A resume formatting service is a wonderful tool to have, but they are not all equal. Some are better than others, providing a more comprehensive list of features, stronger security, and more convenient pricing. Some are just not right for your needs, it’s too much software and too much cost or it is better suited to a business trying to address different goals. This is starting to sound like Goldilocks here, but it really can be too little software, too much software, or simply just the wrong fit. You need to know what goals you are trying to address and find a resume formatting service that meets those needs and provides the flexibility of payment and upgrade options to meet your business’ growing needs.

How to Know Which Resume Formatting Service Is Right for You

The primary consideration when it comes to purchasing a resume formatting service is how many customization options you need and how many the software offers.

Resume formatting services come with a wide variety of features, offering you varying amounts of control over the formatting. Learn all you can about them and give the software a free trial run or demo to prove you can customize the formats to your needs.

Just to Make Them the Same

If you have a very small business and don’t deal with recruiters or other hiring managers, your needs are probably pretty small. You might want a resume formatting service simply to make all the resumes the same format so they’re easier to read, the details may not be very important to you.

A simple, inexpensive resume formatting service would be a viable option. You will probably actually enjoy that it is uncomplicated. In this situation, you’ll want to think about ease of use and the “feel” of the software.

Blind Hiring

If you want to use a resume formatting service to help with blind hiring, you should pay particular attention to the unconscious bias triggers the software will eliminate and how much control you have over them. For instance, you may want to eliminate only some of the triggers. Will it let you change this?

There are many controls for blind hiring, name removal, address removal, photo removal, and education removal. You’ll want to know which ones are important to you, which ones the software you are considering offers, and whether you want to isolate the different features if you wish. It doesn’t do much good to have a feature if you never use it because it’s part of an automatic process that includes things you don’t want.

Contact Information

It may be important to you to be able to remove the candidate’s contact information, particularly if you deal with hiring managers who like to contact candidates you were supposed to be speaking to. You’ll want to know if the resume formatting service you’re considering has this capability and what kind of options it provides you.

Branding

You may want branding tools. If so, it’s important to find a resume formatting service that not only has branding features, but has the ones you most want. And how do the branding features function? You need to know how much control you’ll have.

Watermarks, custom headers, custom footers and more can be expertly used to your advantage to strengthen your brand and protect your time and financial investments.

Unlimited Options

Some resume formatting services, like iReformat, offer unlimited capability on many features like the number of resumes that can be formatted at once, the number of templates you can have, and so on.

If you work with a small number of resumes, this may not be important to you, particularly if it comes with a more expensive package.

For moderate or extensive resume handling, you’ll need unlimited. If you end up having to do extra work to compensate for the fact that the software will only handle a set number of resumes, it detracts from the benefit of the software. Imagine needing to perform one task and having to wait because you’re still telling the software to handle another batch.

Maybe you don’t need unlimited right now, but you never know when you’ll suddenly find yourself in that position.

Compatibility

You may want your resume formatting service to integrate with other software or be compatible with certain devices. It’s important to consider things like this when choosing your software.

Consider where you plan to read and handle most of your resumes. What about the people you’ll be sharing resumes with?

iReformat can be integrated with Microsoft Office and used on your iPhone. If you want handle resumes on your iPhone, or if you already use Microsoft Office for many of your hiring needs, it can be quite convenient to tie these devices and software together to save time and headaches switching between programs or having to wait until you get back to the office.

Research any resume formatting service you consider purchasing to ensure it meets your needs and wants, in regard to software compatibility.

Resume Document Format

When the resume formatting service finishes formatting the resume, it will have to save it as a file. What format will the file be? You want it to be a file format that is useful for you and anyone you’ll be sending the resume to.

iReformat can save resumes as .docx, .pdf, .txt, and more file formats. These are compatible with most users’ needs.

Changes

Businesses change and so will your needs for a resume formatting service. The software or plan that is perfect for you this year may not be enough next year, or it may cost too much for you to keep using during a lean time. Look for a vendor who allows you to upgrade, downgrade, and cancel anytime without penalty.

The technology should also be improving. The best vendors fix bugs, solve problems, and keep up with current trends and their customers’ suggestions. Discover how the vendor of the resume formatting service you are considering handles improvements and updates so you always have the best software they can offer. Do they frequently update? Is it easy to install their new updates? Do they listen to their customers’ input?

Options

The best resume formatting service vendor will provide you with many options so you can choose the package that best fits your needs. Saving money but not getting the true benefits of the program and paying much more than you need to so you can get what you need as well as much more than you need are both very inefficient. Recruiting software should help you be more efficient.

iReformat offers five monthly plans so you get what you need and save yourself money by not having to buy significantly more software than you need. The number of resumes handled per month and the number of users are the criteria that most distinguish the different features.

We also make it much easier to meet your needs without going to a higher plan by offering add-ons. Let’s say the Business Basic plan that handles 250 resumes per month is perfect for your business’ needs, except you really need to process 275. You don’t want to upgrade to the 500 resume per month plan. That’s twice as much as you need just to handle 25 extra resumes. So we offer you the ability to pay per each additional resume, only .46 cents. You can do the same thing with users. This costs $3.95 per additional user.

Free Trial

It is difficult, if not impossible, to foresee if a resume formatting service will work for you without giving it a trial run. You can read the details, but you can’t imagine all the potential pitfalls and you can’t get a sense for how it “feels” to use the software. You’ve got to get in there, start trying to use it, and see how it works and what you find yourself wanting or needing to do with the features, before you can be sure if it’s a match.

Look for a resume formatting service that allows you a free trial and perhaps a demo. The free trials where you can use the software with all of its features for a limited period of time are the most helpful. Demos allow you to try the software with the guidance of an expert so you can ask questions and receive a sort of training before purchasing the software and taking a stab at it on your own.

Conclusion

A resume formatting service may be great on paper and loved by many, but that doesn’t mean it is enjoyable for you personally to use or that it has the unique combination of features that your business needs. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all wonderful resume formatting service. That’s why there are so many of them. You have to find the one that meets your needs and preferences. Consider your business goals, research the features of any software you consider, and use free trials before purchasing to ensure you get the software you want the first time.

It’s important to understand the features of a small business applicant tracking system when determining which system to buy. Each system can be quite different, and if you just pick one that sounds good, you might miss out on things you need and pay for things you never use. We’ll use the features of our small business applicant tracking system, Recruiteze, as an example to help you understand what you’re getting when you purchase an applicant tracking system.

Understanding the Features Offered by a Small Business Applicant Tracking System

Job Board Posting

Small business applicant tracking systems with automatic job board posting can save you a staggering amount of time in which you’d normally be doing nothing but submitting a new job opening to each job board you want it on. That’s a complete waste.

