The first impression is not only the longest but also the main influencing factor that forms the basis of almost all future decisions in every industry. The same holds true for client relationships. The resumes of candidates are the first interaction point between the agency and the organization. Most of the time, the employers tend to form an opinion about the candidate from the resume itself much before meeting them. So, resume presentation (better presented with a resume formatting service) plays a crucial role in convincing the clients that the candidate is a perfect fit for their company.

Gone are the days when staffing agencies and placement firms used to perform manual operations for record-keeping and resume sorting. Staffing agency software has completely revolutionized and streamlined the underlying process in the recruitment industry. From resume scanning to application filtering and from resume parsing to curating impeccable candidate profiles, everything is automated and is conducted within fractions of seconds.

The recruiters from the staffing firms can easily impress their clients by using the resume formatting tool and candidate management software. Here are the top 8 ways by which a resume formatting service helps the staffing firms to amp up their recruiting endeavors and strike a compelling impression on clients.

1.     Reduce Time to Hire

Using a professional resume formatting service, the recruiters can easily parse and store resumes in the database. Just a single query and the recruiters can sort the candidates as per the job description of the clients. In fact, the software helps in building and maintaining a pool of passive candidates who can turn up to be great choices for the clients in the future. The best-matched profiles are retrieved with a single click. This certainly reduces the time and effort required. So, this way the companies can submit best-matched quality profiles to their clients the same day.

How Does Small Business Applicant Tracking System Help to Avoid Unmindful Bias While Recruiting?

2.     Smart and Standardized Candidate Resumes

The main objective of every staffing firm is to capture the client’s mind smartly and what could be better than sending them staggering candidate profiles for their job requirements. The resume formatting service helps to draft standardized resumes of the candidates as per the latest industry trends. All the formatting such as removal of personal information, highlighting skills and experience, removing underline-italics-bold characters, making them printer-friendly, etc can be done easily with the help of a resume formatting tool. These tools are generally inbuilt in an applicant tracking system but are available as independent software as well.

3.     Standardized Email Templates

A professionally-formatted email is very essential as it creates a sense of reliability and trust. It signifies the staffing firm’s credibility and a good method to ensure branding. A resume formatting service enables staffing agency users to create customized email templates as per clients’ needs and branding preferences.

4.     Resume Formatting Service Supports Multiple Formats

The organizations (clients) may demand the candidate profiles in a particular format such as .pdf or .docx. By using the advanced staffing agency software the recruiters can download the finished products in any format of their choice including .pdf, .txt or .docx. In fact, the staffing agency software has the capability to parse any type of resume into profiles within seconds. Before sending the profiles/resumes to the clients, the staffing firms can also watermark the resumes. This way the recruiters can protect their hard work and ensure the candidate’s intellectual property.

Why Your Agency Needs a Recruitment Blog?

5.     Efficient Candidate Management with Resume Formatting Service

Using the modern-day candidate management system, tracking resumes and candidates has become more easy and quick. The recruiters can easily view and update the information so as to offer the best candidates to clients and vice versa. The users of the resume formatting tool are authorized to customize the templates as per their choice and requirements on an easy to operate dashboard. With the user-friendly UI of the software, less technical knowledge is required to operate the software and hence, can be managed even by a non-technical person. The staffing firms don’t need to deploy a dedicated staff member for the operation of the software.

The Benefits and Limitations of a Dedicated Recruitment Team

6.     Remote Availability

The resume formatting software is cloud-based which means that the recruiters can offer quality profiles to their clients anytime and from anywhere. The remote accessibility offers the recruiters to collaborate with their clients beyond international boundaries as well.

7.     Quality Relationship Building

As most of the work is done by the resume formatting service– from resume parsing to formatting to creating dynamic candidate profiles, it leaves ample time for the recruiters to involve in other activities. The recruiters from the staffing firm can spend quality time understanding their client’s requirements and needs. This helps them to deliver best-matched candidates to the clients, further strengthening relationships with the clients.

8.     Eliminates Document Management

The advanced staffing agency software impresses clients by delivering accurate and quality-driven results. The algorithms and design architecture of modern-day resume formatters are exceptional and offer error-free deliveries. This ensures fast and accurate parsing of the resumes sourced through various channels such as job portals, emails, social media and career pages. The digitization and automation of the resumes have eliminated the document and spreadsheet management.  

