Yes we can, and we do.

ApplicantStack is priced as Software as a Service (SaaS) because we believe SaaS is the fairest and most flexible form of software pricing.  With SaaS, you pay a monthly subscription to use a software product, much like a utility bill.  There’s no large up-front purchase and no commitment or contract.  You pay based on your usage of the software, which you  can upgrade or downgrade at any time.

We believe SaaS pricing is the most fair because it keeps us, the software provider, honest and “on our toes”.  If we don’t keep our customers happy with reliable, robust software, we could lose them all overnight.  If we don’t continue to innovate and develop new useful functionality, our customers can easily jump ship to a competing product.  If that doesn’t motivate us to excellence I don’t know what will!

Heck, we even make it easy for our customers to leave us by providing a simple way to export your data and take it with you!

SaaS is also flexible in that it charges customers based on their actual use of the software.  Larger companies who do more hiring and thus have more usage will pay more than a small company that is just hiring a few positions.  By having usage determine price we are able to keep the entry price for the product low enough to be in the small organization’s budget, while still providing the capacity the large organization needs and is able to pay for.

Our original vision for ApplicantStack was to provide Applicant Tracking functionality at a fair, affordable price.  Anybody who has looked around at HR software vendors will tell you that 95% of them are ridiculously expensive.  Which is why we’re in the arguably enviable position of having to defend our low price to the people we talk with.

Which we are more than happy to do.

Global Questionnaires/Forms

Questionnaires that you create in your Library are now Global and can now be directly attached to jobs or filled out by candidates without first attaching to a job.  Previously Questionnaires in your Library were “templates”, but you still needed to add them to a job in order to use the questionnaire.  And once added to a job the questionnaire would become unique to that job.  Now, when you attach a questionnaire to a job, rather than create a new questionnaire for that job, the global questionnaire is simply shown on the Apply page for that job.

While this may seem like a subtle, technical change, it actually opens the door for some very powerful and exciting uses of questionnaires in ApplicantStack.  For example:

• If you have questions that you want to show on all or most jobs (such as an employment application), you can add this to your library and then attach it to each job where it should be shown. Then you can build a report for the questionnaire (see below) which will include ALL applications across all jobs.
• You can build questionnaires that you want to use to capture data about a candidate from a recruiter or hiring managers.  For example, you could create a Phone Screen Questionnaire, Interview Questionnaire, Reference Check Authorization, etc.  You can then have your users fill out these questionnaires or send them to candidates to fill out.

Layout Templates for Questionnaire Forms

We’ve added the ability to have a custom Layout Template for a questionnaire.  Normally, when you build a questionnaire using our Questionnaire Builder, the questions will be displayed one after another and flow vertically down the page.  While this makes building questionnaires very easy, it is not as suitable for building forms, such as an Employment Application.

By using a Layout Template, you can have a questionnaire form, such as an Employment Application, that has all the functionality of a regular questionnaire (e.g. data collection, validation, reporting, etc) but has a more professional, clean and organized appearance.

Check out this example of an Employment Application implemented using Layout Template:

http://www.applicantstack.com/client/demo/x/apply/a2l87vbzapt7

Please contact us if you would like us to create a questionnaire form for you using a Layout Template.  Note that ApplicantStack customers can create a Layout Template themselves, but it does require knowledge of HTML.  For more specifics on how to create a Layout Templates see our article on Creating a Questionnaire Layout Template

Reporting and Exporting Questionnaire Data

Using the flexible Report Builder, you are now able to build Reports that include your questionnaire/form data.  Just go to the Report Builder, select the Questionnaire from the field menu and choose the questions that you would like to include in your report.

Since you are able to Export reports to CSV (Comma Separated Text File) format, this means you are now able to export all the data from any or all questionnaires into a single CSV file.  Note that CSV can be opened in Excel for easy viewing and manipulation of the data.

