A Recruiter's Guide to BambooHR's Applicant Tracking System
Welcome to recruiting in the BambooHR way! In this guide, you will learn how to use BambooHR's Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to optimize your hiring process and bring the best people to your organization. This guide structures in the same way you use the ATS, beginning with gaining access to the system and going step-by-step through the process of creating and publishing a job opening, managing candidates, hiring, and analyzing your data.
Make sure you have access
Before we can dive into the details, you will want to make sure your BambooHR administrator (usually one of your friends in HR) has given you the correct access. Here are a few things to check for in your BambooHR account:
- You should see the Hiring tab in the menu on the left side of the screen.
- You should see a gear icon in the upper right corner. This icon will take you to the Settings section of the account.
- Within the Settings section, you should see Hiring listed among the menu options on the left-hand side of your screen.
- You should also see the Reports tab in the menu on the left side of the screen.
- Within the Reports view, you should have at least these five reports under the Shared with Me folder: Candidate Sources, Candidates by Disability and Gender, Candidates by Race and Gender, Candidates by Veteran Status and Gender, and Candidate Funnel.
If you cannot view any of these items above, please talk with your BambooHR admin to get the correct access.
Once you know you have the correct access, you are ready to jump right in and get started.
BambooHR ATS has three things to set up on the back end: candidate statuses, email templates, and offer letter templates. To access all three, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of your account. This action will take you to the Settings section. Within Settings, select Hiring.
Customizing candidate statuses helps you to define the hiring process for your organization and easily keep track of where in the process each candidate is. Your account comes with a few default statuses based on ones that we commonly see used, but do not feel like you have to use them if they do not work for you.
Learn all about how to customize your candidate statuses here.
Setting up email templates is a great way to streamline your email communication with your candidates. Your account comes pre-populated with standard email templates. You can edit standard email templates to match your company voice. Click on a template name in blue, and you will then be able to change the template name, edit the subject line, edit the body text, and add images or attachments to the template.
The Application Confirmation Email is unique in that it is automatically sent to all candidates immediately after they submit their application. This email cannot be disabled or deleted, nor can you modify the template name or add images or attachments. Its primary purpose is to act as a quick confirmation of a received application.
Custom email templates
In addition to the standard email templates, you can also create custom email templates. Like most standard templates, you can add images, attach files, and use placeholders that automatically pull information from your BambooHR account and candidates.
Adding offer letter templates into BambooHR makes the process of extending an offer to a candidate seamless.
To create a new offer letter template, click + New Template in the Offer Templates section under Hiring within Settings. You can name the template, create content for the offer letter, and add images or files. Additionally, placeholders let you add basic information from your BambooHR account to offer letters and offer email templates, such as the candidate's name, the position title, or the hiring lead's phone number.
Click here to learn all about how to create a new offer letter template.
In addition to candidate statuses, email templates, and offer letter templates, your BambooHR administrator may have given you access to the employee fields in your account. This access allows you to edit the list values for all drop-down menus in your BambooHR account, such as locations, departments, and divisions, as well as any job titles used internally. Please note that job titles within the ATS are text fields. They can be different from the internal job titles used within your company. Any job titles included in a job posting will not appear within Employee Fields. You will know if you have this kind of access if you see Employee Fields in the list on the left when viewing Settings. If you do not see Employee Fields and believe that it would be helpful for you to have access, please talk with a BambooHR administrator in your HR department.
Location
Under Location, you can manage the addresses associated with each of your company locations, which will appear as part of a job opening in the ATS.
First, select Location from the list, then add a new location by clicking +Add and entering a new location name and address.
To edit a location, hover over the location name and click on the edit icon. You will see additional options for historical information when making edits to list options.
Tip: If you have added an address to each location within Settings, it will auto-populate when you select one of the available locations for a job opening.
Please note that if you would like to post your job opening to Indeed and/or Glassdoor, you will need to provide a city, state/province, and ZIP/postal code. Indeed and Glassdoor require these fields to know where to advertise the job opening.
Creating a job opening is simple. Navigate the Hiring tab to click +New Job Opening. The steps in this help guide show you everything you need to create a job opening.
You can edit any of the information for an existing job opening at any time. Click on the job opening title on the Hiring tab, then click Edit Job Opening below the title.
Once a job opening is live, you will want to get the word out to as many people as possible.
While creating a job opening, you may have checked the box that automatically posts the job opening to Indeed and Glassdoor. Remember that only job openings with a city, state, and postal code can publish to the job boards, and sites can take up to three days to sync. To repost a job opening, click the circular arrow icon next to the Edit Job Posting button in the detailed posting view. You can repost a job opening every ten days.
