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June 13, 2023 
6 min read
When recruiters have an open role to fill, they can’t sacrifice quality for speed. This conundrum leaves recruiters with a challenge: Find strong candidates, and find them fast.
To meet this goal, recruiters (and sometimes that means store or restaurant managers who also hire) need to source, screen and interview applicants. Then they need to choose the winning candidate, offer the job and onboard the new employee — assuming the candidate takes the gig.
With so much to accomplish, recruiters need tools that help them bring the best talent on board — and that are mobile and easy to use so hiring managers will be quick to adopt. Today’s tech solutions abound, leaving organizations to sort through the many options to find what suits their needs — and their budget. One of the most common of these solutions is the human capital management system.
What is an HCM? The human capital management system (HCM) is lauded as the tool that does it all: It promises to manage compensation, benefits and case management, as well as recruiting, hiring and retention.
An HCM certainly does a lot, but it doesn’t necessarily do all of it well. An HCM makes payroll and benefits a breeze. But it hamstrings recruiting. Recruiting is too important, complicated and fast-paced to be shoehorned in. Employers who depend on their HCM for recruiting are entrusting a tool that isn’t dedicated to talent acquisition. As a result, they lose candidates. They frustrate recruiters. And they end up buying add-ons that ease —
Organizations frustrated or alarmed by these issues should consider an applicant tracking system.
What is an ATS? An applicant tracking system, or ATS, is a unified software program dedicated to a company’s recruitment needs. An ATS allows an organization to collect and store candidate and job-related data. It enables recruiters to track and monitor the progress of candidates through all stages of the hiring process.
Applicant tracking systems don’t just replace outdated methods of attracting and managing job applications. When they’re paired with a robust all-in-one hiring platform, they enhance the entire process from end to end: From the candidate applying for the job to the recruiter searching for the future employee.
Employers can depend on an ATS to:
It’s vital to give recruiters the tools they need. When TA pros use tools made for recruiting — and recruiting alone — they’re enabled to hire and retain a transformative workforce. What’s more, the tools keep up with industry trends and tech innovations.
As we explore the benefits an ATS provides, keep this in mind: An HCM hurts the candidate experience and frustrates recruiters and managers. In contrast, an ATS enhances the candidate experience and helps recruiters work smarter. These improvements translate to many tangible results, but none so as obvious or impactful as improved talent acquisition.
The goal of recruiting is to transform the best candidates into employees. Any issues within the recruiting process, then, thwart that goal. These issues may range from small frustrations like endless emailing to major blunders like bad communication.
HCMs lose promising candidates. When employers count on HCMs to carry recruiting, they put candidate relationships at risk with:
Employers may be tempted to adopt an HCM when they hear that it does it all. But HCMs trade breadth for excellence, and the candidate experience suffers as a result.
An ATS prioritizes the candidate experience. The system is built for job seekers, featuring:
The modern job seeker expects companies to offer a swift and satisfying hiring process. Using an ATS, companies ensure every applicant receives a timely response to their application and encounters a seamless experience with their potential employer.
The success of your talent acquisition program depends on your recruiters. With the wrong tools, recruiters are mired in resume-scanning, candidate-screening and scheduling. When recruiters are empowered by good tools, they can get strategic about TA. They can spend their time building talent pipelines, designing recruitment marketing plans and perfecting the company’s approach to onboarding.
HCMs frustrate recruiters. According to Gartner, HCM recruiting modules are the most used — yet also the most disliked — modules by recruiting teams. These platforms offer an all-in-one approach to HR (not talent acquisition). And while the solutions promise simplicity, they leave recruiters without the tools and information they need. Solutions like CRM, career sites, and text recruiting are rarely included by HCMs in their offerings. They may also lack connections between solutions across the platform and innovations to attract and engage talent.
Recruiters will miss what HCMs lack. And when they need to find solutions to bridge the gap between what they have and what they need, their organization will have two choices: Devote more spend to add-ons or give up on their recruiting goals.
iCIMS customer, NorthStar Anesthesia, agrees. Here’s what its director of provider integrations said:
iCIMS allows us a lot more flexibility overall and is much more user friendly. Pulling data out of our HCM was so difficult that we just could not get anything we needed in any useful format. None of this was possible with just an HCM.
ATS offers a better option. An ATS that’s part of an all-in-one talent platform is built specifically for recruiting (not HR processes like payroll). It equips talent acquisition specialists with the tools they need to find good candidates fast.
When employers choose an applicant tracking system that can scale, they invest in a platform built for candidates and recruiters. Candidates enjoy a simple, fast application process. And recruiters increase their efficiency to fill positions faster.
To learn how to build a business case for an all-in-one hiring platform, sign up for this webinar.
Alex is well-versed in content and digital marketing. He blends a passion for sharp, persuasive copy with creating intuitive user experiences on the web. A natural storyteller, Alex highlights customer successes and amplifies their best practices.
Alex earned his bachelor’s degree at Fairleigh Dickinson University before pursuing his master’s at Montclair State University. When not at work, Alex enjoys hiking, studying history and homebrewing beer.