An applicant tracking system will usually include some feature to automate this process for you, but you want to learn how many job boards it will submit to so you can ensure it will meet your needs. Some applicant tracking systems may only automatically submit to one or a small number of job boards when you need to post to different boards or more boards than it handles.

Bulk Uploads

All of your old and new resumes need to be stored in one system to help you stay organized and so you can enjoy features like candidate search. To achieve this wonderful state, applicant tracking systems give you the ability to upload old resumes to your system. This feature is also helpful if you receive resumes from other sources than your careers page, such as emails from someone you know or results from sourcing software.

If you have to submit one or a few resumes at a time to an applicant tracking system, it is a time-wasting exercise that is counterproductive to the purpose of your system. Check the number of uploads the applicant tracking system you’re considering says it can handle at one time. Unlimited is ideal!

Resume Parsing

When a resume is uploaded to the system, old or new, it is scanned and turned into searchable information so the system can connect the candidate to a certain job or manager and make it possible for you to search them by a wide variety of parameters. No more sorting through resumes.

This process is performed automatically when you upload a resume or a resume is sent to the system from the careers page, and it only takes seconds.

Duplicate Prevention

If someone has sent you multiple resumes, rather than your system being disorganized by keeping each separate resume like they are multiple candidates, the system will combine the information for that candidate into one file so you can keep track of every dealing with the candidate and not think you have more candidates than you do. This is a major improvement in organization and efficiency.

You may be wondering how it does this. The system recognizes the candidate by their email address and groups all resumes with that email address into the same candidate file.

Candidate Workflow

A workflow is the path your candidate takes through the hiring process, such as applying, phone interviewing, face-to-face interviewing, and training. Small business applicant tracking systems track a candidate’s progress, helping you to stay organized and efficient, reduce hiring times, and appear more professional. You don’t have to keep up with the candidate’s progress yourself, saving you time and preventing errors. And if multiple managers will be engaging with the same candidates, they can instantly get up to date on the candidates’ status.

It is possible with some applicant tracking systems to customize the workflow to your business’ own hiring process. If this is important to you, ensure you that you can customize it and learn what can be customized about the workflow.

Responsive

Information about small business applicant tracking systems will usually include the term, “responsive.” This means the software is responsive to the demands of the device it is viewed on. Instead of an interface staying the same size and format for pcs and smartphones and giving users a frustrating and potentially unusable interface, a responsive design allows the interface to appear differently on different devices so it works optimally no matter what device a person is accessing the interface with.

This is important if you plan to:

• use your applicant tracking system on the go
• if multiple people will be using the applicant tracking system and may use different devices
• you’re offering an online job application to your candidates (you’ll want to do this)

Careers Page

A careers page is a portion of a business’ website dedicated to information about hiring. It may include job openings, contact information, a list of benefits, a corporate mission statement, or anything you want to include to make the hiring process smoother and build your employer brand.

A small business applicant tracking system can help with this by keeping your job openings in sync with the job openings you list on job boards and in your system.

It should also give you options to control how the page looks and what information is displayed. Learn what options are available to you when selecting your applicant tracking system to see what will most fit your needs.

Bear in mind that the more information you provide, the better candidates you’ll receive. This allows candidate to engage in self-screening, where they discover that they aren’t a good match before sending in a resume and forcing you to figure it out and notify them. It also fosters more excitement in the candidates who are good matches. When they learn more about your business, they become more passionate about working for you.

Online Job Applications

A small business applicant tracking system can offer electronic applications accessible from the careers page so applicants can apply anytime, anywhere, and their resumes will be submitted directly to the applicant tracking system’s candidate database.

This makes the application process much more rewarding for you and the candidate, and most of them expect it now because online job applications have become so common.

It is a good idea to consider how efficient the electronic application process is. If it’s irritating, they may lose interest and try out someone else’s that’s easier. The quicker and easier you make your application process, the more resumes you’ll end up with. This means having an online job application and checking it periodically to ensure it is easy to use. You’ll need to do this to be competitive.

Candidate Notes

When you read a resume for the first time, the second time, while conducting the phone interview, during a face-to-face interview, and while communicating with them at any time, you have thoughts or gain information you want to remember. Candidate notes give you the ability to jot this information down in the file with their resume so it can easily be found again whenever reviewing the candidate’s information by any manager who uses the system.

This is excellent for both organization and efficiency and proving compliance.

Email Templates

A small business applicant tracking system should give you the ability to contact candidates directly from within the system, making it an easy one-click step. They can also automatically respond to candidates with a rejection, an invitation to interview, or to provide more information about their step in the hiring process.

Email templates are the examples the system uses to send communication. Some of these may be premade by the vendor or customized by you. If it’s important to you to have customized ones and to customize certain criteria, you’ll want to check the options the system provides before purchase.

Reporting and Analytics

You can’t have an efficient hiring process without measurable goals. You won’t know how well it’s working or what needs to be fixed for it to work at peak efficiency.

Small business applicant tracking systems include reporting and analytics features to make measuring and comparing metrics really easy and to tie it into your automated application system.

Before purchase, you’ll want to learn more about the system’s individual reporting and analytics features. Some individual metrics may be more relevant or important to your business. You’ll also want to know how it displays the information, such as whether it offer results in any format you need like by day, week, month, and year.

Time Zone Configuration

Without time zone configuration, times listed for communications and such may be confusingly different from the actual times they happened where you live and work. An applicant tracking system is supposed to make life easier, quicker, and less confusing for you. Time zone math skills don’t fit into that well.

Conclusion

Features of small business applicant tracking systems can seem very confusing to a novice. You may not understand what they are or why you need them. It’s important to educate yourself on the features an applicant tracking system can provide, and what options they can offer, so you can select the right small business applicant tracking system for your business’ unique needs.

There is a lot of competition out there, so how do you know which small company applicant tracking system is the right one for your business? You don’t want to purchase one without the right features, that is too hard to learn, or isn’t flexible in payment or upgrading options. Read on to learn what you should consider to make a wise purchase.

How to Know Which Small Company Applicant Tracking System Is Right for You

Different Kinds of Small Company Applicant Tracking Systems

There are many different applicant tracking systems to choose from. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with the features they offer so you can compare them effectively. It’s also important to understand the various services that a vendor can provide to ensure you aren’t missing out on something that would make a huge difference in the usefulness, reliability, and affordability for your small company applicant tracking system. Features are crucial, but you can’t use even the best features if the software doesn’t work or you can’t afford it anymore.