In addition to sharing a job opening to the free job boards mentioned previously, there are four other ways to publicize a job opening.
If you have an existing careers website that you use for job postings, you can use the embed code to copy and paste new job openings into your site's HTML code. On the Hiring tab, click Get Embed Code in the upper right corner.
Once you set up the embed code, the Open Positions widget on your careers website will update in real-time and link candidates directly to the ATS when they click on any of the job postings within the widget.
If you do not already have a careers website to embed the widget, BambooHR has created an out-of-the-box solution just for you. To see what it looks like, navigate the Hiring tab to click View Careers Website in the upper right corner. The company logo and primary color that you use in your BambooHR account will show on this page. You can direct candidates to this page by copying and pasting the URL or creating a hyperlink using the URL.
To share job openings to places other than those we have provided, you can use the unique URL address given to every job opening. The URL becomes available once the posting status sets to Open. The Job Link will help you create a custom link to share with others and track candidate sources. First, click Share Job Link (see where in the step above) then select where you will post or share the link. You can pick from your list of candidate sources in Hiring Settings, or you can add a new option to the list. Once you select the right source (Where will you post this link), copy and share the link listed in Job Link. This action will ensure it is shared with the proper attribution for source tracking, meaning it will show up correctly in the Candidate Sources report.
Hiring the right people is a collaborative effort, which involves the right people in the process for success with BambooHR's ATS.
The person who creates the job posting in the ATS is referred to as the job creator. The job creator will automatically be included as a collaborator for any positions that he or she creates.
The job creator will receive an email notification each time a new application is received and whenever the Hiring Lead or another collaborator makes a comment on a candidate's profile. A notification will appear in the What's Happening widget on BambooHR Home each time a new application is received. The email alerts about comments can be turned off using the envelope icon next to the job creator's name. The notifications about new candidates in the What's Happening widget cannot be disabled.
If the job creator simply created the posting and does not need to be a part of the hiring process for that position, you can remove them as a collaborator.
The Hiring Lead for a job posting is the person primarily responsible for hiring that position, usually the hiring manager. However, the Hiring Lead can be any employee who has any level of access to the BambooHR account, and Hiring Leads do not need to have full access to the ATS.
You can add any employee who has access to your BambooHR account as a collaborator on a specific job posting and/or Talent Pool. Just like a Hiring Lead, employees do not need to have full access to the ATS to be added as collaborators. When adding a collaborator, you can determine what information they see under the "Besides resume, what info can collaborators view?" dropdown.
To add a collaborator, navigate to a specific posting and click the collaborator button.
Once you have a job opening with the Open status and shared it, applications will start coming in. On the Hiring tab, you can view the status and number of candidates for each job opening. You will also see if you have any new candidates for any job openings. The drop-down menu in the upper right corner allows you to filter your job openings by status.
Changing the statuses of job openings is a significant part of managing your incoming candidates since only jobs with an Open status appear on the Careers Website and in your embed code. To learn more about available status options and how to add additional Open job openings once reaching your limit, click here.
The Candidates tab shows you a list of all candidates you can view regardless of what job opening they applied for. You can filter or sort this list to display candidates in a way that is most helpful to you. We recommend that you use your candidate statuses so that your view is accurate.
The Talent Pools tab allows you to group your candidates by skill. This makes it easier to find the perfect fit when a new job opens up.
Clicking the title of a specific job opening takes you to the candidate overview page for the job opening. The candidate overview table shows you all candidates for the specific job opening, their most recent rating, the date they submitted their application, and their current status. If needed, you have the option to export job data.
Each candidate receives a unique profile page that tracks their information and progress through the hiring process. To access a candidate's profile, click on the candidate's name in the candidate overview table. You can use the search box in the upper right corner of the screen to search for a candidate.
If a candidate provides their LinkedIn URL on the application and their profile picture is public on LinkedIn, BambooHR will automatically pull the photo with the application. If the candidate gets hired, this photo will not automatically add to their new employee profile.
In the candidate overview table, you have the option to perform bulk actions for multiple candidates, including sending email, updating statuses, moving to another posting, and deleting candidates.
Deleting a candidate removes the candidate and their data from the system. If you are deleting fewer than five candidates, the popup window will show the chosen candidates to delete. As a safety measure, you will need to type DELETE in the message box to complete the action. If you are deleting more than five candidates, you will see the total number of candidates to delete, and the message box to confirm the action.