Redefine your Client Experience with iReformat

The candidate profile is the mirror of what you can deliver to the clients. It’s not just a summary of experience and skills but indeed a summary of the candidate’s personality and your potential to deliver the best. Deliver best candidate profiles with the latest cloud-driven resume formatting service, iReformat. The software is well designed to cater to the needs of small to midsized firms.

Get the resumes formatted, parsed and added to candidate database pool instantly. The web-based interface is easy to use, manage and access. The users can work remotely and can add and delete/edit/modify the existing profiles speedily. The patent technology helps to customize each resume as per the brand as well as the client’s needs. It takes the pain off the recruiter’s shoulders and frees up their time so that they can focus on other aspects of business growth.

Signup today for the best-in-class resume management system and redefine your client experience magically with iReformat. We are always there to assist you with our 24-hour email support service. Try it today!

With the advent of technology, every company is floating and advertising its job descriptions at various online as well as offline platforms. The organizations have curated impressive social media profiles, impeccable career pages and striking job descriptions on online job portals. But it becomes difficult to manage the resumes flowing from different channels. What they need is a single stop candidate management system (ATS for Small Business) that ensures recruiters are getting the right candidates from all the sources to one commonplace.

Yes! I am talking about a modern-day Applicant Tracking System that helps in sourcing candidates from different places into one single place. A small company applicant tracking system receives resumes in all formats and sorts them as desired by the recruiters and the hiring manager.  Let’s have a look at how ATS for Small Business amps up the candidate sourcing endeavors and delivers high quality hires.

1.     Building Relationships with Audience

Running a business needs solid marketing and advertising strategies. The organizations need to stay connected and well-tuned with the audience and their interests. The audience is not only the customers but it consists of current employees, passive candidates and stakeholders as well.  If the organization fails to connect with the right audience it may be reflected as negligence and arrogance on the company’s part. A well-engaged audience depicts that the organization is community-oriented and cares for them. The best way to connect with the audience is through messaging, social media posts and emails.

Cloud-based online recruiting software offers its users the ability to milk it for all it’s worth. The users (recruiters or hiring managers) can send emails and text messages to the pool of candidates in a single click. Even the posting of job descriptions or social media posts can be scheduled and posted with ATS. Rather than getting a runaround with various channels manually, an ATS for Small Business helps by automating all the time-consuming activities. This keeps the audience aware of all the achievements, upcoming projects, the company’s mission, accomplishments and job openings.

A strong relationship infuses trust and reliability in the market and improves the visibility of the organization. This visibility ensures a staggering response for all job openings posted by the company.

Where to post your job openings?

Reasons why you’re not getting quality Job Applicants

2.     Easily accept referrals with your ATS for Small Business

Employee Referrals are the most reliable and highest converting candidate sourcing channel. Many companies prefer to take recommendations from external sources as well such as staffing firms or placement agencies. A small business applicant tracking system ensures that things are managed seamlessly and at one single point.

Whenever the recruiters create a new job opening, it is accompanied by a unique email/URL address. So, the moment resumes are received, they are sorted and stored into profiles accordingly. In fact, using the ATS analytics the hiring managers can even get to know who the company’s top referrers are.

Why do you need an Applicant Tracking System?

3.     Creating a Candidate Database

Traditionally, the recruiters used spreadsheets to maintain a candidate pool. But searching and maintaining records in spreadsheets was tedious and time-consuming. Moreover, it was prone to errors and data breaches. The applicant tracking system offers a secure way to store all the resumes as searchable profiles. Now the recruiters can easily store the resumes of talented candidates who haven’t got the right opportunity at that point of time.  All the best resumes can be uploaded in the ATS for Small Business and it will automatically parse the resumes and store the information in different profiles.

So, next time when a requirement arises, the recruiters can trigger a search query using the relevant keywords and get the best profiles stored in the database. Going through the existing profiles eventually improves time-to-hire and cost-per-hire.

4.     Know the Source of every Candidate

With the help of the ATS for Small Business’s reporting and analytics feature, the recruiters can easily track the candidate’s source, its demographic location, the channel from where the application was received, etc. This helps to unveil the channels that are generating maximum applications. So, the recruiters can make more strategic decisions related to recruitment and take actions diligently.

Read More: 4 Cybersecurity Tips to Implement in Your Company

The recruiters can accurately predict the exact cost and budget for the next recruiting sessions. They can also ensure the organization of hiring the best quality candidates in a minimum time frame.  With the centralized database and reporting by ATS for Small Business, the companies can keep their best foot forward while sourcing the candidates in this competitive landscape.