Take a look at this example employment application implemented in ApplicantStack.  The application contains all the information from a standard employment application (i.e. Personal Information, Education, Work History, References, Authorization, etc).  But in electronic form it provides a number of benefits over its paper counterpart.  Here are just a few of the benefits:

1. Applicants can fill out the application on their own time from their own computer (or a shard one at a public facility), rather than have to come on-site to request and fill out a paper application.
2. Applicants can view open positions and read job requirements on-line as well, then submit an application to positions for which they are qualified.
3. Automatic validation on the form verifies that all required fields have been filled out, i.e. no more partially completed forms with missing information.
4. Data automatically gets saved in a central electronic database (in our secure data center), so you can’t lose or misplace the form.  This makes it very easy to save applications for a mandated period of time, then archive or delete them after that.
5. Anybody with a login to your company account (which your administrator creates) will be able to login to view applications in your database (or only for their assigned job, depending on how you configure permissions).

When you create an ApplicantStack trial account, there will be a default Employment Application in the account that you can use right away.  If you want to implement your own employment application, just of your current employment application (in PDF or Word format) and we’ll give you a quote for implementing it for you in ApplicantStack.

MCH

Hi Brenda.  Tell us about your role at MCH.

Brenda: I oversee our HR committee, which works with the typical HR stuff: benefits, employee moral issues, any kind of thing that comes up HR-wise. 

How do you use ApplicantStack?

Brenda: Well, part of my role is to maintain all of our hiring processes.  I’ve been doing this for a couple of years as the HR director, but it’s been kind of crazy because we’ve never had an online application.  People would email and request them and I would have to send PDFs over all the time and it just got to be a real hassle.  So I got to thinking, all these companies have online applications so it can’t be that hard to do it.  So I searched for a product and found ApplicantStack and started using it.  We just really needed to get that online application to our website so we can see if it would make a difference

Has it made a difference?

Brenda: It’s been very, very helpful and it saves me a LOT of time.  And our applicant count is definitely up.  Now, to be honest, I’m not sure it’s all due to having the online application, because with the economy the way it is I would expect to have more applicants, so it’s hard to measure.  But my thought is that if you make it easier for people to apply you’re going to get more applicants.  So I think some of [the increase] is due to having the online application.

What was your process before you used ApplicantStack?

Brenda: We have affirmative action requirements because we have a government contract, and in the beginning we had to even number our applications.  So I would have to scan in an application for everyone who applied and send it to them.  In time it got a little better and I would just save a PDF of the application on my desktop and I would send it out per request, but I still had to send it out every time somebody wanted an application. 

And what is your process now with ApplicantStack?

Brenda: Now, with ApplicantStack, I don’t have to do all that.  I get notified from the system when somebody has applied.  I still have to log it for our affirmative action but I don’t have to send something out to every applicant.  And the other thing is a lot of applicants would call and ask us what jobs we have available.  Previously I would literally go through each one of the positions over the phone, or email a list to them.  Now I just direct them to our website where they can see all our postings and then can even apply online.  So it’s been very helpful for us.  And the managers love it because they get everything at once, whereas before they would frequently get the application and resume separately.

What kind of jobs do you post through ApplicantStack?

Brenda: We post everything through ApplicantStack now.  Right now we have jobs posted for our IT, Sales, Marketing and Research departments, and its working great.  There was one position that I was a little leery of, because it was a lower level entry position and I wasn’t sure people would use the online application.  But I talked with the hiring manager and she was fine with trying it in the online system.  Well, since we posted the job online she’s had over 30 applications come through the online system and only 4 walk-ins.  So now all our jobs get posted online. 

Where do you post your jobs?

Brenda: We post to our website, to LinkedIn, Craigslist, Monster, and some on Careerbuilder.  We also post to KCBMA, which is a direct marketing association, and to colleges and universities.

Last question, just for fun. If you could have any job in the world, what would you want to do?

Brenda: You know, I really like what I do.  I did work in the medical insurance field before this job and the constant change was a major headache.  HR changes too but I’m very happy in this field.

Email Templates can be a real time saver, but Email Triggers take this even further.  With Email Triggers you can specify that you want one of your Email Templates to automatically be sent out (i.e. “trigger”) when a candidate has been moved to a specific step in your process.  So in the example above, for your Request Interview template you can now specify that you want this email to trigger when a candidate is moved to the Interview stage.  Then, when you move a candidate or a group of candidates to the Interview stage they will automatically receive the Request Interview email.  Pretty cool, huh!

