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How ATS Integration With Assessment Data Increases HR Efficiency
Your hiring process produces mountains of candidate data, from the information found on resumes to the results of psychometric tests. To make the best hiring decisions, you need to be able to evaluate all of those data points in one place. That’s why an applicant tracking system (ATS) integration with your assessment software is essential for an effective hiring process.
Here’s how to drive HR efficiency in your talent acquisition process through an effective assessment and ATS integration.
How Does Integration of Assessment Data Reduce Time To Hire?
With an ATS integration on your side, your HR team can take more control of the recruitment process without wasting valuable resources on manual data entry.
Seamlessly Connect Candidates With Assessments
A streamlined application process is much more inviting to the candidate. The less job seekers have to do to turn in their application, the more likely they will complete the process in one sitting. Employers who require candidates to input the same information repeatedly, or ask them to create an account on another site before proceeding, have already lost that talent.
Integrating assessments with your ATS can reduce time to fill by simplifying the process. Application programming interfaces allow recruiting teams to embed assessments seamlessly within the application itself. This gives candidates easier access to the test and prompts them to complete the assessment in a more timely fashion.
Collect Assessment and Interview Data
Without an ATS integration, screening candidates is a time-consuming process. The time spent manually pulling together all of the data collected during the hiring process is time your recruiters aren’t spending on more productive work. Those wasted resources ultimately increase your time to fill and your cost per hire.
But when your assessment data is integrated with your ATS, the results of your assessment and interview processes can easily be collected and compiled in one place. Feeding that data into your dashboard makes it easier to visualize each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.
Integrating all of your assessment processes, from the initial candidate screening to the interview process, produces a composite picture of each candidate’s competencies and job fit. This comprehensive overview makes it easy to spot the most qualified candidates.
Provide Access to Candidate Data in One Place
With an integration, assessment and interview data are delivered directly to your ATS dashboard, where you can review the results and compare candidates quickly. Having a centralized data repository makes it easier to streamline your HR function. Maintaining consistent recruitment processes becomes more manageable with all relevant data in one place.
Central data storage also promotes a smoother transition between recruiters and hiring managers.
Since assessment data is pulled into your hiring dashboard, hiring managers and stakeholders outside of your HR team can quickly and easily access assessment results, promoting faster hiring decisions.
Recruiters can manage the data and present it to hiring managers in a way that is user-friendly and easy to comprehend.
4 Benefits of ATS Integration for Assessments
ATS integration produces several benefits that promote improved talent acquisition processes and better HR efficiency. Here’s how Aon has supported our clients through ATS integrations.
Faster Access to Better Assessment Data
ATS integration pulls a lot of information together so that HR leaders, recruiters and hiring managers can easily manage. Even the large quantities of data generated by high-volume hiring can be organized and laid out in a user-friendly manner, ranking candidates based on the most important qualities listed in the job description.
By clarifying what data is most important to prioritize when making hiring decisions, ATS integration supports quicker access to better data sets — ultimately reducing your average time to hire.
Streamlined and Standardized Selection Processes
Although your talent acquisition team likely follows a standardized process for attracting and recruiting talent, that consistency is eroded as more non-HR personnel touch the process. Hiring managers likely bring their own ideas about how — and who — to hire, leading to inconsistent results.
Data integration allows employers to standardize hiring data across the organization, resulting in a faster, more streamlined hiring process. With equal access to data for stakeholders across the company, HR leaders can set standardized hiring and assessment processes. Your team can produce guidelines that help hiring managers access and interpret candidate data in meaningful ways.
By integrating that data, candidates only need to input data in one place. Their assessment data is automatically delivered to a central location, allowing candidates to apply to multiple positions in one easy-to-use process.
An Improved Candidate Experience
An integrated ATS provides a better experience for candidates. They can input data once and have it automatically populate the necessary fields from that point on. And with a job board integration, the experience becomes even smoother for candidates. Instead of retyping information contained in their profile, they simply need to confirm the data’s accuracy or update it as needed.
ATS integration produces a more professional and transparent assessment process. With your people data sources feeding into each other, integration reduces the time candidates spend on your application and assessments.
Because ATS integration reduces time to hire, you can maintain a positive experience by reaching out to candidates with a job offer quickly — minimizing the risk of losing those candidates to your competition. And even if you opt against pursuing a particular candidate, faster decision-making means that you can give them a definitive answer in half the time. Candidates will appreciate your respect for their time.
Comprehensive Data for Assessing Metrics and Improving Processes
With all of your assessment data in one place, it’s easier to continue monitoring and improving your hiring processes for increased efficiency. Historic pre-hire data can help you assess the return on investment for assessment, for example, or provide insights regarding the types of candidates you’re attracting.
This data supports your ongoing people management processes, too. Aggregated pre-hire data serves as a snapshot of your workforce’s abilities at any given time. That data can serve as a benchmark for measuring the results of your learning and development programs.
Aon worked with Credit Suisse to produce data-backed evidence of the benefits of the company’s assessment program. The company combined pre-hire assessment data with post-hire assessment data to produce a comprehensive data set. HR leaders worked with Aon to analyze that data set and determine the predictive validity of the company’s assessment center.
Because all of the information needed was in one place, the team could deliver definitive answers in less time.
How to Integrate Assessment Data Into Your Hiring Tech Stack
ATS integration makes for a smoother process and reduces time to hire. But to reap these benefits, companies must implement the integration effectively.
Fit Assessments Into Your Workflow
To make the most of your integration, work within your existing hiring process. If your process works, don’t reinvent it. Find ways to incorporate assessments in a way that makes sense for your brand.
Assessment vendors typically have a suggested workflow, but you can work with your provider to integrate the assessment process seamlessly within the processes you’ve already established.
Map Out Security and Data Storage
Vet vendors for knowledge and expertise related to secure data storage, especially if you’re implementing an integration across multiple locations governed by different privacy laws.
Decide where pertinent assessment data will be stored and accessed within your system, as well as who will have access to that information. Set up two-factor authentication for anyone who needs access to the data bank. Put limits on which data is accessible to hiring managers and other people outside your core HR team.
Test Your Assessment Process
Once you’ve implemented an integrated assessment process, test it to continue optimizing the process. Be sure to test both sides of the process, not just the back end. Approach the process as a candidate would see it to ensure that candidates have easy access to the assessments they need to take to move forward.
On the back end, monitor how successful the integration is, how accessible data are to the people who need it, and how easy it is to manage and interpret that data.
Jump Ahead in the War for Talent
In the new economy, candidates have more options for employment, and they can afford to be selective. Moving quickly in the hiring process helps you secure the best talent for your organization.
An effective ATS integration with assessment data produces the best processes to make the best hiring decisions quickly, giving you the advantage over your competition.
Aon | Assessment Solutions
Aon's assessment solutions provides clients with powerful tools and insights to help them make better talent decisions at every stage of the employee lifecycle. This includes pre-hire assessments, identifying future leaders, screening for digital skills and agility, and AI-enabled solutions.