recruiter’s sourcing efforts by attracting passive candidates ahead of demand and developing ongoing relationships with them. That way, top talent is kept handy for recruiters to contact when a role becomes available. CRMs also give recruiters the power to create communities for talent, send best-fit candidates specific, targeted messages, grow relationships with passive candidates, and vet candidates sooner rather than later. In addition, CRMs powered by artificial intelligence better highlight best-fit candidates using technology like fit scoring, reducing time-to-hire and increasing quality of hire.

The reality is, an ATS alone is no longer enough to deliver the kind of experience candidates have come to expect and recruiters are tasked to deliver. Of recruiting activities, 70 to 80 percent take place during the pre-applicant stage — which means attracting top talent requires the right messaging at the right time. 

A CRM that effectively integrates with a company’s ATS can give all stakeholders the best of both worlds: a workflow and compliance tool for managing applicants, and the ability to build relationships and essential candidate pipelines while keeping all things talent management in one place. 

A comprehensive TA suite that seamlessly integrates a company’s career site, CRM and ATS in one platform can produce powerful data-driven results with speed and efficiency.

Consider Mercy, one of the largest Catholic health systems in the US, who experienced the impact of such a smooth integration in late 2019 after investing in a talent experience management platform. At the time, their TA team needed to attract, engage, and nurture more nursing candidates while easing the administrative burden for their recruiters and talent scouts. When choosing a solution provider, having access to a CRM that integrated with their ATS to nurture active and passive leads was of the utmost importance.

Sourcing experienced nurses was a critical concern that hinged on providing a better candidate experience. “Our career site wasn’t user friendly, visually appealing, or personalized for the candidate — especially without video or a chatbot,” Kayla Drady, Director of Talent Acquisition Strategy & Operations at Mercy, recalls. Instead, it was more of a static landing page to direct job seekers to Mercy’s ATS. 

To help combat the problem, the team added internal talent scouts to proactively source appropriate candidates through popular job boards, social media, career fairs, and email campaigns. But with no CRM or analytics to track who was engaging with their brand, the scouts had to manually input all interactions into disjointed spreadsheets and cross-reference names with their ATS. The extra administrative work was time-consuming and unproductive.

“And what about those visitors who don’t apply, or the applicants that don’t make the cut the first time around?,” asks Drady. “Without a CRM, you never talk to them again,” she explains, precluding the ability to nurture passive or former candidates. 

Shortly after integrating their ATS and CRM, Mercy was able to address that deficit by generating passive leads, which allowed them to stay in touch with potential candidates who visited the career site, but didn't apply for a job at that time. Today, Mercy’s CRM enables their recruiters to see at which step in the hiring process applicants are in, easily share talent profiles with team members, send targeted email and SMS messages to select groups of recipients, and track who opens and clicks on each campaign. When hiring nurses is a critical need for one of the nation's largest health systems, keeping a line open to those passive candidates is key for future efficiency and recruiting success — especially during the pandemic. 

Their efforts also resulted in a 500 percent increase in traffic to Mercy's career site and a 69 percent conversion of potential talent. 

As companies continue to refine their candidate and recruiter experiences, they'll need technology more and more, making the implementation of a CRM a no-brainer for talent acquisition teams. Coupled with their ATS, teams will be able to make more sound data-driven decisions, quickly engage with qualified candidates, and offer an ideal experience to potential employees throughout the talent journey.