Here are some other ways you could use email triggers:

• Application Received
• Rejection Letter
• Phone Screen Request
• Interview Request
• Request for Background Screen approval
• Status updates to the candidate as they move through your process
• Job offer / hire notification

Try it out for yourself and please let us know what you think!

Thankfully application review doesn’t have to be such a manual process.  An automated job application system, if set up correctly, can be a tremendous help in reviewing resumes and job applications more quickly and ensuring that your top candidates don’t fall through the cracks.  And it doesn’t take as much time as you might think to set up a good automated system that makes your review process much quicker and more efficient.  Here are some elements of an automated job application system that can help you speed up your application review process.

Setting up an Online Application

Collecting job applications through an online application process, rather than email or paper, is the first step to making your application review process quicker and more efficient.  On an online job application you can ask candidates to fill in information and answer questions that can help you quickly determine if they are a potential match to your job, often without requiring you to even read their resumes.  It is much easier and quicker to scan through a table of answers or filter/sort based on what you are looking for.

For example, if you are only looking for local candidates, by collecting information on a candidate’s location you can quickly filter/sort and remove applications that are not in your local area.  Similarly, if you are looking for somebody with a certain degree or professional certification, you can ask this on your online application and then quickly see which applications match your criteria and skip or remove the ones that do not.

Of course, for your online application to be useful you need to be able to customize the questions and add your own company or job-specific questions.  With ApplicantStack you can build your own questions with the Questionnaire Builder and attach them to your online application page.  And if candidates do not fill out the questionnaires during the online application, you can always send them an email with a link to complete the questionnaire and add it to their application.

Resume Parsing

Even with an online application system, you will still likely receive resumes from candidates directly, usually by email.  So your system will ideally be able to import these resumes and parse useful information from the resume automatically.  At the very least, your automated system needs to be able to extract all text from a resume for searching later, regardless of its file format (i.e. Microsoft Word®, PDF, RFT, HTML, etc).  Most automated systems that support resume parsing will also be able to extract the contact information from a resume, and this alone can be a tremendous time saver.  Rather than having to re-key the contact data from the resume into your database, you will already have the person’s contact information from the resume.

ApplicantStack has a resume import mechanism where you can import resumes that you receive from candidates.  You can upload resume files or even emails you receive from candidates with resume attachments into the system.  All resumes are automatically parsed and the candidate’s contact information is extracted automatically.

Screening Applications

Nothing is more frustrating than looking through a stack of applications and finding that the majority don’t meet the minimum requirements for the job.  To save you from having to sift through all these unqualified candidates, you can implement simple screening rules for your applications.  One way to do this is to build rules that assign each candidate a score based on their answers to your application questions or resume content.

For a simple example, if your job requires a college degree, you could ask the candidate on the online application if they have a college degree.  You could then build a scoring rule that “knocks out” candidates that answer the question as “No”.  When you look at your applications in your database, you can filter out all the “knocked out” candidates and focus your attention on the ones that pass your minimum job requirements.

When building rules based on the resume content, you need to be careful that you don’t make your rules too strict.  It’s tempting to try to build a comprehensive set of rules that will effectively “match” a candidate to a job automatically.  But the reality is that resumes come in all kinds of formats.  If your rules are too strict you will often weed out a large number of candidates who may be perfectly good matches to your job but don’t have a resume in a format that the parsing engine understands.

Browsing your Applications

Even with an online application, resume parsing and screening rules, at some point you will need to actually dig in and review the applications and resumes.  At this step a well-designed database browser is crucial.  Once you set your filter and drill in to look at an application, you need to assess how quickly you can:

1. Flag and/or determine the next steps for this application,
2. Bring up all the different parts of the application (i.e. question answers, resume, cover letter, etc), and
3. Move on to the next applicant.

In many systems, just moving to the next candidate requires multiple clicks – go back to your list, possibly reset your filter, scroll and determine where you were in the list, and then click the next person.

