Can ATS Software Stop Candidate Drop Off Before It Hurts Your Fill Rate

The short answer to the question in the title is, yes! But how? 

In today’s competitive staffing landscape, when candidates drop off it hurts you, whether that is during the interview process, final paperwork phase, or not showing up the day of assignment. Time has been wasted, it can be costly, and it hurts your relationship with your client. It’s a lose, lose, lose. 

This is when an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can play a critical role. ATS solutions can help engage candidates, automate communication, provide predictive insights on candidate risk, expedite the onboarding process, and more. When you strategically leverage the recruiting tools at your fingertips, you can take practical steps to help keep candidates engaged, improve the overall candidate experience, and increase your fill rate, which ultimately leads to increased revenue.

In this article, we will take a look at why candidates drop off, how it impacts your staffing agency, and how you can utilize your ATS to decrease your candidate drop-off rates. 

Why Candidate Drop Off Happens

Why do candidates drop off in the first place? To understand this, you first must put yourself in the candidates’ shoes. More than likely, you are not the only job they are applying for. They may be juggling multiple offers, multiple interviews, multiple opportunities. The first point of disengagement begins with the onboarding application. If it’s too long, a candidate may immediately lose interest and drop off. Why submit your long application if they can submit quick applications to a few jobs?

A slow recruiting and onboarding process also disengages the candidate if perhaps another process is moving along for a different job. A cumbersome process and lack of communication can also hurt the candidate experience. If they have a bad experience working with you or perhaps don’t have much of a relationship, they will have less loyalty in the process. On the other hand, if they have a good experience and relationship, they are less likely to drop off, even if they are considering other opportunities. 

How Candidate Drop Offs Effect Staffing Businesses

When candidates drop off, it can have a slew of effects, depending on where you are in the cycle. First and foremost, it delays the whole process. In some cases, you may be screening multiple candidates simultaneously, however, you may also be at the point where you narrowed in on one and they dropped off. In cases like this, you need to start the process all over again, leading to longer hiring cycles. It also looks bad from the client perspective and can lead to frustration or even lost business. They expect quality candidates in a timely manner and if neither are being produced, it can harm your client relationships.

Candidates dropping off can also be costly. You might have lost money on that candidate, you might need to spend more on recruiting another, and there is lost revenue opportunities. The sooner you get a candidate placed, the sooner you can work on the next opportunity. 

Leveraging Your ATS to Decrease Candidate Drop Off

The good news is, you can utilize the tools in your ATS to decrease drop off rates. In this section we will look at ways to keep candidates engaged throughout the process.

Simplified Application Experience 

The average attention span has dropped over the past two decades from 2.5 minutes to roughly 40 seconds. Does this mean you only have 40 seconds for someone to fill out an application? Probably not, but it shows how much speed and engagement matters in today’s world to keep someone’s interest. 

Your onboarding application can be the first place where you are at risk of losing candidates. A good experiment is to go through your application to see how long it takes to fill it out. Do you lose interest? Are there too many steps? Does it show how much is left in the application process to guide candidates? A good best practice is to keep the application as short as possible. Gather only the necessary information and the rest can be handled once they are in the system. 

Quick Application Follow Up and Screening 

One of the pain points we hear about all the time in staffing and recruiting is the lack of communication throughout the process.  Once a candidate applies, the way you respond is like a first impression when talking with someone for the first time. Below are a few ways to have a great first impression right off the bat:

Send Automatic Email Notifications After Submittal: 

Setup automatic email notifications to go out after candidates apply, noting the application was received and what the next steps are. You should be able to set this up right within your OnBoarding Admin in your ATS.

Communicate Quickly After Submittal: 

Reach out to the candidate as soon as you can to schedule the pre-screening and determine if they are a good fit. All candidates who apply, should flow directly into your ATS from your OnBoarding application, allowing you to send an instant text or email message. If your ATS allows you to, set up email and text templates for these messages, so in a matter of a few clicks your message can go out. 

Automate Pre-Screening with an AI Recruiter: 

Some ATS systems have an integration with AI Screening tools, so right when a candidate applies, an email or text can go out to that candidate for an AI Chatbot or AI Voice Recruiter to conduct a screening. This saves the recruiter time, so they can focus their attention on the candidates that are qualified for the position. It will also get candidates pre-screened quicker to move them along to the next phase in the cycle. If they apply at 9pm at night, they can get instantly screened afterwards so the recruiter has all of their information by morning. 

Whether you have access to an AI Recruiter or not, the biggest step after the application is received is using your ATS to communicate quickly and conduct the pre-screening to keep the process moving.  

Workflow Tracking and Candidate Communication 

The period between the initial pre-screen and the first day on assignment is a critical period. This is where candidates can lose engagement if the process is too long or there is a 

lack of follow-up communication. Use your ATS to track the candidate workflow every step of the way, so you know exactly how many candidates are in each phase: interviewing, resumes submitted to client, completing onboarding paperwork and compliance, onboarded, assignments starting tomorrow, etc. Visualizing your candidate workflow on a dashboard will help you track where all of your candidates are in the process, keep them moving to the next phase, and help you communicate with them throughout the process.

You can use your ATS to also schedule follow-up check-ins with your candidate, so they know their status. After every interaction with a candidate, schedule a follow up on your Daily Planner in your ATS. This will keep you organized and remind you when it’s time to follow up with your candidate. In some cases, you may be communicating before that follow up date, but having a scheduled date will ensure you are keeping the candidate up to date with their status. 