5.     Tracking the Applicants

It is very important to focus on candidate experience as it affects your future sourcing actions. The recruiters need to assure that the entire recruiting event completes steadily in a timely manner with the best candidate experience offered. The ATS for Small Business aids the hiring Manager to get an insight into all the candidates who have applied along with their status in the recruitment funnel.  The recruiter can even drill down to have a look at if a candidate has applied for multiple job openings.

Read more: How to build an Excellent Candidate Experience with Effective Communication

Apart from this, an ATS for Small Business automatically triggers acknowledgment emails to all the candidates who have applied. The ones, who have been shortlisted or are waiting for the next rounds, are notified automatically. Every ATS comes with a shared calendar that helps to decide on interview date and time seamlessly.

Recruiteze- The Most Efficient and Secure Cloud-Based Applicant Tracking System

Recruiteze is a fully secure cloud-based modern applicant tracking system that is best suited to meet all your recruiting needs. The candidate pool created by Recruiteze helps the recruiters to proactively source the best candidates and helps to fill the vacancy efficiently and quickly. This frees up the recruiters valuable time which they can use to stay focused on other activities such as interviewing the candidates to zero-in the best candidate. 

This mobile-friendly solution eliminates every glitch in the recruitment process by tracking the applicants at every stage. Recruiteze real-time collaborative hiring feature enables all the team members to view and share their feedback for every candidate. By triggering automatic email notification and text messages, the candidates are kept updated in their journey through the sourcing funnel. The recruiters can easily customize the recruitment pipeline, shortlist the perfect fit and can stay on top of the sourcing cycle with this smart candidate management software. 

Apart from task automation, Recruiteze ensures timely task completion by eliminating all the delays and discrepancies caused due to human intervention. It keeps the entire recruitment funnel at fingertips as all the team members can work together remotely as well. 

Signup with Recruiteze today and take your recruitment paradigms to new levels. Enjoy the 15-days trial period absolutely free of cost with no debit/credit card. The base pack starts at just $10/month offering unlimited jobs, 1GB storage and 24/7 Email support. Incredible! Have you taken your subscription yet?

The job market today is entirely candidate-driven and the companies need to fight tooth and nail to attract and hire the best talent. With the competition going intense, it’s becoming difficult to source the right candidate for the company. Most of the small companies or businesses can’t afford to have a full-time internal recruitment team. The employees in small-to-mid-sized businesses have to multi-task. One person is responsible for various activities. So, these companies prefer to outsource the recruiting to staffing firms or professional consultancies. In this blog, we’ll discuss how the staffing and recruitment agencies work efficiently using a resume formatting tool and small company ATS.

Are you still formatting resumes manually?

What is a Recruitment Agency?

Recruitment Company or staffing firms are agencies that help match perfect candidates with the right job and employer. The recruiters in these agencies source the candidates through various platforms, perform resume sorting and shortlist the candidates for a final interview with the client company. These companies try to leave no stone unturned to provide a perfect fit for any job vacancy or open position.

Related:  Check out how small businesses hire great people?

Why Do Staffing Firms Need Software Solutions including a Resume Formatting Tool?

The recruiters in staffing firms receive hundreds of resumes per day for multiple job openings. Sorting and formatting the resumes manually would eat up a lot of time. The recruiters spend most of their time in resume management and have no time left for other activities such as pitching new clients, upscaling the company, quality interaction with the candidates, business development, etc. Manual working increases the time to hire and drops the efficiency of the staffing firm. There is a significant drop in their rankings in the market and the consequences could badly affect the company reputation.

Related: Things HR Professionals Should Be Doing Beyond Recruitment

To survive and out past the competitors in such a tough scenario, every recruiting agency needs staffing agency software. Staffing agency software (including a resume formatting tool) will eventually automate the entire hiring process, parses resumes in fractions of seconds, automate recruiting tasks and helps to build an impeccable candidate profile. Most of the experts in the market recommend bringing a small company applicant tracking system onboard. But the staffing agencies need more than ATS. They need a resume formatting tool and parsing service that helps them in building impressive candidate profiles totally as per the industry standards. 

Ideal staffing agency software helps the recruitment agencies to send the right candidate to the right client. This ensures a win-win situation for both the client as well as the candidate.

Now, have a look at how the efficiency of any placement agency or staffing firm is boosted by using a resume formatting tool.