Your Needs

Is the software meeting your needs? A snazzy new small company applicant tracking system isn’t doing you much good if it isn’t addressing the needs of your individual business. It may be a top-rated, excellent bit of software, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for you or that your business will benefit from using it.

You’ll have to define what you need, whether that is to:

• reduce hiring costs
• improve retention rates
• attract more, better candidates
• improve candidate experience
• make better hires
• Improve diversity

People talk about how much help recruiting software and applicant tracking systems are, and it isn’t just talk. Small company applicant tracking systems can help your business tremendously, if you buy one specifically targeted to meet your needs. Otherwise, it’s just a pain in the neck and expense to boot. A poor choice of small company applicant tracking system could turn you off the software altogether and you could mistakenly miss out on the advantages of a really helpful tool.

You may need a combination CRM and ATS. Thankfully, many CRMs and ATSs combine features of the other type to meet business’ exact needs. This is why it’s important to understand the features, so you can determine the individual things you need rather than just checking for a term and assuming that software will be great for you.

The Right Features

Will you use most of the features? You want to limit paying for features you won’t use and don’t think you’ll need in the foreseeable future.

For a very small business, you may want to offer candidates the convenience of online applications, but have a fairly simple interview and hiring process that doesn’t require much need for complicated workflow features.

You may not need a lot of fancy features that have to do with sharing information between multiple managers if you do all the hiring yourself and don’t plan to have anyone else do it in the foreseeable future.

One of your primary reasons for wanting a small company applicant tracking system might be so multiple owners or hiring managers can collaborate wherever they are. If so, you can’t do without the capability for multiple users and responsiveness to all devices. Compatibility and integration with other software will also help.

It’s all about your business’ unique goals and needs and not getting misled into thinking a popular small company applicant tracking system is necessarily the right answer. It may not be the right fit for your needs, in which case it may be more irritating than a help and you may have to pay too much for it.

Jobs

How many open jobs do you typically have per month? If you really do a small amount of hiring, you could benefit from online job applications and resume storage and you’ll like the automatic job board submissions and other such features, but you won’t have the same kind of demand for these features as someone who posts a lot of job openings on a regular basis. Enjoy it, but don’t worry about these features and pay extra for them, unless they’re an important part of your business’ goals.

All of our plans at Recruiteze feature unlimited jobs. Exciting! But if you were going to try to go with another applicant tracking system, you would need to check to be sure that the plan you want to buy handles the amount of jobs you need per month.

Reporting and Analytics

If you don’t currently do much reporting and analytics for your hiring, then you could learn a great deal about what kind of things to analyze or new ways to measure what you already analyze. Maybe you are tracking metrics in a spreadsheet and the automated measuring from a small company applicant tracking system could take extra work off your plate.

If you are currently using reporting and analytics in other software, you’ll want to learn the details of what any applicant tracking system you are considering offers to see how it compares to or complements what you’re already doing. It may be a better or worse version of an analytics feature you have somewhere else or it may add features you currently don’t have. For instance, Recruiteze’s analytics can be measured by the day, week, month, and year. You might not have that with your current analytics software.

The Right Budget

There are small company applicant tracking systems to fit any budget. Depending on your needs, you may be able to find free, $10 per month, or $40 per month plans. For some special situations, you may be able to get a custom plan.

Consider your hiring expenses, the obvious costs as well as indirect costs like training time, retention, and reduced productivity. You may discover while doing this that you can afford more applicant tracking system than you realized, when you consider the return on investment you may receive. Businesses waste a lot of money in indirect hiring expenses, slow time-to-fill rates, and rehiring from poor retention.

Unlimited Options

A business that handles a small number of resumes per month may not need unlimited options, so if you find a small company applicant tracking system without it that you otherwise like, it’s fine for your current needs. You particularly don’t want to feel like you have pay extra to get one that has it.

If your business has a moderate or larger amount of resume traffic, you’ll probably wish you had unlimited options for things like resume uploading and email templates. If you have to keep telling the software to upload resumes or post jobs to different job boards, it cuts into the time you should be saving by using an applicant tracking system. And if you need more than one email template but the software doesn’t allow for that, the software simply isn’t helping you.

Upgrades

No small company applicant tracking system is going to be perfect for you forever. Hiring trends and technology will change. The vendor will discover things that can work better about their software, and some take suggestions from their customers. You’ll want to be able to easily implement each new improvement so you always have the best software. Look into information about the applicant tracking system to see how they describe their policies regarding upgrades.

Your business will also change. You might want to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel your software plan. Choose a vendor who offers monthly plans rather than contracts and one who allows you to switch plans and cancel any time without penalty. Everyone likes flexibility, but it’s particularly important for small businesses.

Free Trial

Make sure any small company applicant tracking system you are considering has a free trial option, preferably one where you have full use of the software for a limited period of time rather than one of those who give you limited features. It is pretty much impossible to guarantee software will work for you until you’ve tried it. You can’t imagine all the potential things you’d like to do with a feature that you may not be able to until you get in there and try to do it. You also can’t tell if you like the interface. This is important, like test-driving a car.

Look for a free trial and even a demo. A demo allows you to try out the software with the aid of an expert. This way you can ask questions and learn how things work without having to do it the hard way and then submit a support ticket. The free trials that allow you full access to the software for a short period of time are the most helpful.

Conclusion

Not every small company applicant tracking system can help your business. You have to choose the one with the right features, with flexible monthly plans, and a convenient upgrade policy. Define your business’ unique needs, such as whether you want to reduce hiring costs, hire better candidates, or improve diversity. Then educate yourself on the features offered by small company applicant tracking systems so you can determine which ones you have to have to reach your goals, and which ones are not necessary. You want to find an applicant tracking system that has the features you need and as few as possible of the ones you don’t need so you don’t end up paying for more software than you need.

“First impression is the last impression.” This quote indeed is true for the recruiters who have to sift through hundreds of resumes in a single day and select a handful of the best ones. So, presentation of the resumes holds the utmost importance. It’s the formatting of the resumes that sparks the interest in the clients or the recruiters and drives a desire in them to meet the candidate.

What Is a Resume?

A resume is a document (of one or two pages) containing the experience, skills, and other expertise of the candidate. The resume format varies from person to person and from industry to industry.

But when it comes to consultant firms or staffing agencies, they have to perform the tedious job of converting or formatting all the resumes (based on skills, or qualification etc) in one single format before submitting them to the client.

Depending on the needs of the client, the hiring manager, or the industry being served, the resumes are formatted in different formats such as skills required (functional format), experience (reverse chronological), or industry based (hybrid format). It becomes time consuming and monotonous to format each and every resume manually. By automating the resume formatting, the precious time saved can be used to capture more clients and hunt for quality resources.

