What is a Candidate Management System?

Staffing agencies understand the importance of timely, organized communication for effective talent acquisition. Simultaneously, many recruiters struggle with manually managing hundreds of applicants in various stages of the recruitment process! Keeping up with emails, applications, interview notes, and documents can be overwhelming and ineffective – even creating a negative candidate experience at times.

In the content below, we dive into the importance of effective candidate management and discuss the powerful candidate management system tool aiding in the recruitment process.

What Is Candidate Management?

Understanding the importance of a candidate management system begins with a firm awareness of candidate management.

Candidate Management Definition

According to an HR resource, “Candidate management is defined as the process of building and managing relationships with active and passive job seekers to guide them through the recruiting funnel.” Essentially, candidate management is relationship management. Strategic candidate management focuses on the candidate experience.

• Did the candidate experience a personable, engaging recruitment process?
• Has the candidate received consistent communication throughout?

Ultimately, positive candidate management – relationship management – improves an organization’s brand and industry reputation.

Candidate Management & Talent Acquisition

What does candidate management have to do with talent acquisition? Are the concepts related? Absolutely. In fact, great candidate management can significantly impact the talent acquisition process.

• Effective candidate management ensures that best-first applicants do not fall through the cracks. Consistent communication and feedback make for an excellent candidate experience. However, the breakdown of communication can be damaging. Ultimately, effective candidate management transforms the recruitment process into personal talent acquisition.
• Effective candidate management encourages positive feedback. Applicants who have been forgotten or ghosted by recruitment agencies or businesses are more likely to leave negative reviews or simply refuse to work with the organization again. For staffing companies in need of consistent applications for job openings, maintaining candidate management promotes increased talent acquisition.

What Is Candidate Relationship Management?

Candidate relationship management is the collection of systems, processes, and procedures that define the candidate the experience. Staffing organizations can positively design the candidate experience by selecting helpful systems and optimizing the recruitment process.

Candidate Management Best Practices & How a CMS Can Help

Effective candidate management involves consistent engagement and communication with all applicants – successful or unsuccessful. It is equally important for an unsuccessful applicant to receive a timely denial letter as it is for a successful candidate to receive a timely offer.

However, for a single recruiter managing hundreds of applications, providing a positive candidate experience for every applicant is difficult, if not impossible. Candidate management systems (CMS) are designed to alleviate the impractical challenge of manually managing hundreds of candidates in various stages of the recruiting process – and doing so effectively.

What Is a Candidate Management System?

A candidate management system is designed to assist with every step of the recruitment process, including talent acquisition, communication, and applicant management. Also called Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), a CMS is a powerful tool for excellent candidate relationship management in a single system. Recruiters utilizing a CMS are freed from the time-consuming duty of manual candidate management to focus on building relationships with high-quality applicants and filling job openings.

Candidate management systems are utilized for attracting candidates, reviewing resumes in bulk, managing a candidate database and candidate communications, scheduling interviews, and onboarding new employees. Every step of the recruitment process is managed within the tool.

Why is a Candidate Management System Important?

In general, a candidate management system is important because candidate relationship management is critical to positive applicant experience and talent acquisition.

• Post and manage job listings with ease. Publishing and updated open positions to a dozen job boards is time-consuming. Many CMS allow recruiters to post job openings across multiple boards and social media channels in a single place. Once a job is listed, keeping track of resumes, notes, and communication associated with that position is seamless.

• Manage a careers page with simple software integration. Good candidate management systems allow recruiters to integrate a careers portal onto their website, providing a simple user experience for candidates looking to apply. Many career page integrations are customizable, allowing you to insert various marketing assets and promote your employer brand. Of course, career page management is simple via the CMS.

• Create customized pre-screening applications. Depending on preference, recruiters can include custom filters to the application screening process. For example, if a specific skill or industry experience is critical to a certain job opening, adding a filter will boost applications with this criterion. Applications without will be deprioritized. If proper grammar or volunteer work is desired, custom screening can be applied for these requirements. The pre-screening process helps a recruiter sort through hundreds of applications quickly, efficiently identifying best-fit candidates.

• Create a candidate workflow & manage where applicants are in the hiring process at any given time. A good CMS will allow recruiters to create a custom candidate workflow and see where every applicant stands within the recruitment process.

For example, your workflow may include application review, questionnaire, phone interview, in-person interview, offer candidate, decline candidate, etc. Communication that occurs throughout the process can be stored within the workflow, including notes taken during interviews or screening processes. A CMS candidate workflow allows recruiters to effectively perform candidate management in a single, organized system. 

• Effectively manage all communication. Finally, a CMS is important for managing and tracking candidate communication. A list of communication history aids in informed decision-making and organization. Should a colleague request a specific email, you need look no further than a single repository for the precise piece of communication.

JobDiva: Powerful Candidate Management Software

At JobDiva, our goal is to arm staffing agencies with powerful tools that drive results. Our talent management system helps optimize and streamline the talent management process by closing gaps.

If you are interested in taking our candidate management system for a test-drive, feel free to request a free demo today. Or, if you simply have questions for our team, fill out our online contact form and one of our experts will be in touch shortly!