We have all been there before. You have a stack of resumes or job applications on your desk and a looming deadline to fill a specific job position. Whether it’s paper applications, emails, or electronic files, the task is just as daunting. Somewhere in this pile of paperwork lies the perfect candidate, but to find the right one, you have to sort through all the less qualified ones.

Fortunately, application review doesn’t have to be such a manual process. An automated job application system, if set up correctly, can go a long way in reviewing resumes and job applications faster and ensuring your best candidates don’t get left behind. And it doesn’t take as long as you might think to set up a good automated system that makes your review process much faster and more efficient. Here are some elements of an automated job application system that can help speed up your application review process.

Configuring an online application

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

For example, if you are only looking for local candidates, by collecting information about a candidate’s location you can quickly filter/sort and remove applications that are not in your local area. Similarly, if you’re looking for someone 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 delete those that don’t.

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 an automated Applicant Tracking System (ATS), you can create your own questions with the Quiz Builder and attach them to your online application page. And if candidates don’t complete the questionnaires during the online application, you can always email them a link to complete the questionnaire and add it to their application.

resume analysis

Even with an online application system, you’ll still likely receive resumes from candidates directly, usually via 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 should be able to extract all text from a resume for later search, regardless of its file format (ie Microsoft Word, PDF, RFT, HTML, etc.). Most automated systems that support resume parsing will also be able to extract contact information from a resume, and this alone can save a lot of time. Instead of having to re-enter the contact details from the resume into your database, you’ll already have the contact information for the person on the resume.

With an applicant tracking system like ApplicantStack, you have a resume import mechanism where you can import the resumes 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 candidate contact information is automatically extracted.

Application Evaluation

Nothing is more frustrating than going through a stack of applications and discovering that most of them don’t meet the minimum requirements for the job. To avoid having to filter through all these unqualified candidates, you can implement simple selection rules for your applications. One way to do this is to create rules that assign each candidate a score based on their answers to the questions on your application or the content of their resume.

For a simple example, if your job requires a college degree, you can ask the candidate on the online application if they have a college degree. You could then create a scoring rule that “eliminates” candidates who answer the question with “No.” When you look at your applications in your database, you can filter out all the “killed” candidates and focus your attention on those who exceed the minimum requirements for your job.

When creating rules based on the content of the resume, you must be careful not to make your rules too strict. It’s tempting to try to create a whole set of rules that automatically “match” a candidate with a job title. But the reality is that resumes come in all sorts of formats. If your rules are too strict, you’ll often eliminate a large pool of candidates who may be a perfect fit for your job but don’t have a resume in a format the analytics engine understands.

Navigating Your Applications

Even with an online application, resume screening, and selection rules, at some point you’ll have to dig in and review applications and resumes. In this step, a well-designed database browser is crucial. Once you set up your filter and drill down to see an app, you need to assess how quickly you can:

• Mark and/or determine next steps for this application,
• Show all the different parts of the application (ie, answers to questions, resume, cover letter, etc.), and
• Go to the next applicant.

On many systems, just moving on to the next candidate requires several clicks: going back to your list, possibly resetting your filter, scrolling and determining where you were on the list, and then clicking on the next person.

For example, ApplicantStack was designed to make the process of exploring your applications quick and easy:

• Setting the next action for a lead or assigning a grade takes just a couple of clicks.
• All data is displayed on the same screen, including the resume preview (ie no need to open the resume file).
• You can move between apps with Next/Previous links without having to go back to your list.

So, if you want to automate and speed up your application review process, look for online software solutions designed to manage recruitment processes, applicant tracking, job screening, staffing, resume management, and online job applications. . Many of these fall under the Applicant Tracking System category, but you might want to check them out. Importantly, many of them are available in a software-as-a-service model and are designed to be easy to use and affordable even for small and medium-sized businesses.