The Need for an Automated Resume Formatting Service

In today’s evolving world of job interviews and job applications, it’s important to work smart rather than totally relying on hard work. So, need of the hour is to format the resume in such a way that makes it comprehensive, creative, and compelling. In other words, the resume should be capable of making the candidate stand above the rest and increase his/her chances of getting called for an interview.    

Writing a resume is not a difficult task but the formatting is. A good resume formatting service comes with an automated resume formatting tool. This tool has some built in resume templates that enable recruiters to format the resumes according to their requirements. The work can be completed within fractions of seconds. Have a look at some of other features offered by a resume formatting service.

1. Organizes Resume

Consultant firms or staffing firms make sure that the candidate’s resume looks organized and professional before they submit it to a client. A resume formatting service ensures that everything is filled out appropriately. The resume template ensures that all the important details are not missed and every bit of information is organized in a proper way.

2. No Prior Experience Required

The interface of every resume formatting tool is very user-friendly. No prior experience is needed by the staffing firms to operate the tool. The templates are very easy to customize as per the requirements. The recruiters can either use the built-in templates or can create their own, depending upon their industry needs.

3. Ideal to Cast an Impressive Impression

The resume is actually the first thing that frames the perception about the candidate. Having a great organized resume helps the employer quickly understand the things he/she has been looking for such as experience, skills, expertise etc. If the resume is not well structured, no matter how talented you are, the resume is doomed to get rejected.  Using an ideal template helps to showcase the necessary skills and talent to the employer or the client.

4. Saves Time

Manually building, formatting, and designing a resume requires a lot of time and energy. By the end of the day, a recruiter is able to format only a handful of resumes. Using an automated resume formatting tool allows a recruiter to do the same work in a few minutes. Hiring managers can save a lot of time by using resume templates.

Read More: Get a Resume Formatting Service: Stop Wasting Time and Money

In this way, staffing agencies can send the same resume to different clients or jobs for different industries. Several versions of a single resume can be created using the resume formatting tool depending upon the nature of the job application.

Tips for Choosing the Best Style for Your Resume

In order to make the resume stand above the competition, there are several choices which have to be made. Let’s have a look.

1. Know Your Audience

While formatting the resume or choosing a template, the first and foremost thing to consider is the audience and the industry for which you are applying the resume. In general, it is always a bad idea to present a loud resume i.e. using non-standards fonts, decorative elements, garbled or excessive formatting. 

While submitting the resume online, make sure that the resume is ATS (applicant tracking system) friendly. Many companies nowadays prefer to use an ATS rather than manually filtering the resumes. So, the best way is to craft a resume that is easy to comprehend by the hiring mangers and the ATSs as well. 

It is obvious for staffing agencies or firms to know the industry to which they are serving. For example: Companies from the financial sector don’t like creative resumes whereas advertising companies do make a note of the aesthetic sense.

2. Keep It Simple

Avoid any kind of fancy formatting as these things become unreadable by the applicant tracking systems. Once the resume is rejected by the ATS, the probability that the resume will be rechecked by the hiring manger is negligible. Always keep the resume simple as it increases the chances of getting selected by the ATS.  

While customizing the templates, make sure to include readable fonts such as Verdana, Times New Roman, Calibri, Arial etc. Also, stick to a font size between 10 and 12 point for better readability.

3. Be Consistent

Maintain a consistency in the complete resume or template. While customizing the template make sure that all the sections follow the same formatting rules. Try to avoid overuse of underlining, bold, italics, capitalization etc.

Want to have a look and feel of how resume formatting service works? Click here to enjoy a 15 day trial offer.

Some Unknown Features of a Resume Formatting Tool

It is very important to be qualified for a particular job opening but the thing which needs special attention is the manner those qualifications are presented to get that job. Work opportunities are increasing as the sectors are getting diversified but the number of candidates applying for those opportunities are also increasing simultaneously. The selection procedures are becoming more stringent and digitally dependent. Only the candidates who are able to represent their qualifications, experience, and skills in the best way get an interview call.

It is very important to highlight specific information, use proper font styles and sizes, and give proper heading as per the section. Have a look at some unknown features of resume formatting tools that make the resumes look professional and organized.

1. Uses White Space Liberally

A professional resume formatting service helps to create a minimum of one-inch margin on either side of the resume. It automatically leaves some blank space between two resume sections. It helps to make the resume printer friendly as well as helps in easy identification of several sections.

2. Stick with Two Fonts at the Most

It is evident that using more than two fonts in any document hampers the readability. It is always better to use one font. The choice of second font should be made in such a way that it complements the first one. Choosing a pre-defined template available in the resume formatting tool along with a finer selection of fonts helps to make the resume more readable.   

3. Uses Bullets to Emphasize Accomplishments and Skills

A resume formatting tool uses bullets to highlight accomplishments, skills, and experience. This makes it easier for recruiters to quickly scan the resume and have a glance at the indented key areas. Using bullets make the content visually appealing, printer friendly, and scannable. This ensures that the employers or the hiring managers give attention to the resume rather than just skipping the content.

An ideal resume formatting tool or service provides unprecedented resume formatting solutions that are perfectly customizable as per the needs of companies. 

Winding Up

The first impression says everything, so you have to be very careful while writing and formatting the resume. From borders to margin and from font spacing to headings, each and every element plays a crucial role in how a resume is perceived by the client. A resume is the only key for every future opportunity. Apart from gathering information and content for the resume, it is important to know how this information gets presented.

Best Free Resume Formatting Tool

With Recruiteze, you can manage your jobs, candidates, job portal, clients, hiring managers, schedules, notes and communication. Recruiteze combined with iReformat, can provide unparalleled efficiency by combining resume formatting with recruiting software. With the resume formatting tool offered by Recruiteze, you can format a resume using pre-defined custom templates within 15 seconds. A formatted resume can be submitted to the hiring manger within 15 seconds using custom email templates. Now you can see how you can greatly benefit from a staffing agency software combined with resume formatting. Try Recruiteze today for free!

Are the applicant candidates ghosting you? Are the innumerable job applications, most of which are futile, overwhelming you? Does replacing a job and finding a new one sound like a harassing task? This wouldn’t be a trauma anymore if you have installed the new and most effective small company applicant tracking system (ATS).

What Is an Applicant Tracking System?

