ATS no more a black hole: Here’s one that ensures seamless user experience

Unlike most existing application tracking systems Freshteam will archive profiles associated with specific job roles.

When Freshworks Inc. scaled up from six to 1000 employees globally, the software company faced several challenges in terms of the technology they were using, specifically their erstwhile application tracking system (ATS). The industry lacked transparency in terms of pricing, as the existing solutions were either too exorbitantly priced or lacked the desired features. The realisation that the industry needed a product that is strong on user experience and is priced reasonably at the same time, led them to design a unique ATS.

Thus was born Freshteam, known for a remarkable user experience, prompt customer support and an open and transparent pricing.

While much has been talked about candidate experience in hiring, not much is being done to ensure the same. Most ATS are like blackholes that candidates and recruiters alike toss resumes into, never to be found again. For instance, when a job opening closes, most recruiters make it a point to archive the profiles of the other candidates in consideration so they can look them up in the future. However, in a lot of AT systems, archiving a candidate might as well be equal to deleting their profile because you’re not likely to find them again unless you remember the candidate by name.

Also, while applying through Taleo for most companies, candidates have to first register on it, then toil through lengthy forms. This seems to be an unnecessary process when their details already openly exist on platforms, such as LinkedIn. Freshteam, on the other hand, solves this problem by allowing recruiters to archive profiles with an associated job role. This way, when a new job opening arises, Freshteam will be sure to make relevant profiles resurface so that the recruiter can reach out and engage with them again.

“From registering, remembering the log-in details and having to do the same thing each time to filling up the tedious forms, made the application process complicated for the candidates”, said Kalyanaraman Parthasarathi, director of product at Freshteam. “At the same time, the recruiters face immense challenges in sorting and scouting through the resumes, creating and managing job postings, keeping track of the candidates’ progress in the hiring process and managing duplications with most existing systems,” Parthasarathi elaborates.

He shares that it’s only recently that organisations have started working on having mobile-friendly career sites, the lack of which also meant that the existing application processes are not so seamless, despite the technology advancements in place.

Freshteam offers a simple and feature-rich dashboard to help recruiters manage the entire recruitment process all under one platform.

Therefore, while Freshworks expanded its team from six to 20 and then from 50 to 100 and further grew rapidly to become over a 1000 now, the need to put candidate relationship management right at the centre of an organisation’s talent acquisition process became a clear opportunity to build for.

Girish Mathrubootham, CEO & founder, Freshworks, himself being a strong believer in user experience shares, “During the early days of Freshworks, it was a big challenge to get candidate experience right. Recruiters have a tough job of simultaneously managing candidates, interviewers and external search vendors for every opening to deliver the best hiring experience. Our talent acquisition team needed a unified way to manage all the touchpoints of the candidate life cycle, much like how customer interactions and sales leads are managed through a CRM.”

Having felt the pain-points themselves, they launched Freshteam this year, with an aim to transform hiring experience for recruiters as well as candidates, while helping organisations grow even faster. Freshteam offers a simple and feature-rich dashboard to help recruiters manage the entire recruitment process all under one platform.

In addition to job-posting, and interview scheduling, it allows recruiters to attract top talent through multiple sourcing channels—including social media— and contextually collaborate with hiring teams. Unlike other AT systems, recruiters can also engage with candidates directly and get organised by building candidate databases that help archive candidate profiles.

In addition to job-posting, and interview scheduling, it allows recruiters to attract top talent through multiple sourcing channels—including social media— and contextually collaborate with hiring teams.

Talking of their own hiring process, Vikrant Bhatnagar, chief human resource officer, Freshworks Inc. says, “When it comes to hiring at Freshworks, three things are on top of our mind 1) Candidate Experience – how can we deliver highest standards of candidate experience, 2) Efficiency & Simplicity – collaboration between the hiring manager and TA team and, 3) Transparency and Predictability – using analytics to take high-quality decisions to bring more predictability in our processes. Our HR team and hiring managers have been critical to providing feedback in the on-going development of Freshteam and we’re super excited to know our customers can collaborate with us too.”

Freshteam solves another large problem with most systems, that is, duplication of candidate profiles. This system creates a singular profile for a candidate, irrespective of the number of jobs or the number of times a candidate applies for one. This, in turn, helps the organisations manage their employee referrals better as it segregates the first person to have referred a candidate, as ‘referee’ and any other person to have referred the same candidate as a ‘recommender’. This ensures that there are no confusions with the profiles of the candidate and the referee.

By allowing recruiters to sync their e-mails with the ATS, the tool makes it easier for them to manage the entire process well.

Not discounting the power of employee referrals, Freshteam has this as a significant feature in its basic plan itself, while most other existing solutions in the market offer the referral management feature only as part of their top plans. “Employee referral programmes offer a higher retention rate and reduced cost per hire, as opposed to other sourcing methods. We’re aware of the importance of employee referrals—our success with hiring and the growth of Freshworks Inc. can be attributed to our referral programme—which is why Freshteam offers it from our base, free plan,” Parthasarathi opines.

In addition, allowing recruiters to sync their e-mails with the ATS, the tool makes it easier for them to manage the entire process well. Going further, Freshteam is working towards allowing candidates to check back on the progress of their resumes through the respective company’s career site. It is also looking at integrating a chatbot into the system, to enable a further enhanced user experience.

With all this in place, it’s no surprise that within three months of its launch, the solution has gained so much traction that it has over 500 evaluators and over 160 customers using it. Last but not the least, to encourage small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) to focus on their hiring experience, Freshteam will be available for free to companies with less than 50 employees. In future product releases, Freshteam will integrate with other Freshworks software as well.

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