During my days as a Project Manager for The Bank of New York (now acquired by Mellon Bank), my primary role was to implement a new system that would ultimately save the company tens of millions of dollars in spending on temps and consultants.  (The term was more eloquently put as "Contract Labor").  Be that as it may, this system was a Vendor Management System and I personally evaluated over a dozen vendors and so I think I know a thing or two about evaluating software that makes life easier from a recruitment standpoint.  Applicant Tracking Systems (henceforth known as ATS), is a different story though.  ATSs aren't really known for saving a company a ton of money (although most claim to in soft dollars) but their mainstay is that it will make the application process from initial submission to offer and onboarding, a seamless and painless ordeal.  And while this might be true, I had to kiss a lot frogs before we got our prince in the form of Vurv. 

 

Vurv was formerly known as RecruitMax and they changed their name in late 2006 to Vurv.  The word verve means "to have chutzpah or gumption or that certain je nai se quoi".  I have to be honest with you, I really did hate the name but after awhile it kind of grows on you.  In any event, I evaluated a lot of these ATS systems before we decided on Vurv.  Vendors like JobScience and a number of others came in close but ultimately we had to go with what the other 43 CHW facilities were going with...Vurv.  Implementation was very easy but training all of the hiring managers was another story.  We had to have several training sessions since hiring managers are known for not being able to make it to training and we also employed Webinar technology to train the rest.  But even before training, we needed to figure out what it was about an ATS system that we needed.  In a simple word:  Everything!  Mercy Medical Center Redding was so reliant on paper (paper applications, paper transfer forms, paper requisitions....paper, paper, and then a healthy dose of paper).  S

 

We needed our ATS to be scaleable and grow with us in terms of number of users, volume of activity and also in terms of reporting features.  Secondly, we needed something that would truly automate the application, interview and onboarding processes.  Thirdly, it had to be a system that was web-based, user-friendly and easy to learn.  Lastly, the difficult part was to establish buy-in from management that this was the way to go.  It didn't help that early on during the post-implementation phase of Vurv, there were some technical issues and some managers weren't trained yet.  I was on the phone with our ATS Support Team a lot (or e-mailed them) and in terms of the renegade hiring managers that somehow eluded our training, I would stalk them and train them in their own offices in a one-on-one "quickie-session" to teach them how to create requisitions, check on status, review applications and perform next-step functions.  In a nutshell I was teaching them the basics to get by.  After now having used Vurv for the better part of a year and a half, I not only like the tool (although there does need to be some additional functionality that could be useful), and I think Vurv has a future.  By the way, I heard recently that Vurv (the company) was acquired or merged with Taleo, a behemoth in the Vendor Management Systems space. 

 

In the end, I could actually write a book on ATS implementation, post-implementation challenges and daily usage not to mention how it can help you effectively partner with your hiring managers.  But since there is limited blog time and blog space, I will ask that if any of you have specific questions, please e-mail me at sung.kim011@chw.edu and I would be happy to answer your questions about Applicant Tracking Systems.  The take-home lesson though is that you want a product that is backed by a financially strong and solvent company, has good 24/7 support, offers outstanding initial training or "train-the-trainer" options, and is user-friendly enough while being robust as a system.  Clear as mud, right?  I wish you the best of luck and remember, not automating the recruitment process is a shame.  Look into what options are out there for your organization and spearhead the movement towards change.  After all, inspiring vision and leading people towards change is the definition of leadership, isn't it?  Good luck, everyone.  Stay tuned for next week's blog on recruitment advertising.