Applicant tracking systems are on-premise or cloud-based software that automate and optimize the collection of resumes. An ATS sorts out the most trivial to the most significant hiring complications including the following:

• Posting jobs to multiple sites
• Exploring career pages
• Uploading resumes
• Parsing resumes to make them available
• Storing resumes for future use
• Communicating with the suitable candidates
• Ruling out irrelevant resumes

We know that you have installed the ATS and you simply love it. The increased efficiency and the time saved in recruiting and onboarding a new employee have now been cut down tremendously. It is a magical formula of hiring ‘the best fit’ in no time so that your work doesn’t suffer.

Here are ten signs which tell us that you are in love with the small company Applicant Tracking System:

1. Instant Online Job Board Posting

Now that your job posting ad travels across various portals without being stressed about it sounds exciting. The time wasted in posting across various job openings site can be cut down by ATS. The automated social sharing and search engine listing is an advantage for the company which would have otherwise consumed a lot of energy and time.

You are not very social media savvy or you may be pressed for time to look out for new posts. The small company applicant tracking system serves as a strong and powerful medium of reliving the hiring manager from the task of creating the job listing and then posting across various channels to start getting applications.

2. Mobile Responsive Career Page

You love the newly installed ATS because of its dynamic feature of being mobile friendly.  Your small business applicant tracking system can be in sync with your mobile, making hiring an easier and quicker process. The ease in job posting and ease in job browsing with just a click of a button have made you fall in love with your small company ATS.

Most applicants prefer applying through their mobile phones rather than desktops or laptops. Hence this mandates the need to make the application process compatible with mobile devices.

The most efficient small business ATS providers make sure that you get a full career site experience which can be scaled and optimized for the device/handset you use. The whole process of creating content, site navigation, and employer branding are within reach.

3. An Exhaustive Resume Search

What is irksome is receiving zillions of applications, when not even half are remotely close to the hiring requirements. A thorough analysis and scrutiny are done by the small company applicant tracking system and thousands of applications which are absolutely not related to the job profile will be screened.

Based on various parameters, a plethora of not-so suitable contenders are eliminated and massive time is saved. This is enough a reason to bring a million-dollar smile to your face as it relieves you the stress of hunting for the suitable application.

4. Custom Job Codes

An ATS is well-equipped to handle and align multiple job codes and link them to various job boards. Do it manually and you’ll be exhausted!

Apart from this you must have noticed that any additional field that is specific to the business can be added to the career portal. This means you can design the job applications by annexing additional features that you may want to add to customize the job openings for a specific task. We see another reason for you to smile.

5. Parsing Resumes

The trauma of scrutinizing manifold resumes and shortlisting a bare few seems like a mammoth task. Not anymore! An ATS can take care of adding/editing the candidates and their details to the database and you are relieved of the daunting task of perusing manually.

For a single job opening, screening multiple applications is futile. With an ATS, the resume parser extracts useful information from resumes and makes them accessible for any job. With parsing semantic capabilities, overuse and hyped resumes can be detected easily.

We know the reason that you are so comfortable with an ATS is because it actually sidelines junk resumes and brings up the best ones. What’s more, it can even send the appropriate candidates to the relevant managers or correct client.

6. Connectivity of Job Applications and Career Page

A small company applicant tracking system enables hosting of the career page where the job applications can easily connect. Now you have an attractive career page which can be easily accessed through a unique link. The job opening information is displayed on the link and candidates can apply there.

A user-friendly career page gives a touch of professionalism and streamlines the process of hiring and recruiting. Since this career site is the candidate facing-front end, the content should be relevant, compatible, and compelling for easy job search and search engines.

A customized career page annexed to recruiting software is a big shout-out for branding opportunities. Built-in and customizable integrations reduce redundant data entry tasks and streamline work flow. A self-screening career page is the need of the future!

7. Track Candidates

An ATS is a powerful database for the company for current and future requirements. It helps with tracking candidates to enable them to shortlist for custom and standard fields.

To streamline workflow an ATS refines the search by filtering needs like requisition and location. The most precise needs of the organization can easily be met with a customized small company applicant tracking system. We know that you benefit from this one immensely.

8. Flexible Workflows

Apart from tracking candidates and the records, an ATS makes the workflow smoother by catering to varied demands of different managers and departments.

An ATS can incorporate various questions, location details, educational backgrounds, and other technical aspects that can make the data handy and available in case of specific needs. The pre-screening questions and organizing of the workflow by positions is what endears ATS to small and big businesses alike.

All this paves the way quickly and easily for further interviews and screening.

9. Customized E-Mail Templates

Handling bulk e-mails and responding to all the job applications is an overwhelming task. This is well taken care of by an ATS that is equipped with in-depth e-mail integration. Sending personal or bulk e-mails to user-specified candidate groups can simplify the communication process. This e-mail integration system links the personal e-mail accounts from various clients and makes them accessible within the small company applicant tracking system. Well-crafted and personalized recruiting e-mail templates helps reduce the workload.

Sending out personalized bulk e-mails to various candidates and clients was never so easy!

10. Effective Communication

Hassle-free and effective communication to acclimatize the newly recruited employee keeps the workflow moving.  Communicating with the candidates a receipt of their application, rejecting candidates, and facilitating the hiring process are all a mandatory part of the ATS software. It further helps by sending a rejection letter or letter for interview to the right candidate.

Communicating from within the software when their application has come in and you have accumulated their resume and notes is essentially a boon with an ATS. An ATS enables sending thoughtful automated communications and makes the whole process of communication transparent and effective.

 Wrap-Up

Stress levels have been eased with the updated applicant tracking system (ATS). Right from sourcing candidates, posting to job boards, replying individually by mails, uploading and formatting resumes, to organizing information about the candidates was never so easy. Now you have organized and streamlined the whole process of hiring and recruiting. It has been synchronized for future job referrals as well.

Free Small Company Applicant Tracking System

With Recruiteze you will have access to the best mobile responsive hiring software. Our small company applicant tracking system is ingrained with the custom job board, unlimited e-mail templates, unlimited resume formatting and parsing. Start a free trial today and you will fall in love with the ease of recruiting the most suitable candidate. Potential employees will love the feel of a professional, transparent and quick recruiting process.

If you’re thinking of purchasing a small business applicant tracking system, you may be very confused by the mentions of a small business applicant tracking system, ATSs, and candidate relationship management systems, CRMs. What’s the difference? Aren’t they both software for helping people manage their candidates? Yes, they are. The difference is that they do distinct things with the candidates, serving separate steps of the hiring process. While we just answered that question, it gets a bit more complicated. Sometimes one software will combine the features of the other type. Read on to learn more.

Small Business Applicant Tracking System or CRM?