1.     Building Strong Relationships with a Resume Formatting Tool

Staffing agency software helps the recruiters in building a diverse pool of talented candidates. This helps the staffing firms in building and maintaining strong relationships with the candidates and keeping them engaged. With the built-in email notification feature, the shortlisted candidates can be informed automatically. All the underlying manual tasks are fully automated which helps the recruiters to focus on delivering quality candidates rather than wasting time in monotonous and mundane tasks.  

2.     Efficiency Levels are boosted with a Resume Formatting Tool

Every staffing agency has to undergo a lot of processes such as sourcing, matching the candidate profiles with company requirements, shortlisting candidates, preparing candidate profile and finally scheduling the interviews. These are certainly time-consuming and lethargic activities.

 With the help of staffing agency software, such long hours of administrative works can be slashed. A good resume formatting tool helps the agencies to find the perfect fit for the companies quickly and efficiently. Apart from resume matching, the tool assists the recruiters in tracking the applicant’s progress, job descriptions posted by the companies and the resumes uploaded by the candidates. This significantly saves a lot of time, money and effort.  

3.     No Scope of Human Error with a Resume Formatting Tool

Many companies are still using spreadsheets to maintain their database. This technology is obsolete and is prone to human error. Staffing agency software automates the data entry works, thereby assuring accuracy and eliminating every scope of human error.

The modern-day resume formatting tool is web-based, so there is no chance of any fraud or mistake caused due to loss of data. The tool helps the recruiters in making better and informed recruiting decisions as they can apply suitable filters to the candidate information to match with the company requirement.

4.    Web-Based Access

The traditional staffing software was desktop-based that limited access only to the office area. Due to the lack of remote access, the agencies tend to lose a lot of international clients with different time zones or immediate requirements. The modern-day resume formatting software is web-based and powered by SAAS. This ensured remote accessibility and 24/7 working.

Enrolling with top-rated software such as iReformat will bring you back in the game. It will help you regain your lost impetus and will assist you in shortlisting the right candidate for your client. iReformat helps recruitment agencies to respond quickly as per the changing market dynamics. The software is powered by unique architecture that is fully capable and flexible enough to deal with the growing needs and demands of staffing companies.

More Benefits of Cloud-Based Recruitment Software

5.     Resume Formatting Tools Improve Time-to-Hire

In today’s competitive scenario, time is money. If a company is taking too much time-to-hire or respond, the candidates may grab some other lucrative opportunity in the meantime. Staffing agency software ensures that the firms keep well with the time. By providing a quicker and better search for talented candidates, it helps the clients to stay ahead of their competitors. iReformat helps the firms to source candidates quickly and efficiently.

Some more related topics on recruiting metrics:
Top 10 important recruiting metrics every recruiter should care about
Recruiting metrics you should be aware of
Importance of using recruiting metrics
Why time to fill is killing your business?

A small delay in hiring could be catastrophic to the companies as it not only means loss of good talent but wastage of money, effort and time as well. Ideal staffing agency software significantly improves the bottom line of the company and lays the foundation for successful hiring.

6.     Build Candidate Profiles with a Resume Formatting Tool

The resume formatting tool helps in building perfect candidate profiles that totally adhere as per the industry standards. All the formatting such as headings, highlighting, fonts, removing bold-italics, making it print-friendly, removing borders, etc is done automatically by the software based on the template selected. The candidate personal information removal and watermark insertion are done brilliantly by the software.

Conclusion

iReformat streamlines and manages the recruiting workflow through automation. It allows the recruiters to handle a large volume of resumes without the need for any paperwork or spreadsheets. This web-based software ensures improved communication as well as fosters a better alliance between the agencies, hiring manager and the applicants. Signup with iReformat today and boost your efficiency and performance in one single sweep with iReformat. You must try the 15 days free trial limited period offer!

In 1910, President William Howard Taft made the first concrete move to bring the spirit of the age-old proverb “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” to American workplaces. President Taft proposed that workers need 2 to 3 months of vacation (paid time-off) per year “in order to continue his work next year with the energy and effectiveness that it ought to have.”

It’s been almost 120 years since President Taft made this remark. Yet, all proposed laws mandating businesses to give employees paid leaves have been unsuccessful. However, the absence of a law has not stopped organizations from offering paid sick leaves, paid vacations, and paid holidays to their employees. 

