But if you’re operating on a tight budget, convincing stakeholders that an ATS is worth the investment isn’t always easy. If you’re in need of some solid, tangible evidence of the kind of problems ATS technology will solve for you, you’ve come to the right place.
Here are some reasons why every school needs an ATS to recruit staff in this challenging job market.
Hiring new staff for your school takes time that, if we’re being honest, no one working in education has to spare. You have an important job to do, and constantly worrying about recruiting new teachers can often get in the way of it.
Using an ATS will allow you to streamline and speed up the hiring process as well as automate things that would normally take someone a lot of time and energy to do, like posting job ads, screening candidates and sending candidate update emails.
Nowadays, you can get technology to do 90% of the recruitment for you, which should more than justify the cost of an ATS.
How many ways can a candidate apply to your job vacancies? For a lot of schools, applications can come in from a whole load of different sources - through email, online applications, job boards…the list goes on.
But when you’ve got candidates coming in from every direction, it can be almost impossible to keep track of everyone. Inevitably, an application will fall into a junk email folder or be left to gather dust in a job board database you haven’t logged into for a while. And there’s nothing more damaging to your school’s reputation than accidentally ghosting teachers who spend time applying to your jobs.
Implementing an ATS at your school will mean all applications and candidate communication is centralised so you never miss a beat. So whether a candidate applies through your careers site or an external job board, they’ll always be visible in your ATS.
Reaching as many potential candidates as possible with your job ad is always going to be important. But right now, there’s a severe talent shortage in education, so you need all the reach you can get.
But who has the time at your school to manually publish and repost job ads across all your job boards and social media channels? If this is something you’re doing manually, you’ll be putting your school at a major disadvantage compared to schools who use an ATS.
One of the most time-effective features of ATS technology is job board multi-posting. Once you’ve created your job advert within the system, you can automatically post it across multiple job boards and socials with just a few clicks. Then, you can sit back and watch as the applications stream from all these sources into your single centralised system.
The education job market is candidate-short, meaning almost no teachers will be without a job right now. This presents a challenge: all of the candidates you want to talk to will be busy teaching, not job hunting.
A good ATS gives you the communication tools you need to stay in touch with all candidates in your database, whether they’re looking for a role or not. Got candidates saved in a talent pool who have applied to your roles in the past but never been hired? Email them your job opening directly, because you won’t find them on job boards if they’re currently employed by another school.
I still get occasional emails from companies that I applied for a job with years ago. Even though I’m not looking for a job right now, I still read every. Seeing these emails fall into my inbox also keeps their brand on my radar, so that if I am ever thinking about a new job, I’ll probably think of them first.
Providing a positive experience for candidates throughout the hiring process isn’t easy for schools. With no dedicated hiring team and stretched resources, the process is notoriously slow – and occasionally messy – compared to other sectors. And when was the last time you asked a candidate for feedback on their experience of your recruitment process?
Just think about the impact a bad experience could be having on your school’s brand and ability to hire great talent. Would you apply for a job with a company who never gave you feedback after attending an interview? Me neither.
This is where an ATS is really invaluable. When you let technology do a lot of the heavy lifting, this means you’re able to provide a much better experience for each and every candidate. Not only does at ATS speed up the hiring process and ensure you never forget a candidate, but it also means you have the headspace to proactively focus on providing the best experience possible for every teacher that applies to your roles.