If you would like to add a candidate to the system without requiring them to complete an application, you can add candidates manually. When you manually add a candidate to BambooHR, their candidate profile will show Added instead of Applied.
The Emails tab on the candidate profile stores all emails sent and received through the ATS, starting with the automated Application Submitted Confirmation email sent when an application is received. Anyone with access to view the candidate in the ATS can initiate a new email.
When you create a new email to send to the candidate, you can select one of the templates previously created in Settings or create a new message without a template.
Moving candidates from one job opening to another one is a way to ensure candidates apply to positions that match their strengths. Click here to learn more about how to move a candidate to another job opening.
The ATS includes nine automated email alerts:
- New Candidate
- New Comment
- New Comment and Status Update
- New Bulk Comment and Status Update
- Application Submitted Confirmation
- Offer Letter
- Offer Accepted (Candidate-Facing)
- Offer Accepted (Recruiter-Facing)
If you are viewing an email on your mobile device, the email link will take you to the BambooHR Hiring app. You can learn more about each of these automated alerts here.
Sending offer letters directly from BambooHR is another way of using Bamboo's ATS to create a smooth and consistent experience for a candidate and streamline your hiring processes.
When you are ready to send a candidate an offer, select Create Offer Letter from the status drop-down menu on the candidate's profile or next to the candidate's name in the candidate overview table. Then, follow the steps in this help guide.
The candidate will receive an email notification that includes the exact information written in the offer letter template. Click here to learn more about the candidate's experience signing the offer letter.
Once the offer letter sends, the Offer tab will appear on the candidate's profile. The candidate's status will also automatically change to Offer Sent. You can view the full offer letter by clicking View Offer in the upper right corner or cancel the offer by clicking Cancel Offer in the upper right corner. You also can revise an offer letter even after sending it. When making a revision and sending a new offer letter, it will replace the existing offer letter. The candidate will receive another offer email that allows them to view the updated offer letter. If they try to go to the old offer letter, we will let them know of an updated version that they need to sign and take them there.
When the candidate signs the offer, the candidate's status will change to Offer Signed. You will no longer be able to cancel the offer at that point. The Cancel Offer link will change to See Signed Offer, which will show you a PDF version of the signed offer letter. A certificate will be in the PDF that documents the date and times that documents were requested and signed, the name and email address of the requester/signer(s), and the IP address used for each action. The certificate will also assign the signed document a unique document ID.
Having an ATS connected to your HRIS allows the efficient completeness of a candidate's transfer to a new employee. Once you decide to hire a candidate and have their signature on the offer letter (if applicable), select Hire in the status drop-down menu on their candidate profile or the candidate overview table. If you send an offer letter through BambooHR, you can also initiate the hiring process by clicking Hire [Candidate's Name] on the Offer tab on their candidate profile.
To learn more about how to hire a candidate and the next steps, click here. Once hired, the candidate's resume, signed offer letter, and any documents included on the candidate's profile will automatically upload to their Documents tab within their new employee profile.
Want to ensure a new hire gets off on the right foot and has a great first day? Send them a new hire packet. A new hire packet is the beginning of the onboarding process, which may make sending it a function of your HR department rather than the recruiting team, but since the packet can be easily sent when creating the new employee profile, we're including it in this guide. Not to mention, if you can take one little task off HR's plate, you'll earn points.
Since the new hire packet moves into the realm of onboarding, you will want to work with your HR team to determine the proper workflow and decide who should be sending the new hire packet. The nice thing about BambooHR is that once the HR team has set up their part of the onboarding process and defined how the packet should be sent, kicking off the onboarding process becomes a natural part of your workflow for adding a new employee and makes for a very clean hand-off from recruiting to HR.
If you are filling a position by rehiring a previous employee, the process will be slightly different because you will want to reactivate their original profile rather than creating a brand new one. Depending on the access that your HR team has given you to employee data for existing employees, you may need to work with them to complete the rehire in BambooHR. If you do have access or you need to show your HR team how it works, click here to learn more.
The recruiting process involves much more than just hiring new people. BambooHR comes with five built-in standard reports, so you can improve the hiring process by analyzing data about your candidates. You can access these reports in the Reports tab.
The Candidate Sources report helps you understand where people are learning about your organization online. This report helps determine which sources provide the most candidates so you can allocate your recruiting efforts (and your budget ) accordingly.
Click here to learn more about the Candidate Sources report.
If you choose to request voluntary information about disability, race, veteran status, and gender as part of the application process, the information will be available to you in aggregate for candidates who responded to the questions. For legal reasons, the data will not be tied to specific candidates and will only be available for your candidate base as a whole.