For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, paid vacation leaves (or paid time-off) were available to 70% of workers in small businesses, 85% of employees in medium-size establishments, and 89% of staff members in large enterprises. 

Image Source

This could be primarily driven by the tight competition for top talent. It’s no secret that great talent is a rare commodity that all businesses are fighting over. As it turns out, more and more members of the workforce’s crème de la crème (especially among millennials) consider paid time-off benefits as an important deciding factor when choosing a company to work for. 

Paid Time-Off (PTOs): Letting Employees Decide How to Spend Their Time Away from Work

One relatively new way to offer paid leaves as a benefit to employees is through the accumulation of paid time-offs or PTOs. In the past, more companies were offering vacation time broken down into specific allocations. For example, on an annual basis, employees often get 10 days of paid holiday, 2 weeks of paid vacation, 2 personal days, and 8 sick days.

With PTOs, employees accrue paid time off days based on a set of criteria such as tenure and number of hours worked, usually monitored using time tracking software or other tools. On average, employees accrue 30 days of PTOs every year. Unlike the more traditional method of allocating paid leaves to specific purposes, having a PTO policy allows employees to use their paid days off at their own discretion. 

Image Source

The PTO model is fast becoming the preferred way of giving employees time away from work benefits. However, before hopping on the bandwagon, it’s important for business owners, HR leaders, and managers to look at both the pros and cons of a Paid Time-Off policy. 

First, let’s take a look at the benefits of having a good Pait Time-Off (PTO) policy.

Fewer Fake Sick Days

Some employees rarely get sick, and it’s not uncommon for these workers to fake an illness to get their paid sick days that would have otherwise been wasted.

Companies with a PTO policy have seen the number of their employees faking an illness decrease. Since there’s only one stockpile of paid days off that employees can use, they often reserve their PTOs for vacation or as a buffer for potential emergencies.

Easier Administration of Paid Days Off

Most of the time, the responsibility of tracking, approving, and recording paid vacation days falls on the shoulders of the HR department and team managers who are already buried under a pile of administrative tasks. With the traditional paid vacation model, they need to worry more about accuracy to make sure employees aren’t going over the allowable number of days per category.

It’s easier to monitor and administer paid days off with a PTO policy since everything is bundled together. It eliminates the need for the HR department or managers to police how employees are using their PTO benefits since employees are empowered to use their paid time off at their discretion. It gets even easier when employers use a time tracking tool that incorporates the PTO policy.

More Flexibility and Privacy on How Employees Use Paid Time-Off (PTOs)

“But you’ve already used all your paid sick days for the year.”

Imagine telling this to an employee who was hospitalized earlier in the year due to the flu, with no paid sick days remaining. Having a PTO policy prevents this from happening by giving employees the flexibility to use their days off when they need and in whichever way they want.

On the topic of privacy, there might be instances when employees are not comfortable sharing the real reason why they’re taking a day off. For example, the extreme pressure in today’s modern workplace is prompting more employees to take mental health days. There could also be instances when employees need to take time away from work because of any number of issues at home. Some things are personal and employees may feel uncomfortable sharing them with their colleagues.

We’ve just scratched the surface of the benefits of having a PTO policy. Unfortunately, there are also downsides.

Below are the cons of shifting to a PTO model from the traditional paid vacation model:

Increased Presenteeism Among Sick Employees

One of the main reasons, if not the main reason why employees put a premium on PTO benefits when looking for a job is the desire to achieve a work-life balance. 

That said, employees would rather spend their earned paid time off traveling or even enjoying a staycation than on a couch tending to a bad case of the flu.

So, while having a PTO policy in place reduces the instances of employees calling in a fake illness, it also increases the number of employees reporting to work even though they’re sick. This is called sick presenteeism.

Almost everyone instantly recognizes the negative impact absenteeism has on businesses. However, you might be surprised to know that presenteeism costs businesses more. How much more? If absenteeism costs businesses in the US, Australia, and the UK $150 billion annually, multiply that by 10 and that’s how much businesses are hemorrhaging cash due to presenteeism.

Presenteeism is costing businesses 10X more than absenteeism (image source)

It only takes one sick employee to infect 10 more. When this happens, it spells productivity troubles for your company.

If you can’t offer additional sick benefits to your employees (for instance, a work from home option with a reduced level of work output for sick employees), you need to implement a clear rule to prevent sick presenteeism.

Staffing and Scheduling Challenges

From a steady decline of vacation days used from 1981, workers have been using more of their PTOs, a trend which started in 2015.

