This is part two of a two part series on some of the essential criteria to consider when selecting an applicant tracking system.  Whether you're switching from an existing system or looking to implement a new system from scratch, these criteria will help to ensure that you choose the right system for your needs and ensure the success of the project.

5.) Talent Pools & Search

Every time a candidate applies to a job or submits a general application, your candidate database grows and gets more valuable.  The ability to intelligently organize candidates into talent pools for future positions and to search through this database is a must-have which saves you thousands on posting costs and recruiting time.

What To Look For: 

• Dedicated area in the system for building and maintaining talent pools
• Ability to add candidates to a talent pool manually
• Ability for the system to automatically find good-match candidates and add them to a talent pool
• Bulk messaging CRM (candidate relationship management) capabilities 
• Easily moving candidates from a talent pool to a new requisition

6.) Onboarding

Progressive companies know that a smooth onboarding process can mean the difference between a happy, successful employee, and one who quits within weeks of starting. These companies have also found that Web-enabled onboarding processes will dramatically accelerate and reduce the administrative cost of a new hire, freeing everyone's time to concentrate on the training, orientation and socialization which truly drives successful results.

What To Look For: 

• A New Hire Welcome Portal that is customizable on a per-hire basis
• Custom portal content, i.e. "What to Expect on Your First Day", "Culture at ABC Company", etc
• Support for creating electronic versions of your paper forms
• Stock forms library for government, state, and other common forms
• Legal electronic signatures
• Support for wet (real) signatures through signing and scanning a form into the system
• Intelligent forms that pre-fill previously collected data
• Internal task management, i.e. setting up a desk, configuring an email account for the new hire
• Overview dashboard with real-time insights into all hiring activity and task completion
• Unlimited New Hire Packet Templates with different forms and information for different types of hires 

7.) Pipeline Analytics & Custom Reporting

The ordinary, daily use of an ATS will produce a huge amount of activity data which can be used to analyze everything from candidate source effectiveness to process efficiency and bottlenecks - provided the activity is tracked automatically and the system has the robust reporting capabilities needed.  Some report examples to consider: Time-to-Hire, User Activity, Career Site Visitors, Employee Referrals, Source Quality, Req Approval, EEO/OFCCP, Pipeline & Process Analysis.

What To Look For: 

• Well-stocked library of useful reports
• Intuitive user interface for the casual user
• Workflow-to-workflow stage analysis
• Ability to analyze pipeline activity across different time periods and different filters 
• Custom Reporting & Custom Report Consulting from your Account Manager

8.) Configurability

While most systems these days offer a fair amount of user configurability options, which exact features are configurable and how much varies widely from vendor to vendor.  Be sure that you have a good idea of exactly what your must-have configuration options are, and which are nice-to-have.

What To Look For: 

• Customizable workflow stages
• Customizable email templates
• Custom fields for candidates & requisitions
• Custom screening questions for use on a per-req basis
• Unlimited custom application processes for different types of jobs

9.) Compliance

One huge advantage to an Applicant Tracking System is the ability to automatically collect, store and report on self-identification information.  The vendor should be able to keep you in EEOC/OFCCP and AAP compliance through this automated collection, deliver customized EEO reports and flow-logs, and offer assistance in the event of an audit.

What To Look For: 

• Automatic collection of self-identification information
• Stock EEO-1 style reports and candidate flow-logs
• Candidate flow-logs on a per requisition basis and a global basis
• Support for customized EEO-1 style and flow-log reports
• Data assistance in the event of an audit