When you are in a new city trying to find a good spot for lunch, you most likely look it up on Yelp. As the leading online site for consumer reviews, Yelp can be a godsend to shoppers but sometimes a business owner's worst nightmare. Businesses opt to be featured on the website in exchange for increased searchability and to engage with new and existing customers. In fact, 92% of consumers using Yelp make a purchase after visiting the platform.

As a business owner, Yelp can make or break you. Getting a bad review and how you handle it can make a huge difference for your business, especially since 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. Yelp addresses how businesses can handle bad reviews by giving owners helpful advice on how to handle them:

"...by contacting your reviewer and establishing a genuine human relationship, you have a chance to help the situation and maybe even change this customer's perspective for the better. We've heard lots of success stories from business owners who were polite to their reviewers and were accordingly given a second chance." 

Even after a negative experience, by addressing your customer's concerns head on you are likely to change their perspective on your organization.  When it comes to your recruiting process, take a page out of Yelp’s rule book. Your candidates are your customers, and talent acquisition departments need to put out the fire on any negative "reviews" before your next lost hire sees them. 

What are some of these negative "reviews" of the recruiting process? They include, but are not limited to, a lack of follow up on job inquiries or interviews, a long recruiting process, and limited communication or information to the candidate during the process. 

While technology is not always the culprit, many times these issues stem from your Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). ATSs can often be efficient for the company, but impersonal for the candidate. How can we prevent this? 

Time to evaluate: Is your ats hindering your recruiting process? 

Use these three questions to evaluate if your ATS is actually helping or holding you back.

Are you fully utilizing your ATS?

Many companies don't have the have the staff or expertise to leverage all of the features of their ATS fully. This can include data management such as reporting capabilities, tracking metrics, and clearly defining your sources. Knowing how to analyze and get this information in an organized manner can help you make sure you are using the right channels to get the candidates you need. You can then use this information to personalize the candidate experience and make sure you are keeping communication lines open with the right candidates. 

Is your ATS screening out desirable candidates?

While it may seem efficient to screen out undesirable candidates automatically, it will hurt your employment brand if you are inadvertently screening out qualified candidates. You can prevent this by opening up your filters a bit. If they are too restrictive, the system will miss good candidates. Also, you can add a little human touch. Evaluate some of the resumes yourself. Keep in mind your ATS can help optimize your process, but shouldn't be the be-all and end-all when it comes to screening candidates. 

Does your ATS or your process allow for steps to be missed or ignored?

Technology sometimes replaces humans, but humans like to find ways around technology. Job seekers are less than thrilled to fill out endless pages in your application process only to hit a dead end or worse, get a series of automated emails that lack personality, consistency or flow. Make sure your recruiters are clear on your processes to make your ATS run smoothly. This can ensure that they are all using the same procedures, they are following through, and their records are complete. If they are trying to do workarounds, it can mess up the data, lead to incorrect reporting, and take away the benefits of having an ATS in the first place. 

The key to making your ATS work for your organization is not only to experiment with the tool, but to adjust your internal processes as well. It won't be taking over for humans, but as we work alongside it, it can make your recruiters more effective, increase your candidate pool, and, in the long term, boost your bottom line.