Employees have been taking more days off from work (Image source)

There is no data to support that more companies started to adopt a PTO policy in 2015. However, but experts agree that more employees take days off with a PTO policy compared to when sick leaves and vacation days are compartmentalized. This is because employees tend to view all of their PTO days as vacation days and are more inclined to maximize this benefit.

While this is good news for employee wellness, it can pose some challenges when it comes to staffing and scheduling. This is especially true during vacation seasons such as summer and Thanksgiving/Christmas when PTO filing reaches its peak.

It’s important to have a contingency scheduling and staffing strategy in place to mitigate staff shortage if and when mass PTO availments happen. Your PTO policy should also come with a set of procedures, including specific lead times for filing vacation days. This will give you ample time to address any staffing or scheduling issues.

PTO Policy: Yay or Nay? The Key is Preparation

Just like any other employee retention and engagement initiative, rolling out a Paid Time-off policy requires a well thought out implementation blueprint. Thinking of how your business can maximize the pros of having a PTO policy while simultaneously planning solutions for potential problems is the key to a successful PTO policy. This includes having the right strategy, tools, and systems to achieve a tangible and positive impact for your business. It also ensures you attract and keep top talent, giving your employees the benefits of a PTO policy that they deserve.

Author Bio

Dean Mathews is the founder and CEO of OnTheClock, an online employee time tracking app that helps over 9,000 companies all around the world track time. 

Dean has over 20 years of experience designing and developing business apps. He views software development as a form of art. If the artist creates a masterpiece, many peoples lives are touched and changed for the better. 

When he is not perfecting time tracking, Dean enjoys expanding his faith, spending time with family, friends and finding ways to make the world just a little better. You can find Dean on LinkedIn.

For hiring in a tight labor market, a company needs out of the box hiring strategies to entice the quality candidates towards the organization brand. When there are more job openings than job seekers, the company needs to work hard on selling itself. The employers and recruiters need to paint the picture in such a way that the candidates can visualize their future well ahead in case they get onboard. In such a scenario a small company applicant tracking system unequivocally helps the recruiters to source the best talent in a tight labor market.  

1.     Hone Your Job Description

If only a few applications are being received then the recruiters need to work seriously on the job descriptions. The hiring manager needs to ensure that the job descriptions that are floating online are updated. The descriptions should portray the qualities (skills/experience) needed, salary offered and future prospects. 

 A small business applicant tracking system helps recruiters to design well-polished job descriptions that totally adhere to the latest industry trends. They can choose a best-suited one from several templates and customize it as per the needs.

Related: Where to Post Your Job Openings?

2.     An ATS builds a Talent Pipeline in Advance

In a tight labor market, time-to-hire plays a very important role. The recruiters need to grab the best talent soon otherwise their competitors will hire the deserving ones. With the help of ATS for small business, the HR team can create a talent pipeline in advance. ATS helps recruiters to proactively cultivate the best quality talent pool that can be searched before drawing job requisition on the internet. This nonpareil approach of building a talent pool helps to save a lot of time, money and effort. 

How ATS build a talent pipeline?

In the resume sorting phase, the recruiters come across some great candidate profiles. It could be that the company has no suitable role for them at that time. But they may be useful somewhere down the lane in the future. So, adding or retaining those resumes in the ATS database ensures that a perfect potential candidate is not lost for future roles.

The ATS keeps the candidates engaged as the recruiters can share or email them all the upcoming company recruiting events, job offers, projects etc. This indeed is an incredible way of sourcing the candidates as it requires the least effort and ensures efficiency.

7 Recruiting Trends to Avoid

3.     Automates Resume Parsing and Screening

Again, there are two major challenges before recruiters in a tight labor market. The first one is resume sifting and the other is parsing the resumes effectively. A small company applicant tracking system completely automates the entire underlying recruiting process right from resume sifting, parsing, formatting, interview scheduling, posting job descriptions to taking the candidates onboard. 

The ATS automatically sorts the resume as per the job description or keywords selected by the recruiter. Sorting of the qualified candidates is done within a blink of an eye. Now the recruiters’ don’t have to sift all the resumes manually and waste all their time on resume sorting. The recruiters can focus on other quality works such as finalizing candidates for interviews and preparing offer letters. 

Apart from hiring employees from diverse cultures, the small company ATS also helps to avoid unconscious bias by the recruiters which can’t be made possible in manual recruiting.

