6 minute read
Posted by Chris Platts on 12 January 2022
Integrating pre-hire assessments with your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can help you streamline the hiring process and reduce time to hire. Nearly all companies are using some kind of ATS during the recruitment process. Over 98% of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS. As a recruiter, your ATS is invaluable. However, you could be wasting valuable resources if you’re not integrating this system with your pre-hire assessment tools.
Increasingly, recruiters use candidate selection tools such as pre-hire assessments to help them find the best candidates and reduce hiring time. Pre-hire assessments can help you learn more about your candidates and discover if they have the right skills for the role. More and more small businesses are using these tools as they can see how effective they’ve been for larger companies.
Before we move on to the benefits of integrating pre-hire assessments into your ATS software, we should examine the advantages of pre-hire assessments. Pre-hire assessments such as Realistic Job Assessments can help you effectively communicate your employer brand and automatically (and fairly) score and rank applicants for suitability.
Here are some reasons why you should use pre-hire assessments during the recruitment process:
Integrating pre-hire assessments into your ATS has many advantages, whether it’s your first time using an assessment tool or you’re a veteran.
1. Better Candidate Experience
Integration with your ATS provides a better experience for candidates. An integrated system keeps candidates engaged and lowers the number of candidate drop-offs during the initial recruitment process. A seamless integration will also give candidates a better impression of your organisation.
When you integrate your pre-hire assessments with your ATS, candidates can receive the assessment immediately after submitting their applications. This further increases candidate engagement with the process because there’s no delay between their application and receiving the assessment. Depending on the type of integration, candidates can find out immediately if they have succeeded and if they will progress to the next stage.
2. Save Recruiters Time
When your ATS automatically sends assessments, that means you don’t have to do it manually. This automation saves you time and reduces the risk of any errors associated with manual data entry.
3. Better Recruiter Experience
As a recruiter, you can directly see candidate scores and reports in your ATS, which makes it easier to analyse the data as it comes in, and as there’s no switching between applications, the process also takes less time. An integrated system can help you further by simplifying the candidate shortlisting process by creating a list of the top candidates based on available data. In short, ATS integrations make the process smoother and more straightforward.
4. Security
Keeping data safe is vital for every organisation. When you use a full integration, fewer logins are required, which means fewer opportunities for data breaches.
5. Embed your Employer Brand
Integration with your ATS makes communicating your brand and values easier to prospective candidates. As candidates won’t have to switch platforms during the recruitment process, you can control the candidate experience more effectively.
Bonus Reason: Better Data Analysis
At ThriveMap, we can integrate seamlessly with any ATS and provide data analysis that compares assessment data to post-hire performance or retention. We use this data analysis to suggest improvements to your assessments over time, which provides long-term benefits for your organisation.
There are different types of ATS integration, and it’s essential to understand the differences between them, so you can pick the style most suitable for you.
Full integration is also known as end-to-end integration. With full integration, assessment links are automatically sent to candidates. The process is customisable, so you can also send it later during the recruitment process if you wish.
The assessment software generates candidate scores and reports, which are sent back instantly to the ATS and displayed natively on the candidate record. Candidates can usually be ranked or sorted by assessment score. Hiring managers or recruiters don’t need a login to access candidate reports and scorecards.
A partial integration usually involves automatically sending assessments (via webhooks). However, it may be unable to send the data back into the ATS from the assessment vendor. So, while you won’t need to log in to send assessments, you may need to log in to the assessment provider’s dashboard to see the candidate results.
You can also create your integration using third-party software such as Zapier. This system has many of the same benefits as a partial or full integration, but you must have a Zapier account to trigger assessment send requests. While this can be a cheaper option, it can also have inconsistent results depending on the different software you are using. One thing to remember is that it can pose an additional security risk because it involves relying on a third-party integration. See how ThriveMap integrates with Zapier here.
If you decide not to integrate your pre-hire assessment with your ATS, you must send assessments manually and view results via the assessment vendor’s dashboard. In this scenario, you miss out on the opportunity for more effective data analysis. You must spend more time sending assessments and matching employee data and scores manually.
Integrating pre-hire assessment with your ATS makes the process smoother and more straightforward for candidates and hiring managers. Candidates will be more engaged with the recruitment process while hiring managers can save time, avoid errors and analyse the data more efficiently. When choosing an integration, you can choose from full integration, partial integration or design your integration with third-party software like Zapier. Ultimately, integrating your pre-hire assessment with your ATS leads to a more efficient process and can increase the quality of your hires while reducing the time to hire.
Further reading
If you liked this post, you may also be interested in how ThriveMap integrates with the ATS Lever.
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ThriveMap creates customised assessments for high volume roles, which take candidates through an online “day in the life” experience of work in your company. Our assessments have been proven to reduce staff turnover, reduce time to hire, and improve quality of hire.
Not sure what type of assessment is right for your business? Read our guide.
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