ApplicantStack was designed to make the process of browsing your applications quick and easy: 

1. Setting the next action for a candidate or assigning a rating only takes a couple of clicks.
2. All data is displayed on the same screen, including the resume preview (i.e. no need to open the resume file). 
3. You can move between applications with Next / Previous links without having to go back to your list. 

Hi Buddy.  Tell us a little about what Radix does.

Buddy: We’re a recruiting company for Information Technology positions.  We’ve been in the business since around 1982.  We originally started out as a consulting company and evolved into a placement agency because our clients kept asking us if we knew good people.  So we moved away from the consulting to the actual placement of candidates for our clients. 

What is your role at Radix Jobs?

Buddy: I take care of all the systems for our recruiters.  For example, we have systems for applicant tracking, marketing and mass emailing.  So I go out and do the research to select the new systems, test the new systems, and handle implementation including conversion of data from the old to new system.

Did you have an Applicant Tracking System before ApplicantStack?

Buddy: Yes, we had a system that was developed in house that worked fine.  But then the development staff decided to move on and I decided it was time to move to a commercial system.  We didn’t want to continue to go through the time and expense of supporting the system in house.  And we wanted to save money.  We wanted a commercial system where we wouldn’t have to worry about support and system problems.

How did you go about selecting an Applicant Tracking System

Buddy: The main thing we needed, of course, was to get qualified applicants.  I looked at 200 or more systems, whittling it down to about 25 systems which I detail tested and wound up selecting ApplicantStack based on its features and ease-of-use.  It has the ability to eliminate the wrong candidate and select the right candidates for my client.  For example, it saves us time by giving us the ability to ask questions of all applicants, which limits the number of resumes we need to read.  We only read those resumes of people who answer our questions correctly, most closely to our match.  This saves the recruiters time, it saves the applicants time, since we don’t have to call them to ask them questions that we can ask them online when they apply, and it saves our clients time, since we don’t send them resumes that don’t meet their needs.  One of our strongest criteria is the ability to save time.

How many people in your company use ApplicantStack and how many resumes are you tracking?

Buddy: Right now we have about 24,000 resumes in the system.  We’ve converted over our resumes from the old system to ApplicantStack, which was very easy to do and went smoothly.  We have 3 people who use the system at this point, but we’re hoping to expand on that. 

Where do you post your job openings?

Buddy: We use Dice, and we also use Craigslist.  We’re basically IT, and most IT people reside with Dice.  We’ve used HotJobs and Monster, but didn’t have the same success we had with Dice.

Would you recommend ApplicantStack to other recruiters?

Buddy: Absolutely.  It was very easy to learn.  You don’t have to spend days and days learning and relearning the system.  It’s very well designed and documented well.  And I like the flexibility to add my own fields and questions.  It’s very handy both for me and the applicant end of things.  By the way, anyone who is planning to do the research I did, if they want to save time they can call me and I can talk with them directly.

That’s a generous offer!  OK, last question, and this one is kind of for fun, if you could have any job in the world what job would you want to do?

Buddy: That is an interesting question!  I would like to just spend time doing research on projects.  I’ve been doing it for what seems like a hundred years.  I started in data processing in 1959, and it’s really an addiction.  It’s fun.  I love the development end of it, putting the things together and seeing the satisfaction when it all comes to production.

Online job board and application

With an Applicant Tracking System, people will be able to view open positions and apply online to one or more jobs. This is a much more efficient process for both the applicant and the recruiter than the alternative of calling to ask about jobs and then filling out an in-person employment application or emailing a resume to a jobs email address. Often, this job board can be customized to match a company’s website, to provide a seamless experience for the applicant and give a more professional impression.

Save time with screening questions

If you’ve ever advertised a job on a public job board, you’ve likely encountered a case where you get a tremendous volume of applicants, but most of them are unqualified. By using an applicant tracking system you can add screening questions to your application to test for qualifications of your job description, such as required education level / type or number of years experience in a specific role. When reviewing resumes these question answers become part of the applicant record, and it’s much quicker to review question answers than read a resume. Many Applicant Tracking Systems will even enable you to create scoring rules to score applicants on their answers, so you only need to review the applicants that meet your minimum requirements.

