Excel spreadsheet VS ATS: which to choose?
On average, each corporate vacancy attracts 250 CVs. Of these candidates, 4 to 6 will be called for an interview, and only one will get the job. It is therefore vital to organize and monitor all candidatesgrades, timetable and results.
Excel is an excellent tool for storing and sorting relatively simple data and, with advanced knowledge, Excel is capable of much more. But is it capable of effectively handling the demands of a modern modern recruitment professional? With the advent of ATS, this no longer seems to be the case. Excel VS ATSwhich will win the match?
What is an ATS?
What is an ATS?
An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is software that manages the recruitment and hiring process, including job offers and applications. It organizes jobseeker information and makes it searchable.
As its name suggests, an ATS follows candidates throughout the hiring process. It helps schedule interviews, issues notifications and alerts, and sends automated emails to candidates and employees, such as recruiters and hiring managers.
But these systems are much more than organizers. An ATS is also used to sort applications and recommend the best candidates. It can also search for keywords or use AI-like algorithms to perform a more in-depth analysis of the candidate. The aim is tospeed up the review of applications.
Hiring managers can then pre-screen candidates using the ATS and track their progress through the hiring process. By digitizing the hiring process in this way, an ATS saves employers time and money.
How does ATS work?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) helps an organization manage every stage of the recruitment process, from the drafting of the job advertisement to the job offer. The ATS keeps track of all the activity that takes place around the candidate.
The following steps are typical of a recruitment process:
- The job application is created and, if necessary, approved in the system.
- The position is advertised in one or more places, including internally for employees, on the organization's website and on external job boards.
- Candidates apply for the position. They may have to answer questions relating to the position, such as their professional experience and education. Some ATSs can be configured to automatically reject applicants based on the answers to certain questions.
- ATS can analyze resumes and rank new applications as they are submitted.
- At the same time, a headhunter is approaching candidates. Thanks to ATS, he can automatically download all candidate data from LinkedIn into a single software application, accessible to recruiters.
- The recruiter reviews the applications in the system and selects the candidates to continue.
- Interviews can be held with the recruiter, hiring manager and others as required. Notes can be entered into ATS after each interview for future reference.
- Once the preferred candidate has been identified, the recruiter generally uses ATS to send the offer to the candidate.
- If the candidate accepts the offer, the ATS welcome functions are made available to them, they can read and digitally sign policies, fill in online forms and learn more about the organization.
Advantages and disadvantages of ATS VS Excel
10 advantages of ATS software
→ 1. fewer administrative tasks that drain resources and waste time.
Managing the day-to-day recruitment process with the right ATS means you'll spend far less time repeating tasks such as copying and pasting, searching, storing and backing up.
→ 2. An ATS allows you to develop talent and get long-term value from your candidate pool.
There are gems to be found in previous applications, but buried in spreadsheets and inboxes, they lose all value.
→ 3. It allows you todevelop an informed hiring strategy.
It's difficult to make long-term, data-driven decisions about future recruitment with disparate systems. ATS enables you to apply a consistent process thanks to its recruitment analysis tools.
→ 4. Time to hire is shortened.
A key measure of recruitment efficiency, time to hire is a strong indication of a recruitment team's performance. By automatically managing tasks that used to be done manually, it takes less time to go from application to acceptance, and costs less.
→ 5. The candidate's experience meets expectations.
A comprehensive, grouped management system will offer jobseekers and applicants a transparent, enriched and informed process .
→ 6. The employer brand is strengthened
A good candidate experience enhances your company's reputation and has an impact on your business. Companies with a strong brand have a lower cost per hire and attract better candidates.
→ 7. Automatic job posting is fast and efficient
Automatic publication of job offers on job boards and social media sites saves you time, reduces your administrative workload and offers a greater guarantee of success.
→ 8. Quality candidates are targeted more easily
It's now easy to keep track of where candidates are in the hiring process, so none get lost along the way. Rich, frequent communication keeps candidates involved.
→ 9. Conformity is respected
With a standardized approach and specialized tools for employment background checks, it's easier to protect sensitive candidate data and demonstrate compliance with data protection laws and regulations.
→ 10. Team collaboration is stronger
If you use a grouped approach to managing recruitment, it's easier to build a cohesive, efficient recruitment team with shared access to all relevant information and communications.
3 reasons why Excel is no good for recruitment
- Data storage, presentation and retrieval
Excel can store a massive amount of simple data. The amount of data Excel can store isn't the problem, it's the type of data, the way the data is presented and the searchability that limits recruitment professionals.
If you're working with Excel, you'll need to switch from one program to another, and have a highly organized filing system to avoid misplacing essential information.
As new candidates sign up, data accumulates rapidly, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find what you need, when you need it.
- Collaboration and confidentiality
Standard Excel documents are limited as they can only be modified by one user at a time. Documents downloaded from cloud storage, modified and then placed back on the network often result in data loss, as changes made by users are overwritten.
It may happen that you wish to hide specific data from selected users. In Excel, you can password-protect individual sheets, but this does not guarantee data security. A potential problem if you use Excel to store sensitive information.
- Integrations and workflows
If you use Excel to store data, chances are you use a word processing application to take notes, as well as a calendar and messaging application to manage communications.
The more you switch from one application to another, the more time you waste. As recruitment evolves, you'll become increasingly dependent on multiple applications. This will create a disjointed and complex workflow, increasing the likelihood of errors.
Excel is an excellent application with many uses in the business world, but it's not designed to handle the workflow of modern recruitment.
Marvin ATS, why is it practical?
Marvin Recruiter is ideal for recruitment activities.
The addition of candidates proposed via the platform in 1 click thanks to AI allows us to time-saving when sourcingThe advanced database search makes sourcing more intelligent and better targeted, offering more qualitative support.
On the other hand, workflow makes it easy to organize the working day, by centralizing the candidates to be called in one place, without being polluted by other information. Everything a recruiter needs on a single platform: statistics, process tracking and candidate pools .
The Marvin Recruiter team is also available to customize the platform to your needs.
On the management side, the tool enables me to monitor my team's overall and individual performance, to make sure that each sales person achieves his or her objectives .
Conclusion
While Excel is an excellent application with a wide range of uses in the business world, it's not designed to handle the modern recruitment workflow.t is not designed to handle the workflow of modern recruitment.
Like Marvin Recruiter, there are many solutions that develop recruitment software for recruitment professionals. These ATS enable the entire recruitment process to be managed from a single, highly integrated system.
With features such as automation of key tasks, intelligent CV analysis, connectivity to social networks and job boards, powerful LinkedIn integration and two-way e-mail management, ATS has proven its efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Don't wait any longer to test our solution Marvin Recruiter and make up your own mind about Excel VS ATS!
