The most successful software solutions are not the ones that have the most (or even the best) features, but the ones that are the most user-friendly. In order for software to be useful, it has to be intuitive and give users a good experience. The same goes for applicant tracking systems. A good user experience (UX) is the most important feature in any recruitment software solution. Good UX in recruitment software leads to a faster adoption of the product and provides more value for recruiters.
What is UX?
You might be wondering what UX actually means. UX refers to everything that affects the interaction of users with the product. It differs from UI (user interface) in the fact that UI only refers to the visuals and aesthetics of a product (which can also be considered to be a part of UX). UX is all about making you happy through usability and a sense of enjoyment with the product. A UX designer aims to connect your business needs to the product and ensures that you can do what you need to do in an efficient and effective way.
Why is UX in recruitment software so important?
Recruiters are extremely busy people. The wide variety of tasks and the stress that comes with hiring the right candidate before the deadline can make a recruiter’s job quite stressful. Not only are recruiters judged based on finding the right hire, but once someone is hired, keeping them with your company is also important. This makes it hard for recruiters to focus on the supporting processes in hiring like timely communication with candidates and improving the candidate experience.
Applicant tracking systems are designed to help recruiters in their day-to-day hiring tasks. A good ATS can help recruiters to automate their manual tasks and structure their processes properly. In order to be useful, an ATS has to be user-friendly. Without a good UX design, an ATS will not help the recruiter at all and might even be an obstacle in their daily work.
Good UX also helps you to convince the decision makers within your company. Decision makers are easier to convince when you can show that a tool is easy to use and can be used without a long onboarding process. The last thing that hiring managers want is their employees having to drop all their tasks to spend a lot of their time to learning a new tool.
An ATS that is built with UX in mind will help your team to use the system easily without a lengthy and difficult onboarding process. This saves your team the opportunity costs associated with other more complicated systems and it helps you focus on the things that matter: recruiting. So how do you evaluate good UX in recruitment software? What are the things to look out for?
Evaluating UX in recruitment software
When looking for an ATS, the most important thing to consider is the usability. A recruitment tool could have all the features in the world, but if it’s difficult to navigate, you won’t be able to use them. When assessing the UX of recruitment software, keep the following things in mind:
- Does the tool look good? While looks aren’t everything, they do matter in recruitment software. An unappealing tool makes it harder for you to get your team on board and actually use the product. Try to pay attention to details when evaluating the looks of the system; is it intuitive? Are there any extra visuals that make the product more fun? Do you actually enjoy looking at the product interface? Make sure to try out the ATS before you buy and see what it looks like visually.
- Is the tool easy to learn? Ideally, recruitment tools should be easy to learn. When tools are hard to understand and not really that intuitive, it will be difficult to learn. Also, if the learning process takes a lot of time, your hiring processes will suffer. New hires in your recruitment team will all have to go through lengthy learning and onboarding processes. This is something you want to avoid. Use your free trial to get a good understanding of the product. If you are having trouble understanding the product in this trial period, you may want to try another one.
- Is the tool accessible on mobile? Recruitment is an ongoing process. This means that you will also be working a lot when not in the office. Being able to use the tool while you’re out of the office is crucial to your hiring success. Assess the mobile-friendliness of the tool as well. Does the tool have an Android and iPhone app? Is the app good and regularly updated? If there’s no app available how is the mobile version of the web app? These are the questions you need to ask to assess the mobile-friendliness of the tool.
- Is the tool organized properly? Nothing is more annoying than having to click a thousand times to find a specific functionality within the tool. Functionalities should be accessible in less than three clicks. If this is not the case, then you might run into some problems when the tool builds on the number of features.
UX is the most important element to evaluate your recruitment tools on. Without a good UX your tool will more likely cause your recruitment processes more harm than it will actually help you. Getting your team involved in assessing the usability of a tool is of utmost importance as they will be the ones actually using the tool. Make sure it’s easy to use for both you and your team!
