Depending on the number of applicants you are considering for a specific position, you may have comments/notes about numerous applicants from different selection process stakeholders to track and manage.
Using notes and ratings within the ATS can help make that process easy and paperless.
NOTES
There are two kinds of applicant notes on the Notes & History tab of an applicant's record: Application Status Notes and Application Notes.
Application Status Notes
Use this type of note field to record a specific reason associated with a application status/disposition change. You may also optionally assign a score in this area. A score might be helpful if you are tracking a number of applicants throughout the hiring process and noting each of their individual scores at each stage of your selection process. Each note/score entered will be marked with a date stamp and user's name.
Application Notes
Use this type of note field to record general comments about the applicant record or the applicant's consideration for this position during the selection process. This note is not specific to any kind of status/disposition change. Each application note will be marked with a date stamp and user's name.
Note Security
Within the ATS, there are three main levels of user login credentials at your disposal: Administrator; Manager; and, Assigned User. All three levels of user access are capable of seeing the "Notes & History" tab of an applicant's record. However, you may optionally restrict individual Manager and Assigned Users from having access to the Notes & History tab if that is your preference. All Administrator users will see the Notes & History tab.
There may be instances where you want other Manager and Assigned Users to see some admin notes, but not all of them. Administrator users have the ability to restrict certain notes added in the Notes & History tab to be visible only to Administrator users. When adding a note, simply click the check box next to "HR View Only." This option is available for both notes associated with application status updates, as well as general application notes.
Note Reporting
Administrator users have access to an "Application Notes" report in the Standard Reports tab of the Reports Dashboard. This report includes basic information about an applicant and will show the most recent application status note and application note for that individual.
RATINGS
Ratings allow users who may be involved in the screening and interviewing process to vote on or score an applicant. You have the ability to add as many different rating options as you would like for your organization on the Classifications tab in your Settings Dashboard. You may decide the label names as well as corresponding scores and order of label display.
The Ratings can be very handy in the event that the stakeholders involved in the selection process for an applicant cannot find the time to meet together to discuss thoughts post-interview. Instead, each user may log into the ATS as his/her schedule permits to record his/her rating on the Notes & History tab of the applicant record. If necessary, application notes may be added by each user as further commentary to support selected ratings. Then, an HR staff member or the hiring manager may view all the ratings to make a final decision on the next appropriate application status/disposition to be assigned to the individual.