They Are the Same in Several Ways

They both store and manage resumes, helping you stop wasting valuable time, optimize hiring efforts, and improve candidate experience. It’s nearly impossible for a hiring manager to not be swamped. This can result in not doing as good of a job as you should because you’re rushed. So many of the tasks that you find yourself doing could easily be automated. ATSs and CRMs do the mindless tasks for you and provide organizational functions for the rest.

You can simply type in a keyword in both types of software, rather than having to manually go through resumes, at least scanning them to figure out if they match certain criteria, whether for the initial reading or to revisit later. That’s a lot less time and a lot less potential for overlooking something.

With both types of software, anyone using the system can quickly see where everyone is at in the hiring process, so multiple managers and replacement managers can do their jobs with peak efficiency.

You can share notes on candidates to eliminate rereadings, keep all your information on the candidate in one place, and let anyone using the system know what you know. No backtracking and no searching for information. It’s all at your fingertips.

Both combine resumes from the same candidate under that candidate’s file. This is known as deduplication. It eliminates issues that can arise when the same candidate has sent you multiple resumes, either because they didn’t like the first one or because this is not the first time they’ve applied to one of your jobs. Normally, it would look like multiple candidates, but the software combines it into one candidate file with all of their information, including times you may have communicated with them and even interviewed them in the past.

Both provide reporting and analytics to help you measure and optimize your hiring process. You might discover how long it takes you to fill a position, how many of the people who apply to your jobs actually get interviewed, and more. Without them, you would either have to try measure all these metrics yourself or use some other software.

What Is a Small Business Applicant Tracking System?

Applicant tracking systems are on-premise or cloud-based software that automate and optimize the collection of resumes.

This typically covers job postings, careers pages, uploading, parsing (making it available to be searched), storing resumes, and automatically communicating with candidates.

One job posting can be instantly submitted to many job boards with a click, saving you so much completely wasted time. I mean, why would anyone need to manually submit the same job posting to several sites? That’s just a time suck.

A careers page with online job applications gives candidates a convenient method for applying to your job opening and provides you with amazing branding opportunities. Using a small business applicant tracking system makes creating your careers page and integrating it with your recruiting software, or in this case it already coming with your recruiting software, easy and extremely cost-effective.

An applicant tracking system automatically uploads all resumes received to its database and parses them for searching and for pairing up with job openings and relevant managers. It can even send the appropriate candidates to the correct manager.

Applicant tracking systems also automatically respond to candidates. It will send all candidates an immediate notice of receipt for their application. It also facilitates the next step of the hiring process, rejecting candidates and sending them a rejection letter or inviting candidates to interview.

An applicant tracking system also gives you communication options from within the software, meaning you can easily contact a candidate from the same place you’re looking at their resume and the notes you’ve collected about them. No more searching for scattered notes or pairing resumes with notes and getting them out for an interview. It’s all right there.

What Is a Candidate Relationship Management System?

Candidate relationship management systems are on-premise or cloud-based software that store resumes, track candidate relationships, and remind hiring managers of old applicants that are right for new jobs.

You may have to add the resumes to the CRM, unless it is connected to other recruiting software or a careers page.

A CRM will probably have more advanced searching features than an ATM because the handling of already acquired resumes is a greater percentage of its purpose.

A CRM will also probably have more detailed workflow reporting for the same reason.

You can use CRM talent pipelines of prospective and current employees to optimize, strategize, and diversify hiring for each job opening.

Remember that candidate with the _______? Normally you’d have to manually search all your resumes to find this candidate, but with a CRM, you can easily search all the resumes in your CRM by keywords. You might also not have to search at all. CRMs will suggest past candidates for new job openings so you don’t have to remember any details or have to even look for them yourself.

Some CRMs also go into the onboarding stage, helping to track each candidate’s progress through this crucial and usually under managed stage. You could potentially see how far they’ve progressed and their success at each stage.

Some also contain surveys to gain information from candidates, helping you create a better candidate experience.

They’re Also Often Combined

You’re probably saying, what? And everything was starting to seem simple. The fact that these two types of software are combined is not as odd as it seems considering they both tackle separate stages of the hiring process, one focusing on the acquiring of new resumes while one leans more to building candidate relationships. These are complimentary tasks that follow a logical flow.

While researching either a small business applicant tracking system or a recruitment CRM, you will probably notice that the vendor either mentions both types of software or is clearly boasting functions that go with the other type of software than is described. Vendors are creating the most effective software by utilizing functions from both types, so customers, rather than purchasing two types of software, can buy one that covers more features.

This means you’ll have to decide which functions are most crucial to your hiring objectives and make sure whichever software you are thinking of purchasing contains those features. You want to have all of the crucial ones and maybe some of the nice-to-haves, with no or very few features you don’t think you’ll use or don’t really need. This is how you can ensure you aren’t paying for more recruiting software than you need and that you don’t get bogged down with features to learn or have to avoid functions that you don’t want. You may get overwhelmed or frustrated with a lot more software than you need.

A Small Business Applicant Tracking System Example in Recruiteze

Here’s an example of a small business applicant tracking system to give you an idea of how all this works.

Recruiteze offers:

• instant online job board posting
• a mobile responsive careers page
• online job applications tied into the careers page
• custom job codes
• resume searches using a variety of parameters
• connecting applicants to the correct client or hiring manager
• email functions in the ATS, for bulk and individual emails
• custom workflow to track candidates through your unique hiring process
• candidate note functions
• custom email templates
• reporting and analytics for many metrics, searchable by day, week, month, and year

Some of these features, like resume searching, candidate notes, and candidate workflows fit more into the CRM realm. You might find other small business applicant tracking systems, particularly ones in the same price range, without these features, as well as others that Recruiteze offers.

If this software sounds good to you, you should look at their website to learn about other features this software boasts that don’t necessarily fit into this post.

Conclusion

It is easy to get confused about the difference between a small business applicant tracking system and a recruitment CRM. They both help hiring managers store and manage resumes, but an ATS focuses more on the acquisition of resumes while a recruitment CRM focuses more on building candidate relationships. They are so complimentary to each other that vendors of recruiting software often combine functions from the two types together. You should learn the features of both types, determine which ones are most important to you, and choose recruiting software with those features with few if any features you don’t need.

Do you find yourself or your hiring managers spending too much time formatting resumes? Taking the time to appreciate the candidate and make a good match is one thing, wasting time on mindless tasks is another. Resume formatting is not a useful function in itself, rather its usefulness comes in what it helps the reader do with the resume. This makes resume formatting an excellent opportunity to use automation to make your hiring process more efficient, saving you time, headaches, and money. Below we’ll be taking a deep dive into how an online resume formatting system can save you time and money!

