From a company perspective, it is easy to fall into the trap of viewing the hiring process only through the lens of your own needs. But the relationship among team members that will lead to greater innovation, productivity, and business success needs to begin even before someone joins the company. How you interact with talent during the interview process can make a huge difference in your ability to find the best people. Take too long, and you may miss the perfect hire.

The State of Hiring Experience 2021, a survey of 1,142 hiring leaders published in March 2021 by HireVue, found that technology is making a difference in time to hire and the ability to better engage with candidates. Sixty-three percent of respondents were SMBs.

One out of four human resource (HR) professionals said that a long lead time results in candidates losing interest in the position. They may be unavailable once you decide to make an offer, or they may withdraw their name altogether. This makes it difficult to find top talent—something that must be avoided in Japan, where the shrinking workforce continues to make the country a candidate’s market.

So, time to hire matters, and it goes hand in hand with recruitment efficiency. An applicant tracking system (ATS) is one of the most powerful ways to streamline the candidate journey and produce better results. It is also one of the most cost-efficient.

Take Control

Managing the pipeline of talent is one of the most important things a company can do, yet it is a task often overlooked—especially by SMBs. That’s not because those in charge of hiring don’t care, they just may not have the right tool for the job. It’s easy to view Excel spreadsheets, email, and Zoho solutions as sufficient for tracking the hiring process, but they were not designed for human resources. A makeshift system that uses one or more of these solutions can lead to an inefficient process that results in lost talent.

Unless you take control of the process, improving recruitment efficiency will be difficult. An ATS such as ZooKeep centralizes the collection, sharing, and analysis of candidate information, making it easy to get everyone on the same page. According to Gartner, 78 percent of companies that use an ATS say that the HR tech makes candidate attraction easier.

The result? Response time goes down, scheduling becomes easier, and post-interview discussion among the hiring team goes more smoothly. You can pick the right candidates to interview and move them through the process quickly, in a way that gives you an advantage in the fierce competition for talent and leaves them feeling valued and delighted by the experience with your company.

Choose the Right ATS

Even if you see the benefits of an ATS, you may feel that implementing one will be a massive undertaking, requiring a lot of time and money. Maybe you’ve worked with systems designed for other areas of the business, such as customer relationship management, project management, or sales. And perhaps the experience has been a bit overwhelming. That’s understandable. Some of the best-known platforms share a common trait: they are overengineered.

Many also have been designed by people who don’t actually use the systems, leading to a frustrating experience for the end user. This can be especially true of HR solutions, which tend to be aimed at large companies and packed with features not needed by SMBs.

One of the strengths of ZooKeep is that it was built by hiring professionals for hiring professionals. The team behind ZooKeep knows firsthand the challenges SMBs face in their hiring process and how to solve them. And not just in general, but in Japan.

An ATS is a holistic remedy for the hiring headache, removing the pain points for both HR and the candidate. ZooKeep makes that analgesic even more effective by targeting the exact needs of your business.

See for yourself how a streamlined ATS can give you an advantage by delivering the best candidate journey for surprisingly little cost. Book a free demo today at: https://www.zookeep.com.