Excerpt/ Meta description – Through this article, discover the game-changing features of an open-source ATS. Elevate your recruitment, engage candidates, and unlock unbeatable features for success.
Meta title – Explore the top 5 features: How open source ATS enhances recruitment Success
URL slug – open-source-applicant-tracking-system
Focus keyword – open source applicant tracking system, ats software
Are you looking forward to investing in an applicant tracking software that offers you peak flexibility? If that’s the case, we bring you the right fit, an open-source applicant tracking system.
But is flexibility all that you can expect? Absolutely not. Here’s a platter of the top 5 features of an open-source ATS software that can easily pass as the game changer for your recruiting business.
Read on!
1. Seamless integration
A well-integrated software system holds immense power in simplifying the day-to-day lives of recruiters. Not only does it combine all the steps of the process into a single workflow, but it also elevates the overall productivity of the team to a significant extent.
Here are a few major modes of integration that are inevitable to achieve the best of what an ATS can offer-
● HR system integration
Combine the goodness of an open source applicant tracking system with your existing HR systems like CRM and HRIS for a software package that functions together for optimum results. This power-packed combination can help you streamline the flow of data within the hiring team and completely eliminate the practice of manual entry.
It offers a unified platform for managing candidate information, communication, and overall recruitment processes, ensuring that your efficiency and productivity levels are soaring at all times.
● Email and calendar integration
The best hack to stay on top of your tasks and never miss out on your schedules is to integrate your email and calendar systems with the open-source ATS. This helps you to synchronize communication, scheduling, and task list all in one place.
And let’s not forget its contribution to enhancing the degree of collaboration among recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates by centralizing email conversations and interview scheduling within the ATS.
● Single Sign-On (SSO)
SSO is a great way of saving your recruiting board some precious time.
Implementing SSO functionality can help you simplify access to the open-source ATS by allowing users to sign in using their existing corporate credentials, dodging the fuss that comes with having a single set of credentials for all.
● Extensions
There are several extensions out there that make the lives of recruiters way easier. So, having an open-source ATS that allows you to integrate with foreign extensions can add more efficiency to your workflow.
Be it data exchange, real-time updates, or an add-on facility, it can definitely do wonders for your hiring agency.
2. Easy customization
Based on factors such as size, industry, and workforce strength, each business has its own software needs. And this difference calls for the flexibility to mold your unique needs into the software you’re using – exactly what customization is all about.
Here are a few ways in which an open-source ATS allows the users to customize the system according to their specific requirements.
● Workflow customization
This stage of customization is mainly about chalking out the steps in the hiring cycle of your organization to identify the default settings in the ATS that must be altered for better alignment with your original workflow.
This helps to ensure that incorporating an ATS software into your workflow is not going to hamper the original hiring procedure in your staffing agency.
● Field customization
If you are willing to come up with tailored recruiting services for all your clients for optimum services, you simply can’t afford to miss out on the field customization feature.
You can customize fields based on job requirements, industry-specific data, or any other relevant criteria needing attention for the perfect fit. It helps you capture the specific data you need and improves the overall quality of hiring for every individual client.
● Dashboard personalization
Everyone in your hiring team has their own approach towards work and responsibilities. Dashboard personalization is the feature that caters to this flexibility of working in your own comfortable way for better focus and output.
It enables recruiters and hiring managers to personalize their dashboards by arranging widgets, choosing relevant metrics, and having access to key information at a glance.
Bonus – Always look for an ATS with a modular architecture that allows you to incorporate or delete functionalities as and when needed with absolute flexibility.
3. Better scalability
This is an imperative feature if you take the growth and expansion of your hiring agency seriously.
Investing in an ATS software is mostly a one-time thing that is supposed to yield results for years to come. But in order to function effectively through an ATS for an elongated period of time, you must ensure that the software is expandable enough to support your growing needs. That is exactly why scalability is so important.
Here are a few types of scalability that you must check before purchasing an open-source applicant tracking system.