4.     Creating Awesome Candidate Profiles

If it is hard for the organizations to pitch the quality candidates, things are equally the same for the staffing firms. All the recruiting and hiring firms need to create compelling candidate profiles for getting acceptance from their clients. A small company applicant tracking system has an inbuilt resume formatting service. This resume formatting tool parses the resume information and stores in the database. Rich, compelling and attractive candidate profiles can be tailored by using this information.

 There are several templates available within the tool that are latest, trending and comply with the industry standards. The staffing firm or the placement agencies just need to pick their favorite one and customize the resume into an enticing candidate profile.

Not getting quality job applications? Read Here

5.     Candidate Experience and Employer Brand

It’s a human tendency that the person would be attracted to an organization that he knows or has heard about it. It is very important to have a strong employer brand to pitch the right candidates. The foundation for building a great employer brand comes from a great candidate experience.

 A small company ATS plays a crucial role in building a great candidate experience. A single negative candidate experience adversely affects the employer brand, future hiring campaigns as well as provokes attrition rate.

What is the candidate experience?

It is basically the emotions, behavior and feelings that a candidate acquires during the entire recruiting phase. And this has to be too good.

An applicant tracking system ensures a good candidate experience in the following ways:

• Acknowledgment emails are sent to the candidates who apply to the job post by any means (career page, social media and job portals).
• Notifications are sent to the candidates regarding every progress being made in the recruiting stage and their acceptance/ rejections states.
• The interview is scheduled by providing a common calendar where the recruiters can mark their suitable dates followed by the candidates’.
•  The talent pool is engaged by sending appropriate emails such as new job openings, upcoming projects, etc.
• The entire onboarding and induction is taken care of by the ATS. Thus, offering a seamless and awesome new beginning to the joinee.

Timely notifications to the candidates help the recruiters from losing great talent.

6.     Torture Free Application Process

Well, in a tight labor market scenario, the candidates tend to apply to multiple job openings. They just can’t wait to fill the long application form of one company. It has been noticed that most of the candidates leave the application process in the middle if it’s long and asks for unnecessary details.

 An ATS could be a savior. You can just ask relevant details from the candidate and the remaining information gets extracted from the resume. The ATS creates a new candidate profile in the candidate database and uploads the parsed information.

 If any additional information is required, that can be acquired in the later recruiting phases. First level sorting requires only basic information.

7.     Social Media

Social media is the best place where the employer can paint the internet red. Social media is the only platform where the recruiters can look out for passive candidates as well as prospective ones through recruitment marketing. Social channels such as Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn help the recruiters to actually understand the true attributes of the candidates. Moreover, the power of social media can be unleashed to hire the best talent in a minimum timeframe.

By posting unique content on these platforms, the recruiters can keep the prospective candidates informed regarding the company’s insights. This also makes them understand what working with that company really entails.

How to Find Candidates through Social Media Platforms?

How Recruiteze helps you to become an “Employer of Choice” in the Tight Labor Market?

Recruiting has changed a lot from what it was a couple of years ago. It can be leveraged best when creativity is combined with technology. Take your business to the next level with Recruiteze– a small business applicant tracking system. Recruiteze helps the recruiters to unlock an increased applicant flow in a tight labor market along with optimized time-to-hire.

In a tight labor market of the US, the recruiters need to be smart, efficient and quick to respond when it comes to hiring the best of talents. A little delay and the candidate get swayed by the competitor. Recruiteze helps the recruiters to hire the right candidate by streamlining administration and offering world-class candidate experience. This cloud-based software offers a frictionless experience to the recruiters that help them in providing better leadership insights coupled with data and analytics. 

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When the clients review the candidate profiles, they are just concerned about how the candidate would fit in the position offered. And when they don’t find a reason, the resumes are straight away rejected. A company may lose on a well-deserving candidate just because the candidate profile sent by the staffing agency or consultancy is not impressive.

A well-written candidate profile not only depicts how well the candidate fits in the desired position but also displays an overall efficiency of the staffing firm. The selection or rejection solely depends on how that candidate profile is presented before the client or the company.

A well put and concise candidate profile has much better chances of getting selected. This post throws light on an ideal candidate profile and how a resume formatting service helps in building one?

Ideal Candidate Profile

The resume or the candidate profile sent to the client cast the first impression of the candidate. If the things on the resume are messed up/ cluttered or are not as per the industry standards, it gets rejected even before the client takes the first look.

