The Survey Says
SteveRecently, my organization launched a survey of hiring managers and search committee participants that use our Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to enter and approve job vacancies, post the vacancies to our corporate job site, and review applications and candidate documents.;)
Flickr - jacorbett70
As we sort of expected, the initial results are less than stellar. Some highlights:
On 'Ease of Use and Navigation', 65% of respondents rated the ATS either 'Below Average' or 'Extremely Poor'.
For 'Overall Look and Feel', 48% of respondents rated the ATS either 'Below Average' or 'Extremely Poor'.
But in answering the question, 'I am getting sufficient qualified candidates for my vacancies', 65% either 'Agreed' or 'Strongly Agreed', with only 24% disagreeing strongly or mildly with the statement.
There are also lots of interesting comments, ranging from the simple, 'I hate it', to the witty, 'I would rather have candidates apply by carrier pigeon'. There are some positive comments as well, mostly having to do with having all candidate information and documents stored in a central repository and the fact that some internal administrative tasks are now a bit easier.
The survey will stay open for several more days, so it may be premature to draw final conclusions yet, but I think the overall trends and tone of the responses are clear. But what is not clear to me is what, if anything we should do.
A majority of users don't like the system, the look and feel, layout etc., but the same respondents indicate that for the most part we are attracting plenty of qualified candidates. We are making hires.
And since the ATS is a ERP-based package application, there is only so much we can do easily and inexpensively to try and re-architect it to address many of the user concerns.
I have a feeling it is going to come down to a basic decision between spending time and resources on this 'problem' versus pursuing other initiatives that actually may be more impactful to the organization.
Do we need to 'fix' a system many users don't like, if the end result, finding qualified candidates and making good hires, is apparently not broken?
Reader Comments (5)
Hi Steve -
I think this is a case where user experience needs to take a back seat for a bit. With advent of things such as AJAX and a plethora of component companies putting out extremly cool UI gadgets, we all expect the ultimate user experience these days for every app we use. As a technologist myself, It is extremely important for me to honor the 'voice of the user' as a priority in my work but I think here I am going to have to side with the strategic as opposed to the tactical. If you truly are seeing qualified candidates and making good hires, then I believe keeping the ATS as part of your ERP strategy makes sense on many different levels in today's economy.
I would think your ERP vendor will eventually catch-up your 'ugly duckling' may turn into a Swan.
CompensationXL - you make some excellent points, and I have been thinking more or less along those same lines. If anything, as I reflected more on this data, and more results rolled in, a careful review of aspects of the process is what is needed first, and only after that should we get to thinking about modifying or changing the technology. We have to keep the focus on our outcomes, both observed and desired, and not get too caught up on issues that are primarily cosmetic. Thanks very much for reading and for sharing your insights.
Since ease of use, navigation and look and feel fared poorly, could the problem be lack of training? Most people will rate their user experience low with software they don't understand how to use.
Michael - That probably explains some of the negative response, we offer monthly classroom style training and have detailed user manuals available online, but as we both know many folks will not want to attend training and don't have the time or patience for reading user manuals. I have always thought that applications that have to be used by casual users need to be so simple and intuitive that formal training really is not needed. Does anyone need to be trained to buy a book on Amazon or download a song from iTunes? Logging in to an ATS and viewing resumes should be just as simple I think. Thanks for stopping by, and for sharing your thoughts.
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