Establish the Preferred Way for Client Submittals

When communicating with a new client, always establish the easiest way for them to review resumes. Do they prefer an email? Do they prefer it is uploaded to the client portal? Do they like a follow up text after you submit candidates? Establishing the most convenient way for submittals will make the process smooth and efficient. 

With each submission, also include a candidate profile summary. This will help the client understand their skill set, information about them, and why you think they are a good candidate. It’s a way for you to further market the candidate to the client. The more information you can provide to the client about the candidates you are submitting, the easier it is for them to review them and decide.   

On your candidate record in your ATS, see if there is a way to enter a candidate profile summary so when you are emailing the candidate or submitting the resume to a portal, the summary automatically pulls through. If you are submitting candidates via email, setup email templates that will include the summary so again, it only takes a few clicks to get the candidate submitted. Your ATS should allow for easy automation, with few clicks to do each step. 

Automated Engagement Workflows

Candidate engagement tools can also be used to send automated email and text messages to candidates throughout their journey. An integrated tool in your ATS, such as Sense, could help with this. Even though the messages are automated, you can make them feel personal as if you are sending them in real time. Automated engagement workflows can be used to touch base with the candidate as the assignment start date approaches, to send check-in texts throughout their assignment, and even a message towards the end of their assignment to encourage them to check out your open jobs for their next assignment. 

Automated engagement workflows will help keep the candidates engaged right before they begin the assignment and throughout it. You can also receive feedback throughout the assignment, so if something is wrong you can try to get ahead of it before they drop off. 

The engagement workflows also help establish a relationship between you and the candidate. They can see you care by checking-in and it can help with candidate retention beyond the current assignment. 

Decreasing Candidate Drop Off After the First Assignment

If you made it to this step, your candidate successfully completed their first assignment without dropping off! Congratulations! This is something to celebrate. After the first assignment, you now have an opportunity to further engage with the candidate and retain them for future assignments. It can also open up the door for more opportunities to avoid drop offs in the future. In this section, we will talk about ways you can use your ATS to retain employees after their first assignment and tools you can use to avoid drop off. 

Candidate Mobile App 

A candidate mobile app is one of the best ways to engage with candidates and retain them for future assignments. It allows candidates to always stay connected with your staffing agency right from their mobile device. 

After a candidate’s first assignment, set them up with a candidate mobile app. Your ATS most likely has a candidate mobile app that you can take advantage of that integrates right with your front office staffing software solution, so the two platforms communicate back and forth. 

When an assignment is close to ending, it’s the perfect opportunity to interact with that candidate and get them placed at another assignment. A candidate mobile app can help this process be seamless. They can search and apply for open jobs and you can push job opportunities out to them to accept or decline on the spot. 

Additionally, they can view their schedule, update their availability, and even message the recruiter from the app in real-time. During the assignment they might even be able to enter time, access paychecks, and view other employee documentation. 

A candidate mobile app will keep candidates completely engaged with your staffing agency and make it easy for them to find their next assignment. They won’t want to work for anyone else. 

Candidate Talent Match Tools

If your ATS has talent match tools, this can also decrease drop offs in the future. AI talent match tools identify the candidates that have the right skills for the job and ranks them. When candidates are matched with the right jobs for their skill set, they are less likely to drop off because it’s a good fit. From the match tools, you might even be able to send out job invites to the candidate mobile app to accept on the spot, offering a seamless and easy experience. The easier you can make it for candidates, the less likely they will drop off. 

Candidate AI Profile for Predictive Insights 

Some ATS systems now even offer predictive insights to determine the riskiness of placing a candidate on an assignment, based on history. A candidate can be the perfect match for a job, however, if they are known for dropping off midway through assignment, you might not want to place them. An AI Candidate Profile in your ATS helps give you a complete picture of the candidate, their history, and provide one final safety blanket before reaching out to them for a job. It will also help you build stronger relationships with your clients by knowing who your reliable candidates are and only placing the best candidates. 

Visibility Into Recruiting Bottlenecks and Drop-Offs

A big advantage of an ATS system is having the ability to access all of your analytics to identify exactly where drop offs are occurring in the hiring funnel. You can also see what parts of your process are taking too long. If you have integrated analytics, you can visualize your data into reporting dashboards. Below are a few metrics to monitor regularly in your ATS: 

· Application completion rate

· Interview no-show rate

· Offer acceptance rate

· Average number of days to fill

· Average number of days per phase 

· Fill rate

· Turnover rate 

· Turnover rate by phase – measures the turnover rate in each phase of the recruiting cycle

· Assignment completion rate – measures the rate at which candidates finished their assignment

Less Drop-Offs, Higher Retention and Engagement

We covered a lot in this article from why candidates drop off, to how it hurts your staffing business, to ways to decrease candidate drop off using the tools within your ATS. Your ATS is equipped with automation, workflow tracking, engagement tools and more. Candidate drop off should only be a rare case. When you make the hiring process simple, engage with candidates throughout it, and check-in with them during the assignment, candidates are less likely to drop off. 

Once the assignment is complete, engagement doesn’t have to end there. It’s time to transition into retention strategies to keep candidates wanting to work for your staffing agency. Utilize the software solutions available to you through your ATS to help retain candidates and identify candidates that have a bad track record. The ultimate goal is you never want a candidate to ever want to work for anyone else. When you make the process simple and easy for them to find their next assignment, it’s hard to look at other opportunities. This helps retain candidates, your clients are happy because quality candidates are being placed, and you have less costs associated with each placement, leading to more profit. When you can get ahead of drop-offs, it becomes a win, win, win.