How to make your ATS an asset?
You think your talent database is your asset? Think again.
It is most likely a graveyard of old candidate records.
This interesting statistic from ‘The economics of recruiting' says that
🔔 71% of placements come from candidates already sitting in the firm’s database.
Still, when a new role opens, recruiters often start searching externally on job boards and other sources all over again.
Because… having a CV doesn’t mean that it is still relevant.
The candidates who applied a year ago are not the same: now they may have…
- A different role or
- acquired new skills or
- different stages of their life or
- a different career ambition or
- now may even have a different reason to consider you.
So all the HR leaders shouldn’t be stopping at, 'We have a big database of many years.'
But asking... if our database is alive? or
Have you ever touched all these people since the last interaction?
This intersection is where ATS, CRM, AI, and employer brand really can converge to keep an alive system. AI can help to rediscover candidates, sure. But your employer brand and talent community strategy are the ones that will keep the conversations alive.
Often I’ve seen organizations going through:
Attract → Apply → Reject or Recruit → Forget they exist.
The win-win situation is
Attract → Engage → Hire → Nurture → Rediscover → Hire → Continue the cycle
Your database isn't just a collection of people that you may hire someday. They are your current hires, potential future hires, and a network of people who will share their experiences with others.
It's an ongoing relationship with people who could become employees, advocates, referrers, future candidates, or customers.
The future of talent attraction is not just driving people to register to ATS/candidate databases. But it is about building a continued talent network that increases its value every time you interact with it.
This is where Employer Brand has a much bigger role to play in people economics than we sometimes give it credit for.
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