Get an Online Resume Formatting System: Stop Wasting Time and Money

What Is Resume Formatting?

For those who know nothing about it, resume formatting is the act of entering a resume into a spreadsheet or candidate relationship management system (recruitment CRM) with a set format, and ensuring all resumes match this format.

A client or HR department designates a certain format for all resumes and either a person or a piece of software conforms each resume to that format.

This is not a design issue, it is making the way the information in the resumes is displayed uniform.

Why Does a Business Need Resume Formatting?

There are many reasons for wanting to change a resume format.

One may want to remove the candidate’s contact information to prevent the reader from performing your task. This keeps a client from calling a candidate themselves rather than letting the recruiter do it or a member of the hiring team accidentally calling another member’s candidate.

It jars the brain to read many resumes that all look different. Recruiters and hiring managers read dizzying amounts of resumes in a short period of time. Comparing a resume in one format to one in a completely different format over and over confuses the recruiter and makes reading the resumes take up too much time. Think about all the things that can be different including varying name formats, date formats, differing orders of information from education to experience to descriptions, a lack of certain sections like a description, the use of bullets or not using bullets. The list goes on and on.

When you return to a resume to answer a question for yourself or to refresh yourself for an interview, it’s a lot quicker and easier to know exactly where to look for the information because the resume is in the same format as every other one in your possession.

You may want to hide information in the resume to encourage a blind hiring strategy. If you’re working hard on your diversity efforts and want to employ blind hiring, any information that may tip off a hiring manager to certain triggers for unconscious bias needs to be hidden. This could include photos, names, addresses, schools, and more. They can’t have a bias toward it if they can’t see it.

You can use headers and footers to further the brand of your recruiting firm or add information you’d like to have attached to all resumes like the contact information for your recruiting firm.

Isn’t This Extra Work, Taking More Valuable Time?

Yes it is. Manually formatting resumes takes up a great deal of time. Specifically, it takes 5 to 40 minutes to manually format a resume, depending on how much formatting the resume needs. The average time is 20 minutes. When you do that with dozens of resumes in a day, it adds up to a significant chunk of time. This is time that recruiters and hiring managers could be using to tackle much more important things like actually getting to know the candidates and building effective hiring strategies.

The answer is not to avoid formatting resumes, because this task is extremely helpful. Rather, one should use a resume formatting service to automate the resume formatting step.

With an automated resume formatting service, resumes are formatted to your specifications in less than 15 seconds. You get a perfectly formatting resume set to your business’ needs without wasting valuable time making it happen.

How Does an Online Resume Formatting System Work?

You create a resume format per your needs, known as a resume template. Then, connect your careers page to your resume formatting service, or upload resumes into it, and the online resume formatting system will make all the changes for you in seconds. You can then download them, email them, or have them added to the CRM.

Resume formatting features include:

• applying one standard font
• applying one standard date format, month/day or day/month, etc.
• applying a standard name format, first name first or last name first, etc.
• removing contact information, if desired
• adding a footer
• removing footers
• adding a header
• making all bullet lists look the same
• adding a watermark
• adjusting the margins
• removing unnecessary spaces
• removing colors
• removing styles such as bold, italicized, or highlighted text
• standardization of tables in resumes
• highlighting sections of particular interest, such as the skills section
• automatic text alignment to left, right, or center

Who Can Benefit From a Resume Formatting Service?

You may be thinking that your small business is too small to warrant the use and cost of a resume formatting service. You would be mistaken, in this case happily so. Resume formatting services can suit any business. The award-winning online resume formatting system, iReformat has a $29.95 a month plan for 50 resumes a month and a free plan for 3 resumes a month as well as larger plans, of course. Their average plan is $112.95 for 250 resumes a month.

If you do pretty much any hiring, there is a resume formatting service for you.

There’s no risk involved, at least not with iReformat.

They offer free trials for all of their plans, except the custom enterprise plan. You can get the feel of the software at no expense, and they don’t even ask for your credit card information like most companies do with free trials.

You can also change your plan, upgrading or downgrading at any time depending on your need. There’s no contract, just monthly pricing you can change at any time. This is particularly important for small businesses who need to frequently adapt to larger or smaller budgets.

Are There Downsides to Using an Automated Resume Formatting Service?

There is one. Because it is automated, it doesn’t work the same as a human brain. It can be better than a human, working faster and not getting tired or bored. But it also can’t reason out unexpected issues like a human brain. If someone sends a resume that the software can’t process, it can produce poor results or a discarded resume.

Thankfully, this is pretty rare. Vendors of recruiting software work to reduce the possibility of it all the time.

There is also a lot of advice online for job candidates to educate themselves on how to craft a resume that recruiting software can read effectively. New resume templates suggested to candidates will also take recruiting software into consideration.

To prevent the occasions where it may still occur, despite all those measures to prevent it, your careers page should include tips on providing resumes that can be read by the online resume formatting system. If people still submit a resume that can’t be processed after online advice and your own suggestions, then it appears their research and thorough reading skills need some work.

What You Should Expect from an Online Resume Formatting System

Well, the first order of business is to determine if it handles the amount of resumes you need. You will, of course, have to know how many resumes you receive per month on average.

Choose a vendor who offers plans that allow you to create your own custom templates and to have an unlimited number of them. You may not need this at first, but should you want to upgrade, it’s important to have that option.

Find one that offers free trials so you can determine if you like it before you purchase. There’s no reason you should have to take that risk.

Choose a vendor who uses monthly plans rather than contracts. People hate contracts because they can’t cancel, upgrade, or downgrade a service as needed. This can cause stress and unnecessary costs. You may be locked into software that doesn’t suit your needs anymore.  Thankfully, some vendors let you pay by the month and change or cancel your plan on a whim. You want those.

Read what the vendor tells you about their security policy to ensure your information is safe from hacking and data loss.

Consider customer service. You don’t want your hiring initiatives to be slowed down if your resume formatting software stops working. You should read what the vendor says about their customer service policies and look for reviews from past and current users.

Conclusion

An online resume formatting system is software that automates the process of making all resumes fit the same set format. All your resumes can have dates and names in the same format, contain no contact information for sending to clients, have sections displayed in the same order, and more. And you don’t have to do anything. This saves hiring managers and recruiters a lot of time that they can spend on more worthwhile hiring activities. Don’t think it’s not for you either, any business can use and afford a resume formatting service.

Is there anyone even dipping their toes into business who hasn’t heard about recruitment software? But what is recruiting software? Just because you’ve heard the term doesn’t mean you have any idea what it refers to. You may also have misconceptions about what the term means. This post will sort out everything you need to know about recruiting software at this point in your purchase decision.