● User scalability
As your workforce continues to grow with the passage of time, the user scalability of your software ensures smooth accommodation for additional users.
No matter how rapid or quick the influx is, your ATS must continue to deliver the same performance, efficiency, and accuracy as before.
● Data volume handling
The first indicator of growth for a staffing agency is its expanding candidate database. And this makes it extremely crucial for your software to have an ample amount of scope for such expansion.
As your talent pool grows, the system should efficiently store, process, and retrieve data to support your recruitment efforts without a hint of compromise in any given aspect.
● Cloud compatibility
If you want to enjoy the utmost flexibility on the go, consider an open-source ATS that is compatible with cloud infrastructure, providing scalability and accessibility from anywhere, at any time.
And a piece of even better news is that cloud compatibility also brings along cost-effectiveness and easy maintenance, reducing the burden on your IT team. Now, that’s a definite win-win.
4. Advanced reports and analytics
Statistics is a recruiter’s best friend at every step of the hiring process. The data derived from a well-tracked set of statistical reports portray the true picture of where all the hiring efforts are going, helping recruiters spot the challenges and achievements all at once.
But the reports and analytics feature of your ATS can offer you a lot more than simple graphs and pie charts. Here are some of what to expect.
● Visualization and data presentation
Anything that is visually appealing is more likely to leave a stronger impact than a boring dashboard of bar graphs. That is exactly why an ATS software allows you to utilize data visualization tools and features within the software to present recruitment data in a clear format that makes it interesting to look at.
It also facilitates smooth communication using charts, graphs, and interactive dashboards to convey complex information in simple visual sketches.
● Predictive analytics
Future prediction plays an extremely crucial role in the recruitment industry, carrying the baton of influencing major hiring decisions. But its functionality gets strengthened further when combined with actionable statistics.
Explore predictive analytics capabilities within your open-source ATS to forecast future recruitment trends and outcomes way ahead of time, customized to your own hiring graph. It uses data like candidate success, hiring needs, and talent acquisition strategies to curate the right predictions for you.
● Benchmarking and comparative analysis
Comparing your progress with the industry standards or internal benchmarks is always an effective approach to identifying the loopholes that have to be filled in in your recruitment cycle. And there’s no better way of doing it than having a set of recruitment metrics handy to provide you with the required insights.
The resultant data helps you identify areas where your organization excels or needs improvement, allowing you to use this information to set realistic goals and drive continuous improvement in your organization.
5. Reliable security and compliance
In the present generation, where cyber fraud is more prevalent than ever before, software that goes a step further to provide top-notch security is the safest choice. And as the governments worldwide continue to strengthen policies for better administration, the need for software-backed compliance is also on the rise.
Here is a list of things you can expect from an ATS to provide you with a secure and compliant experience.
● Data encryption and privacy compliance
Encryption safeguards information both at rest and in transit, mitigating the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches to a large extent. An open-source ATS employs robust encryption methods to protect sensitive candidate data from any malware.
It also takes care of compliance with data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), to enable easy management of candidate consent, data deletion, and data subject access requests.
● Access controls and user permissions
A highly restrictive feature is strict access controls and user permissions within the software to restrict data access to authorized personnel. This feature is extremely functional to add that extra level of security that is quite hard to crack.
You can assign different permission levels based on job roles and responsibilities, ensuring that only relevant individuals can view or modify the crucial candidate information in your database.
● Audit trails and logging
Another secure approach is to incorporate audit trails and logging capabilities into your open-source ATS to track and monitor user activities and system changes on a routine basis for better tracking.
It helps you maintain a record of actions performed within the system, enabling traceability and facilitating compliance audits without any hassle at the end of every financial year.
While there is a whole school of features that make an open-source applicant tracking system attractive for recruiters, these five have to be the top ones that are an absolute necessity if you are investing in an ATS.
Hoping that now you are all equipped with everything you need to know about the features of an ATS to choose the absolute right software for your organization.
