As Recruitment Technology and HR System consultants we spend a lot of time helping our clients with their Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Some of the people on our team come directly from end-users like our clients, while our two founding partners come from the vendor side. All that is to say that we not only know how these systems work, but we have decades of experience in understanding how to make them work for their users. In working with our clients over the years, we’ve noticed one major trend: organizations with resources dedicated to their ATS are more effectively able to navigate the ever-evolving talent acquisition landscape.
Enter the ATS System Administrator. Whether their title is System Admin, Business/System Analyst, HR Manager, or anything in between, this champion of the ATS is vital for organizations that want to get the most of out of their system. A System Admin helps organizations with their system’s capabilities, ensuring they are leveraging every feature to its fullest. They are the ones who help to evolve hiring processes, blending their familiarity with the technology to their understanding of hiring best practices. Beyond their technical and process expertise, the System Admin will have your back; they will champion the system, maintain a healthy relationship with vendors, and provide an effective voice in ensuring organizations makes the best possible use of their recruitment technology.
Do you feel your organization falling behind your competition’s talent acquisition efforts, and struggling to get the most out of your system? Do you find yourself opening tickets with your vendor and waiting hours or even days to get simple answers or to solve simple problems? Are your ATS integrations failing or becoming increasingly difficult to maintain? A System Admin that knows the technology inside and out, that understands your business processes, and is dedicated to your success can help you to keep pace and will play a pivotal role often acting as the bridge between technology and talent strategy. If you’re reading this article and nodding along to our questions, odds are that you already need one.
How you deploy a System Administrator is up to you; some organizations will hire a consultant directly from their vendor, wanting to get as much system expertise as possible. Others will look for process-minded and technology-inclined HR or business analysts who can apply their skillset to a new tool/practice. Major enterprises will staff entire teams of analysts to advance their ATS utilization. Some organizations will hire consultants on a dedicated full- or part-time or ad hoc basis to be their ATS champion (we’re big fans of this approach!). How you find your ATS Knight in Shining Armor is up to you… but if you’ve this far, you should probably start looking.