What Is Recruitment Software?

Recruiting software is any software designed for hiring and recruiting efforts. This is a broad category.

Recruitment software includes:

• Social media aggregators that search social media for potential candidates, filling a powerful sourcing niche.
• Resume spiders that search the internet for resumes, also providing a powerful sourcing function.
• Candidate relationship management systems, or CRMs, that store candidate resumes and suggest them for current and future jobs.
• Applicant tracking systems, or ATSs, that optimize both the acquiring and handling of resumes.
• Interviewing software that helps you manage and conduct interviews, even video interviewing.

All recruiting software serves the purpose of automating and/or optimizing recruiting efforts. They aren’t intended to do the hiring manager’s work for them, only to help the hiring manager work more effectively by taking mindless tasks off of them and organizing their efforts.

The two most popular types of recruitment software, CRMs and ATSs do some or all of the following:

• post job openings to many job boards in an instant
• offer a careers page for candidates to apply easily online and on a mobile device
• format and upload resumes
• store resumes
• match stored candidates with jobs and the appropriate hiring manager, if there is more than one
• notify candidates that their application has been received
• reject candidates
• reach out to candidates for more information or an invitation to interview
• keep candidates informed of their status in the hiring process
• help you remember their status in the hiring process
• let anyone else you want to use the system know where a candidate is in the hiring process

CRMs and ATSs usually also provide reports and analytics to help you optimize your hiring process with metrics such as the time-to-hire and how many candidates who applied were interviewed.

Why a Business Needs Online Recruitment Software

Recruiting software serves so many beneficial functions.

It saves businesses scads of money by reducing time wasted, costs of high turnover, costs of low productivity, and direct hiring costs.

It helps businesses achieve better hires, increase productivity, and build or improve their employer brand.

It makes meeting compliance and diversity goals much easier. Automated functions mean a human brain had no chance to employ conscious or unconscious bias in different stages of the hire, and because all the information and a record of steps taken is contained in the software, there is proof that no discrimination took place.

It improves your business’ culture and helps you reach your goals. The hiring manager is swamped right now which means they are taking too long to hire and making decisions while rushed. It’s much better if they have more time to strategize, plan, and make smarter hiring choices.

It’s better for your candidates. You can attract and hold onto better talent with more efficient hiring practices. Slow hire times run candidates off. A hiring manager with more time can also devote more attention to candidate communication and better onboarding.

How to Know If Your Small Business Needs Recruiting Software

Any business needs recruitment software if it does enough hiring in a year to have to think about what they’re spending on hiring or whether their hiring efforts are effective. There’s not really any such thing as too small, unless you don’t really have to employ anyone and you just keep someone on most of the time to make your life easier.

You particularly need recruiting software if you’ve found yourself:

• frustrated by hiring
• wondering how to attract candidates
• wanting to attract better candidates
• feeling that you’re spending too much time on hiring
• spending too much money on hiring
• wasting time trying to find the application or resume of someone who applied so you can call them
• feeling that you rushed through a hiring decision because you were tired
• getting complaints from candidates about the method they must use to apply or a lack of communication

These are signs that you are wasting time, money, and mental resources on your hiring process, and that your hiring process is struggling.

It’s Not Too Expensive

1. Recruiting software more than pays for itself. Between the money you save and the increased profits you gain, what money you spend on your recruiting software is just a really sound investment.
   

2. Recruiting software doesn’t have to cost anything. Vendors sometimes offer free online recruitment software, such as the free version of Recruiteze’s ATS. Even our paid versions are only $9.95 and $39.95. Just about any business can afford that.

It’s also possible, and recommended, to purchase recruiting software with a monthly payment plan rather than a contract so you can upgrade or downgrade and even change recruiting software as you need to.

It’s Not Too Hard to Learn

Vendors make recruiting software easier and more enjoyable to use all the time. The most difficult part, if there even is one, is the initial setup of connecting accounts.

You can ensure you get recruiting software that is easy and enjoyable for you personally to use by utilizing free trials and demos. Free trials are an excellent opportunity to learn more about recruiting software in general and to discover what it will actually be like to use an individual software option in your day-to-day operations. Demos allow you to try out the program with the aid of an expert so you don’t have to waste time winging it.

It’s Secure

Recruiting software is actually a safer option than just keeping your hiring information on your device. The security measures you’ve taken in your business to prevent hacking are not as strong as those a reputable vendor of recruiting software would utilize. Because most small business recruiting software works via the cloud, your information is stored in a secure server offsite and backed up frequently, so you are protected from disasters that could cause devastating data loss.

How to Purchase and Use Recruiting Software

You begin by defining your hiring goals and your reasons for using recruitment software. Your primary need may be to reduce hiring times, attract and hire better candidates, or reduce turnover. Consider these goals to determine the type of recruiting software you need and the features it should have.

Select recruiting software you are interested in, try it out, purchase it, and follow the instructions for tailoring the software to your business.

Use your business’ unique culture and the goals you defined to create your initial strategy for keywords, how you write the emails the system will automatically send out, and so forth.

Run a couple of test candidates through, or pretend to be a candidate yourself, and see if the system responds as you expect it to. Since it will pick and reject candidates based on your specifications, you want to be sure you set it up correctly.

Enjoy the system for a while, and use the time you save from the system to reevaluate your strategy and improve on it.

You should create new hiring goals to:

• create job ads and a careers page that creates or complements your employer brand and helps you self-screen candidates
• send more communications to candidates during the hiring process and to make communications more informative
• create a hiring process that better suits your needs, including the number and structure of interviews
• Find even better keywords than the ones you started with
• Evaluate your strategy for selecting candidates to see if there is room for improvement. There always is!

Repeat this improvement process on a regular basis such as every six months to a year.

Also, check the recruitment software periodically, such as every six months, to ensure it is still functioning as you intended. Run some test “candidates” through to see what it does and tweak it if it isn’t matching your expectations.

You don’t want to run your recruiting software and assume it’s doing your work for you or that it is perfect. It is as perfect as you make it, and it’s just a helper to you. Yes, this requires a little setup and maintenance, but the overall time and money saved and the improvements in your business will be staggering.

Conclusion

Recruiting software is a broad term describing software that aids in hiring. It is beneficial to almost every single business, no matter how small. If you hire more than an employee or two a year, you need recruiting software to help you hire faster and better. Save yourself headaches, wasted time, and wasted money. Recruiting software is secure, not hard to learn, and an inexpensive, invaluable investment in your business. There really is no reason to not use online recruitment software, but you should take a little time before purchase to ensure you are getting the right one for your needs and tastes.