This post was written by our Senior Recruitment Advertising and Candidate Attraction Specialist, Shane Keane.

A couple of years ago, Google entered the recruitment space in a bigger way than just courting top talent. The software company that is known for developing high-quality products that disrupt established industry norms and delight consumers had turned its attention towards Applicant Tracking Systems and launched an online ATS of its own called “Google Hire”.

Google Hire was designed to integrate into existing G-Suite software and created a streamlined recruitment process for small to medium-sized businesses. Whether it succeeded in that mission or changed the game in terms of recruitment and ATS’ is up for debate, but one thing that isn’t up for debate is that Google has decided to pull the plug on this service.

If you are a user of Google Hire the news isn’t all dire as Google is allowing its users to continue to use the service free of charge up until September 2020. Better still, that gives you plenty of time to look around and find a replacement ATS the fits the needs of your organization.

Don’t just go back to excel

I’m sure there’s a temptation to just call it a day with Google Hire and go back to Excel. Especially if you’re a smaller business and Google Hire wasn’t exactly wowing you.

This would likely be a mistake.

Now we’ve talked at length in the past about the merits of an Applicant Tracking System and the pitfalls of job board Applicant Tracking Systems. But to give a quick overview, at their most basic level they allow you to keep all of your candidates and their application information for a specific role in one place.

This ensures that candidates don’t fall through the cracks in your inbox or on an excel spreadsheet which both helps you keep an eye on the top talent that applies and also creates a much more pleasant experience for candidates who are applying for a role with your organization.

Applicant Tracking Systems and Covid

Now you may be thinking that email and excel were fine in the time before Google Hire, but let’s not forget that that was a very different pre-COVID world. Unemployment rates are much higher now than before and your average available role is going to be getting hit with a lot more resumes. An ATS can help you cut through this spam and find your ideal candidate.

As a final point, it’s also worth mentioning credibility. When applying for a role an application form that says something like ‘please email your resume to us’ compared to one that just has an Apply Here button sends an interesting message in the time of Covid that it possibly did not send before.

Candidates who have been recently made unemployed due to Covid, particularly the highly skilled ones, are going to be wary of investing their time with an organization that isn’t giving an impression of financial stability. An organization without an applicant tracking system that is operating on email for its recruitment doesn’t suggest it’s particularly robust or flush with cash, equally it adds another layer of effort for your candidate who now has to navigate to their email instead of just completing their application there and then.

This could be all it takes for a highly qualified candidate to not apply for your role.

Scout Talent as a replacement for Google Hire

If I’ve convinced you of the merits of an applicant tracking system, or if you’re eager to find an online tool like Google Hire, worry not because Scout has the solution for you.

Internally we offer an Applicant Tracking System to our clients called :Recruit Essentials. It is an applicant tracking system that is designed to help you manage your end-to-end recruitment and it was built by recruiters, for recruiters. I use it on a daily basis and I could not imagine trying to carry out my role of candidate attraction without it, it’s just too fundamental to a successful recruitment cycle.

Scout allows you to create custom recruitment pages backed up by screening questions that are branded to your organization. From a candidate perspective, they’ll look just like an extension of your website giving you that extra sense of credibility.

From a recruiter or hiring manager perspective, you’ll get to begin your recruitment journey by centralizing your candidate attraction, screening, and selection process.

As a product, it’s completely scalable to your needs from smaller organizations that maybe only hire three times a year right up to large scale companies with hundreds of roles to fill at any one time.

If Google Hire has let you down, or if you’re just in the market for an applicant tracking system that actually does what you want it to do, then look no further than Scout.

We are currently running a special offer of $1800 worth of recruitment services completely free of charge when you sign up to Scout :Recruit Essentials. For more information, please click below.