Click here to learn more about the Candidate by Disability and Gender report.
If you choose to request voluntary information about disability, race, veteran status, and gender as part of the application process, the information will be available to you in aggregate for candidates who responded to the questions. For legal reasons, the data will not be tied to specific candidates and will only be available for your candidate base as a whole.
Click here to learn more about the Candidate by Race and Gender report.
If you choose to request voluntary information about disability, race, veteran status, and gender as part of the application process, the information will be available to you in aggregate for all of your candidates who responded to the questions. For legal reasons, the data will not be tied to specific candidates and will only be available for your candidate base as a whole.
Click here to learn more about the Candidate by Veteran Status and Gender report.
The Candidate Funnel report highlights where candidates go once they enter BambooHR, and provides details that help you understand how long different processes take. Knowing how long it takes candidates to move through the hiring process can help improve their experience by identifying bottlenecks and phases of the hiring process that needs improvement. Speed during a hiring process is critical in today's candidate-driven job market.
Click here to learn more about the Candidate Funnel report.
BambooHR Hiring will help in-house recruiters, hiring managers, and HR professionals find, evaluate, and hire the right talent as quickly as possible.
Click here to learn everything you need to know about BambooHR Hiring.
Helpful tips from a BambooHR recruiter
Here are some helpful tips to think about as you are getting started with the ATS, sent by a member of our recruiting team here at BambooHR:
- Remember that recruiting is all about people. Many people are simply looking for resume parsers to weed out everyone except the "best" candidates (often only those who know the right buzzwords to put on their resumes). The BambooHR ATS requires a human touch because relationships and people matter. In today's job market, you can't take good candidates for granted, and doing it right requires a human touch. This approach also allows us to catch candidates who may not be a fit for the job position they applied for but might be a good fit for another job position.
- The candidate experience and the speed of communication with your candidates are crucial to hiring the best people. The ATS helps you automate the process to improve the entire candidate experience, which leads to lower time-to-hire and better employer branding. In turn, that engenders more referrals to your company even if people don't get hired because they had an incredible experience working with you.
- We use the ATS to respond to all candidates within two business days, either with a decline or the next step in the process. The faster we can get back to the candidates, the more likely we are to get the best people before someone else gives them an offer.
- When customizing your statuses, think of them as a to-do list and put them in an intuitive workflow order. For example, we have a status for Send Interview Invitation Email and Interview Invitation Sent. We can filter the candidate overview table by status and use a bulk action to send an interview invitation email (using a template with placeholders that only take one click) to all candidates at that point. Once the email sends, we change the status to Interview Invitation Sent when using the bulk action option. This status helps us know exactly where everyone is at and what the next step is. We can also see where candidates get stuck in the process, such as Waiting for Skills Test Response and make adjustments to improve the candidate experience.
- With statuses, we removed the Reviewed stage in favor of a concise to-do list item. With statuses such as Hiring Manager Review and Initial Recruiter Review, we can see precisely where bottlenecks are happening and know who owns what task.
- The Not Hired statuses help us determine the health of our recruiting operations. If all of our candidates do not get hired because they are not the right fit, we know that we are marketing to the wrong channels. If people are overqualified or underqualified, we know we need to improve the job description. Think of the Not Hired statuses as a marketing tool.
- When creating your email templates, include significant specificity. If your templates are well-crafted, you will proactively reduce the number of responses because you have already provided all the information the candidates need.
- We have General Application as one of our job openings. This option allows candidates to apply to work for our company even if they aren't sure what job position they would best fit. We use the custom questions as part of the application to help determine where they might be a good fit. We also connect with them on LinkedIn, and they will see all of our future job openings when new job positions become available.
- Make use of the social media options. Yes, you can pay LinkedIn for job slots to promote your job openings, or you can post the position regularly and encourage others at your company to post job openings. Leveraging social media will increase your marketing reach without increasing the cost.
Request help
If you have questions about discussed information in this guide or need additional assistance as you are working in the ATS, view more in-depth information available in our Help Center. Access the information by clicking the question mark icon in the upper right corner of your account. You are also welcome to contact a customer support hero.
Happy Bamboo-ing!
Social media links
Did you know that 73% of Millennials found their last job through social media? Well, now you know, and lucky for you, BambooHR's ATS makes sharing your job postings on social media simple.
When viewing a job posting, simply click Share Job Link, then the link for the social media site where you would like to share the posting -- LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.