An ATS may be able to help improve your recruitment processes in many ways, reducing the time to hire and sometimes boosting the quality of the talent that you hire. However, implementing an ATS takes a little time and effort, even after you evaluate your current recruitment systems and decide on your perfect vendor and solution. The following are a few steps that should be included in your implementation plan.
1. Meeting with Vendor
The vendor that you will be working with will need to meet with you and possibly some of your project team members to go over the timeline for implementation, answer any questions, and get a feel for what your current processes look like. In most cases, the vendor will do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the technical aspects of implementation and integration, but it may help them to know more about your company. Having your project team present may also be helpful for later training.
2. Meeting with Key Stakeholders
Any hiring managers or recruiters that will be affected by the new system should be updated on how to use the new system and trained on any changes that will go into effect after the system is put in place. Hiring managers and recruiters may be able to provide suggestions that will help the company transition to using the new system and potentially make the system more effective. Having a meeting with just stakeholders and project team members after the vendor meeting may help to drum up excitement for the new system and address concerns before the system is implemented.
3. Building and Integration of System
The building and integration of the new ATS will usually be done by the vendor. A good vendor will give a time estimate for this step of the integration process and will call frequently to ask questions, discuss issues that arise, and share pertinent information that comes up. This step of the integration process is generally the longest, but necessitates the least amount of involvement and labor obligation by your company.
4. Test of System
Testing may be done initially by the vendor remotely, but will need to be done by your team eventually. It is generally best to let your ATS project team do the first round of testing, as they are the most familiar with the system features and team needs. Tell your project team to give detailed feedback so that any bugs can be worked out at this stage.
5. Training and Change Management
After your project team has relayed feedback and the system has been updated with needed changes, it is time to introduce the system to the rest of the team. Scheduling a training session and assigning your project team members training duties will help to take the pressure off of you and may facilitate system adoption. Provide support that will help those impacted by the ATS adjust to the new system and find answers to any questions so that the acquisition is cause for excitement instead of stress.