If the candidate profile fails to display the skills, achievements, strengths, suitability and relevant attributes of the candidate, the staffing firm may not be able to “sell” the candidate to the company.

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An ideal candidate profile should be well-crafted to ensure engagement and should highlight the attributes that are most relevant to the company.

What is the difference between a Candidate Profile and Resume?

Resumes help the recruiters and hiring managers to see only the basic and stripped down information about an applicant. Resumes are just an overview of the skills, contact information, education, and experience.

A candidate profile sent to the client is a more detailed form of the resume. It is just like a detailed resume but designed as per the needs of the company and complying with industry standards. These profiles present a more robust image of the candidate. All the contact information is removed and additional information is added that gives more detail about what the candidate is beyond the conventional bullet points.

An ideal candidate profile is designed to make it a perfect fit as per the client’s requisites.

What to Include in a Candidate Profile?

To craft an ideal candidate profile, there are several things that need to be included.

1.      Suitability of the Candidate

The staffing firms usually enclose a small covering letter along with the candidate profile that briefly states how the candidate is a perfect fit. This brief introduction should be impressive and engaging and should hook the client to read more. The introduction should vividly state how this candidate stands above the rest.

2.      Skills and Experience for the Job Role

The client would not directly focus on the experience or understand the skills by just looking at the candidate’s resume. It’s the responsibility of the staffing firm to properly highlight the candidate’s achievements, skills, experience and other relevant traits that the client has been looking for. This will help the company/ client to know the candidate and compare it with other profiles in a better way.

3.      Notes from References

It is very important to mention the candidate references. If possible, including the information received from the reference-check conducted would add credibility to the profile. The references section has to be small. To keep it precise, only the highlights from reference talks should be included.

4.      Compensation Expectations

This is a very important point to include. Both the parties i.e. the client and the candidate should be clear about the offered and the expected salary. A little mismatch could be negotiated. Things would not work if either of the sides is unwilling to compromise. By communicating the compensation offered by the company and vice versa, the staffing firm can save a lot of everyone’s time.

5.      Availability

The staffing firm should intimate the client regarding the availability of the candidate. By knowing when the candidate can join the company, the selection decisions can be finalized.  Some candidates may get rejected if the availability criteria don’t match.

How to Create a Candidate Profile?

Manually creating a candidate profile is an arduous and time-consuming activity. Most of the recruiters in the staffing firms spend more than half of their time just sifting through the resumes. This eats up most of their time that could have been spent in pitching more clients and expanding the business.

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What is the best solution for creating a candidate profile?

It’s by getting a resume formatting tool onboard. This resume formatting service is generally inbuilt in most of the small company applicant tracking systems. The resumes are formatted, parsed and stored in a candidate database. The resumes can easily be changed into the desired format within a blink of an eye. The recruiters can now focus on other staffing firm activities as well.

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How does a Resume Formatting Service work?

There are a plethora of features offered by staffing agency software such as

• Unlimited Resume Templates

The resumes can easily be customized and formatted using a resume formatting tool.

• Unlimited Email Templates

Based on the client’s needs and branding preferences, the staffing firms can create their own custom emails using email templates.

• Watermarks

The consultancies and placement agencies can protect their hard work by watermarking the candidate profile. It also suppresses the candidate’s contact information.

• Accurate and Fast Parsing

The modern-day resume formatting tools save time by providing quality-driven results and not merely document management.

• Highlighted Skills and Section

Skills, experience and other relevant sections could be highlighted to drive the reader’s attention which the recruiters want them to read.

• Text Formatting, Headers and Footers

Remove all the unwanted formatting types such as bold, italics and underline. This makes the document look uniform in all respects. The header and footers can be easily customized using this tool.

• Alignment

The margins and text can be aligned as per industry standards to make the resume look good on paper as well as on digital mediums.

Read More: How Can a Resume Formatting Service Help?

Create Impressive Candidate Profiles using iReformat

iRefromat is the next generation fully automated resume formatting tool exclusively designed to alleviate the pain off the staffing firms, placement agencies and other recruiting firms. The patent-pending technology customizes every resume as per the client’s needs and brand within seconds. Apart from the desktop version, this staffing agency software is also available in the Office App Store and Apple iTunes App Store. This allows the users to quickly format and send resumes using Microsoft Office and iPhone respectively.

Enjoy the 15 days free trial offer today.