You only hire new staff once, twice or a few times per year. When you do, you would ideally want applications to arrive in one place, have a clear view of who is at which stage, and a way to answer everyone. An applicant tracking system (ATS) would be the answer for this. However, the times of the year you’re not hiring, you don’t need a system sitting unused in your tech stack, and you would definitely not want to pay for it.
Most ATS are priced for companies that hire all the time: a monthly or yearly subscription, often per user and with a minimum term. For a small company this represents a fixed cost for a tool that sits idle most of the year. This post looks at what a small employer really needs, and how to cover it without a subscription.
What you need when you only hire a few times a year
Strip away fancy features and the list of key requirements is short:
- One place for applications. Not your inbox, not three forwarded emails, not a downloads folder.
- A clear picture of who is where. Who is new, who has had a phone call, who is waiting for a second round.
- A way to answer every candidate. A confirmation when their application arrives, and a personalized notification when their process won’t move forward.
- Room for your own judgement. Interview notes and a rating per candidate, written down while the interview is fresh.
- Data protection that doesn’t depend on your memory. Applications are personal data, and they have to be deleted when you no longer need them.
If a tool does these five things well, it is enough for most Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and organizations. Everything else (sourcing databases, career-page builders, reporting suites, etc.) is for companies with a hiring team.
Why a subscription is a poor fit
A subscription charges for time, uninterrupted, but your hiring comes in sporadic bursts. Hence, you pay in the quiet months for an idling system, or you cancel (if outside the minimum term already) and risk losing your data. And a tool you open twice a year is a tool you have to relearn each time, which is a good reason to prefer one with few screens and an intuitive user experience.
Paying per posting instead
talentzip CTXM on demand is built around another model. There is no subscription and no base fee: an account costs nothing, you simply pay for each posting you activate in your account. After payment the system gives you an application link that takes applications for 60 days through a straightforward and candidate friendly form; you can extend it if you need more time or deactivate the application form if someone is hired before the end of the 60 day timeframe. You can use the link instead of an email address on your own career page, or share it through social media or other channels. Regardless of where the link is published or shared, applications arrive in the same spot and you have access to your own dashboard with an easy overview of each hiring process. The invoice arrives by email and is also listed under Payments in your account.
If you don’t hire for six months, you pay nothing for those six months.
What you get with a posting
- An application page branded with your logo and company name. Candidates simply fill out the application form on a computer or phone, without having to create an account. They attach a CV and select the specific skills they bring.
- A confirmation email sent in your name as soon as someone has applied.
- A dashboard to track your job or jobs. Every candidate arrives in Applied; you add as many interview rounds as you need when creating the job (e.g. “TA Specialist Screening”, “Line Manager Interview”, “Case Presentation”), and move candidates from one stage to the next with one click.
- Search across names, skills and the text of all CVs.
- Notes and ratings per candidate: stars, free-text notes, and a rating per skill. Once three skills are rated, a chart shows the profile at a glance. On top, our AI tool creates a job-match score for selected candidates, helping you in your assessment.
- A reminder for forgotten candidates. If nothing has happened to a candidate for 14 days, they are marked as overdue. Prompting you to take action on such candidates improves their process experience and reflects positively on your employer brand.
- Rejection letters in your name, with your own wording if you like. We put some templates in place already, and you can easily choose between formal and informal language, tailored to each job.
Data protection without the homework
Every candidate is deleted automatically after at most 12 months following their application. In other words, you don’t have to remember to go and delete applications manually, as you would if receiving them directly into your inbox. If a candidate asks what data you hold about them, there is a data export button on their page; if they ask you to delete their profile, one button removes everything about them, documents included.
You remain responsible for the data as the employer, but you don’t have to build the process yourself.
What talentzip deliberately leaves out
A tool that does less is easier to trust. talentzip CTXM on demand is not a sourcing tool and it doesn’t post to job boards for you. However, you can define must-have and nice-to-have skills per job for candidates to select on the application form. Together with our AI assessment, it helps you determine how well someone fits the job, but it doesn’t rank or filter anyone: you decide.
It is also built for companies or organizations with only one or a few postings at a time. Your dashboard provides a great overview of where your job or jobs are at, and which roles need immediate attention. If you run dozens of roles in parallel however, an ATS with a yearly subscription may be the better choice. Otherwise, our Candidate Tracking and Experience Manager may just be the right thing for you.
In short
Look for a tool that allows you to receive all applications in one place, a clear dashboard, a comprehensive candidate pipeline overview, a reply for everyone, automatic deletion, and for which you only pay-as-you-go rather than every month. Register today to see how talentzip CTXM on demand can help you streamline your hiring processes.