Central resume and data repository

With an Applicant Tracking System all resumes for anybody who has applied to any job at your company are stored in a single database. In addition, any data generated during the review process are also stored with the applicant record, such as: notes, assessments, emails, and workflow data. With an Applicant Tracking System all this information is no longer tracked on an individual’s computer (i.e. email and spreadsheets), but rather becomes an organization asset that is accessible to any authorized individual in the organization. Later, when you have an opening for a new position, you can look first in your company’s Applicant Tracking System for people who have applied to your company in the past who are a good fit for your new position.

Provide a professional first-impression to job seekers

In a recruitment process, your goal is to attract top people to your company, which means your system is marketing tool as well as a recruitment tool. People typically associate a company job board and online application with a large organization, and thus implementing an Applicant Tracking System with an integrated job board can provide this professional first-impression to job seekers. Applicant Tracking Systems can also automate professional workflow tasks like sending an auto-receipt email after a person has applied and sending an email when the job has been filled.  All of this communicates a professional image of the company to the job seeker.

Hi Bill. Tell us about First Bank and Trust and your role.

Bill: Here at First Bank & Trust, I’m in charge of customer service, customer convenience, customer satisfaction, and how we present ourselves to customers, which includes anybody who we want to recruit for a job opening.

What role do you have in hiring and recruiting?

Bill: I oversee our HR function. I have an HR director, who’s also in charge of our corporate values.

How do you use ApplicantStack?

Bill: Last year it was in our strategic plan to get to an automated process where potential applicants could access our website and apply directly to us from wherever they were without having to come to a location. We wanted to enable them to do it electronically. So we did a thorough analysis to determine the best software product for doing this and ApplicantStack was the product we chose.

What was your process before ApplicantStack?

Bill: Our process prior to going to the online application and evaluation process was that somebody had to print the application from our website, then either fax it to us or bring it to us.

And what is your process like now?

Bill: By going with ApplicantStack we’ve accomplished the online application process but in addition to that the real benefit that we’ve seen is the ease of tracking applicants and communication with those applicants. We can now generate an electronic response to them and keep track of communication, and narrow it down from the process of bulk applications down to qualified candidates and then proceed from there. And we do all this in a very efficient manner that keeps the applicants informed and gives us a clear record of how all that transpired.

What kind of people do you hire?

Bill: We hire the full gamut, entry level all the way up to management level positions, through this process. One of the advantages that we found was that the complete anonymity and confidentiality of people who want to apply through this process prevents them from having to physically make an appearance at the location, which does at times compromise their confidentiality.

Where do you post your jobs?

Bill: We post to external job boards and link them back to our ApplicantStack job board on our website to apply. We post to Lubbockonline, KCBD, and Monster. We also post to specialized sites when we’re looking for certain criteria. For example a mortgage underwriter will go to a mortgage underwriting site, or if we’re looking for a lender we’ll go to a bank lending recruitment site.

Would you recommend ApplicantStack to others?

Bill: After having evaluated all the different options that we had for going with an electronic online application process and analysis, we felt like ApplicantStack met all of our expectations and now is exceeding those.

OK, last question (and it’s important). If you could have any job in the world, besides of course your current one, what would you want to do?

Bill: I’d be the ranch manager for my ranch.

Some customers want to keep a local database of all their applicants for local queries and integration with their other HR systems. Others said they were required by their company’s privacy and information security policies to keep a backup of all their applicant data. And of course some just want to be able to take their data with them if they ever leave ApplicantStack (although who in their right mind would?).

Here’s how to download an export / backup of your data:

1. After logging into your account, go to Setup->Export
2. Click the links to download the SQL Export and/or Attachments.
3. The SQL Export file is a single SQL file that you can use to recreate your job and applicant database (minus resumes and other attachments) in a SQL-compliant database like MySQL or SQL Server.
4. The Attachments file is a single zip file containing all your attachments (resumes, etc)
5. These files may be large if you have a lot of data in your account. For large data files we recommend that you use a download manager like Free Download Manager.

Your export data is updated every day and you can download the data as often as you need. Export is only available to paid accounts.