The basic definition states that ATS (an abbreviation of "Applicant Tracking System") is an electronic information system for supporting the recruitment process. It is a system that allows a company to centralize all information about all individual components of recruitment in one place, such as: job offers, candidates, resumes, and interviews. It also enables their management and provides us with detailed information about their current status within their lifecycle.
There is a huge group of companies that are trying, or have tried, an employee referral program. Because each company is unique, their solution is also unique and cannot be blindly copied. Nevertheless, it makes sense to pay attention to the reasons or ideas that helped the most successful ones and try to find an analogy for a specific company and situation. One thing is clear - the ordinary "bulletin board method", where only a financial reward for finding a candidate who stays past the probationary period is posted and everything is handled manually in the HR department, does not lead to the success that this recruitment method potentially contains.
"Candidate experience" is a term that relates to the quality of the recruitment process from the candidate's perspective, in other words, to the quality of their "experience". However, it is not just an experience in the sense of something unusual, although a certain "wow effect" (e.g., a discount voucher for all unsuccessful candidates) can certainly enhance the candidate's experience.
Employee referral program (ERP), or employee candidate recommendation program, is a fairly common practice in many companies. However, there are significant differences in approach, methods used, and I dare say even the overall philosophy of the program across individual companies.
As an HR professional who actively follows professional press, portals, blogs, and social media, I am exposed to a flood of many terms that are completely (or at least relatively) new in HR, and it is often difficult to understand them and put them in the right context. Let us mention some of them as examples: employer branding, HR marketing, sourcing, pipelining, talent pool, social recruiting, referrals, active and passive candidates.
The center of gravity of HR, especially in the initial phases of the employee recruitment process, is shifting more and more online, there is no dispute about that. But this does not only represent a challenge in the sense of "to be or not to be online", meaning if our services are online, we have completed the task. As in any other industry, it is also important (if not even more important) "HOW" - in other words: how we present ourselves online, how our advertisement corresponds to market demand, how our advertisement stands out (or on the contrary blends in) compared to competing offers, etc.
According to estimates by some prestigious American agencies, the economic potential of equalizing the current obvious gender inequality in society and in the labor market specifically is in the order of several trillion dollars in the next ten years. This represents around 10% of GDP for individual states of the union. This is at least worth thinking about, because, let us not kid ourselves, the Czech labor market is not more advanced than the American one in this regard.
"That is all, thank you for your time and we will get back to you during the next week". How many times have we heard something, if not exactly identical, then at least very similar at the end of an interview? How many times have we used it ourselves in the role of HR professionals? How did we feel ourselves and how did we assume or estimate the other side felt? To avoid too many questions, let us move to the currently last one - does it have to be this way?
Pre-selection is an essential part of every HR professional's life. I remember as a child seeing the HR department office in a huge, freshly privatized former national enterprise. I recall piles of papers with notes on other colored papers and an HR specialist who was copying forms and adding them to the piles. Then I was told that the piles were for individual candidates for the currently advertised positions and that the HR lady would call them or invite them to fill out the papers before coming for a personal interview. As a child, I naturally found it to be very entertaining work.