Tribepad’s award-winning Applicant Tracking System (ATS) integrates with a wide range of other apps, websites and services, including Indeed Apply. In 2018, we made some important changes that improved the user journey for candidates and increased conversions by up to 40%. This year, we are launching further updates that will make our Indeed integration even better.
How job boards have evolved
When online job boards first began to appear, the typical journey for a job seeker was roughly as follows.
- Search for jobs
- Find a job they are interested in
- Click ‘Apply for job’ or similar
Where the job was hosted on a company’s ATS, the candidate would then immediately be sent there to enter their information. The process would typically involve them registering an account with that ATS.
As job boards evolved and more of them launched, they needed to find new ways to make money. This usually meant asking candidates to enter their information before sending them to the ATS – and then monetising that data.
Apart from the privacy implications, this change to the user journey created friction in the candidate’s application process, they now had to register on two different systems – the job board first and then the ATS.
How Tribepad improves the user journey
With Tribepad ATS, we’ve taken a number of steps to make this user journey better for candidates. What happens when a candidate applies for a role hosted on Tribepad ATS via a job board? We’ve made it possible for that information to be copied directly to the ATS at the point when the job board redirects the candidate to its application process.
This does not remove the need for the candidate to register on both the ATS and the job board. However, it does remove friction, as the candidate won’t need to type most of the information they’ve already had to give to the job board. Instead, Tribepad ATS pre-populates the data and shows it to the candidate, who can make changes, before creating an ATS account.
40% increase in candidate conversions
We added this support to Tribepad ATS in 2015 for ATS compliant job boards, such as TotalJobs, Caterer and Indeed’s proprietary standard called Indeed Apply. The effect was dramatic – candidate conversions from those job boards increased by as much as 40%.
However, data protection regulations, especially GDPR, meant we could only pre-populate fields for the candidate and not pre-create a candidate’s account in Tribepad ATS. This is because the candidate needs to agree to the customers’ specific privacy policy and terms and conditions, and not just Indeed’s or other job boards’ policies. Though candidate conversions went up, some candidates would still drop out because they didn’t want to create another account.
Opt-in questions for a better experience
Our partnership with Indeed helped us take a significant step forward in 2018. We made changes that allow us to ask candidates questions while they were still on Indeed’s website.
That allowed candidates to opt-in to relevant privacy policies and terms and conditions before arriving at Tribepad ATS. When they got there, we could legally create an account for them with their information pre-populated.
That one change meant that 100% of new candidates redirected to Tribepad ATS by Indeed were converted to an application. Any logged-in recruiter could see those new candidates in their ATS.
Still work to do
Our work so far to improve the candidate experience for people coming to Tribepad ATS from Indeed had been great. But we knew that there was still room for improvement, as many candidates stay on Indeed instead of being redirected to the ATS. Over the last few months, we’ve set out on a journey to make it possible for us to convert those candidates too.
Deeper integration – big changes for 2019
We’re delighted to say that Tribepad ATS can now create a candidate account without them being redirected from Indeed Apply.
The data protection regulations haven’t changed – candidates still need to opt-in to the necessary policies and terms and conditions. However, once they have done that on Indeed’s website, we can now automatically create an account for them in Tribepad ATS – even if they don’t get redirected.
What does this mean for recruiters? Well, those new candidates who were previously not logged on the ATS but did start an application on Indeed will now be visible to recruiters – as long as they have opted-in.
The Process in Practice
Creating the candidate account and application
When a candidate opts-in to your company’s GDPR policy on Indeed, their details will be sent to Tribepad ATS.
In this case, there are two scenarios:
- The candidate is new to your ATS.
- The candidate already has an account on Tribepad.
Candidates new to Tribepad ATS
If a candidate does not already have an account, the ATS will create one immediately – as well as the initial application records – using the data from Indeed. Tribepad ATS will also send the candidate a notification email.
If a candidate clicks through to the ATS from Indeed within 24 hours of us creating their account, we will auto-log them in to Tribepad ATS. They will be prompted to set their password once they have submitted their application.
If a candidate clicks through from Indeed after 24 hours have passed, they will need to reset their password. This is a simple process and guides the candidate to encourage them to complete the process.
Candidates who already have a Tribepad ATS account
If a candidate’s email address already has an account associated with it on Tribepad ATS, we will create an application linked to their account. The candidate’s name will not be changed, but the ATS will update their details.
If the application includes a CV sent by Indeed, Tribepad ATS will also attach that version to the application. The ATS will also send the candidate a notification email to confirm the application.
What’s Next?
We hope that these improvements will not only enhance the candidate experience, but will also reduce drop off and therefore increase application volumes.
If you would like further information about Indeed Apply integration please contact your account manager. The new integration will be available by the end of October 2019
