Every recruiter aims to make high-quality hires while maximizing their time, minimizing their spending, and delivering a positive candidate experience. While it may seem like a lot to achieve, these goals are mutually inclusive.

Recruitment can be costly. An average hiring process involves many internal and external expenses on job ads, job board fees, background checks, interviews, and recruitment team compensation.

With an applicant tracking system (ATS), you can make the most of your resources. Here are just some of the ways that an ATS can improve your ROI:

Prevent low-quality hires

A bad hire can be a recruiting nightmare. According to the US department of labor, a low-quality hire can cost up to 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings. A consistent, well-structured hiring process is the best way to avoid this issue.

High-quality hires reduce the training time and cost, and they start contributing to the recruitment ROI much earlier. To make great hires, it’s important to collaborate with all stakeholders and map out the skill sets, qualifications, and qualities you’re looking for before you start evaluating candidates. This approach makes the hiring process more objective and inclusive.

You can start shortlisting candidates well before the interview process to save time and interview costs. Zoho Recruit’s pre-screening assessments allow you to conduct four different types of evaluations to rate and rank candidates.

We also have a one-way interview feature that can act as a pre-interview. Candidates can record their answers to a set of questions, and recruiters can evaluate the responses at their convenience. This is a cost-effective way to assess candidates.

Saving time saves money

The more time you spend hiring a candidate, the more money you spend. A longer time-to-hire also means a lower-quality candidate experience. Conversely, faster hires lead to reduced costs, better candidate experiences, and a greater focus on revenue-generating tasks.

An ATS is the best way to reduce time-to-hire, as you can automate all repetitive tasks. A great ATS can also help you mitigate communication delays, trigger automated replies, and conduct background checks.

Read our blog on the 10 mistakes that slow down recruitment to learn more about how you can optimize your hiring process.

Create a strong employer brand and build a quality talent pipeline

The best recruitment strategy is to make your candidates eager to work with you. Creating a strong employer brand can help potential hires get a better understanding of your organization’s goals and culture.

You can build a talent pipeline by proactively sourcing candidates and actively nurturing these connections. For example, you can save contact information for top candidates who did not land previous roles, as they might be a great fit for future job openings. An ATS can help you store and keep track of candidate data so you can reach out to quality candidates for new roles. This can help you conserve resources that you may have spent on sourcing new candidates.

You can also connect with potential candidates through social media. Use your page to share why your company is a great place to work, and direct interested parties to your career site. A highly functional and mobile-friendly career site is a cost-effective way to post about new job openings and bring in top talent.

Build your career site with Zoho Recruit

Construct a robust referral system

According to the 2015 LinkedIn Global Talent Trends report, your employee network can give you access to a talent pool that is ten times larger than any other recruitment channel. In addition, referrals can connect you to a unique passive candidate pool.

By offering an attractive referral bonus, you’ll incentivize employees to refer strong candidates, which in turn can help you save resources otherwise spent on job ads, candidate sourcing, and pre-screening. This approach can also reduce your overall time-to-hire.

Employees hired through referrals also tend to fit in well with the company, as they are already familiar with its culture. This indirectly cuts costs by reducing employee turnover.

Learn more about how you can build a robust referral program with Zoho Recruit

Collect and analyze data

The right data can help you understand which parts of your recruitment process are working well and what can be improved. With these insights, you can adjust your strategy and establish a more cost-effective hiring process.

Advanced analytics for Zoho Recruit analyzes your recruitment metrics to provide you with insightful reports.

Steer proactive recruitment

Using proactive recruitment strategies rather than waiting for the perfect candidate to show up can bring you great hires at low costs. An ATS facilitates this by helping you build a talent pipeline, establish an employer brand, and collect and analyze data.