
HC Networks III - The Frontend
(August 08, 2002) -
We recently heard the acronym ATS unbundled as "Avoid Talented
Seekers" because of the miserable job they do linking advertisements to the
opportunity to apply for the job. As an experiment, we'd suggest that you take a
moment to go visit one of your ads on a job board. Click through the process
that takes you to your site. If, as is usually the case, the process of applying
for the advertised job takes more than three or four clicks, you ought to
consider, as many are doing, turning off the application process on your site
and settling for what the job board will provide.
More clicks means fewer applicants. Only the
most desperate will take the 10 or 15 clicks required to apply for the job that
they knew they wanted when they read the ad. While you may wish to route some of
your candidates through a rigorously boring process (to weed out those without
initiative), this procedure should not be standard, particularly in specialty
expert areas or hard to fill slots.
ATS mangle many things.
One feature that you should pray for in your
system is a tool that provides a front end analysis like the one we
described yesterday. Although a number of the JAD companies are beginning to
deliver "sourcing analysis" information, it only pertains to your
current advertising vehicles. An ATS ought to be able to help you mine data
about your sources in the more tangible networks that provide you with the HC
Flow. The ATS should readily answer the following questions:
Where do applicants come from by company and/or
region and or educational institution?
With appropriate tracking and measurement, it's
an easy step to have a standard report that covers relative success, by
department, of applicants by source.
With that data, you can begin to look for the
people who are connectors in those networks and place a special focus on winning
their hearts and minds.
-John
Sumser