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Turning ATS Potential Into Recruiting Advantage:
Why Outsourced System Administration and Reporting Works for GM

ike any technology investment, the deployment of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is usually the culmination of a careful selection process, balancing the needs for present capabilities and future potential. While selecting the right ATS approach is crucial to improving recruiting effectiveness today, many significant challenges to success are buried in the details that arise after implementation.

How do you develop a meaningful reporting capability? How do you put new features to work? Are you actually using all the features that you bought? How can your system change to meet your needs? These are just a few of the questions that recruiting decision-makers find themselves facing, usually before the dust has settled from the activity of initial rollout.

As Director of Talent Acquisition at General Motors, Mark Roberts and his team have first-hand experience addressing these and other issues of system operation. His organization is responsible for non-executive salaried hiring, with responsibility that extends from requisition creation to candidate on-boarding needs up to their first day of hire.

To address the challenge, decision-makers developed a centralized staffing initiative—a complete transformation of the process and underlying technology responsible for 4,000 to 5,000 hires per year. As many companies have found, implementing such a large-scale initiative is not easy.

In July 2004, his organization went live with a new ATS. Today, more than two years later, Roberts' team has realized great success with the new technology in terms of functionality and efficiency. Success, however, was not immediate. Instead, it was due in large part to a decision GM reached after initial deployment—namely, to turn to an outsourced provider to manage system administration and reporting.

"Outsourcing system administration and reporting isn't the first thing you think about in an ATS deployment," says Roberts. "But it was a choice that has proven to be very instrumental in realizing more potential from our system."

The Challenge: Transforming ATS Potential into Reality
GM began considering outsourced support options shortly after implementation. "Initially, we thought we could take care of system administration and reporting ourselves," says Roberts. "We thought that a partnership with the technology provider would provide the extra support we needed when appropriate. However, about three months after deployment, we saw that we were not even close to realizing the full potential of our new ATS."

According to Roberts, the gap between potential and realized capability was compounded by the fact that there would not be time for internal resources to "catch up" to the needs of the system. "The original application was configured for the US," he explains, "and we knew that eventually it would be growing more complex as we expanded it to become global in scope."

"Reporting was also an issue," he notes. "Our ATS gave us great opportunities for configuring the system to meet our needs. What we failed to do was to make sure that our reporting capability kept up with that configuration. To get reporting that aligned directly with the business decisions we had to make—that was a daunting task."

The other side of the issue involved system administration and support. Like many large enterprises, the company previously relied on internal IT resources to support the operation of its ATS. The GM group didn't have a large dedicated staff to support the system, according to Roberts. Those involved in supporting the system had the general knowledge to facilitate operations, but they lacked the specialized expertise to optimize performance and put the features of the ATS to work.

"We did not have the type of knowledge we needed to translate the potential of the system into reality," he notes. "We couldn't simply wait and hope for the best, or ignore it as a small sideline issue—we had a great system and we needed to make sure we were able to take full advantage of its benefits."

The Alternatives: Train Existing Staff, Add New Staff?
Companies typically have three basic options in supporting a newly implemented ATS system or upgrade, explains Roberts. "Your first and generally most obvious choice is to use your existing in-house resources," he says. "That means that you must train people to get them up to speed with the new application. In our case, we had a large knowledge gap to bridge, and to train our people quickly enough to catch up with our needs would have been nearly impossible.

"Even if you have a world-class IT team, you have to consider the time it would take for them to become familiar with the new ATS, as well as the time it would take to keep up with new features and changes in the technology," says Roberts. "Is that a good use of your in-house resources? In our case, it wasn't."

"If you decide not to grow the talent internally, your second choice is to go outside, find people with the capability you need and bring them into the internal organization," he says. "There are some issues with this approach. First, people with these specialized skills are difficult to find. Once you find them, they may be difficult to keep."

Outsourced Administration and Reporting Align with Growing Needs
According to Roberts, the third option—outsourcing system administration and reporting—offered critical advantages. "The right outsourced provider will give you the raw technology skills to get the most out of the features in the system, but that's not the whole story," he notes.

"In addition to providing hard skills, the provider of that service should have the industry experience and vision to keep you on top of new opportunities and changing needs," he says. "If new features become available, you know that you have the resources to put them to work. If the goals of your organization change, you know you have the resources to support them with your ATS."

"We knew we had a lot of potential with our ATS system, and we knew that the functionality of the system would have to grow in scope and complexity over the coming years," says Roberts. "For our needs, the level of flexibility afforded by outsourcing system administration and reporting was critical. That's the approach we chose to take."

The Outsourcing Option—A Straightforward Decision
While organizations have historically leaned toward the use of internal resources to support their ATS systems, many have begun to recognize the advantages of outsourced support. What do companies need to think about when evaluating their decisions? The answer, according to Roberts, is very similar to other resource decisions.

"You assess your internal capability," he explains. "Do you have the number of resources and skills to support your system and meet your expectations? If not, are you willing to acquire staff or provide the necessary training? Will the scope of your operations be changing? Will you be able to support that change? These are all important questions."

For many companies, much of the real value of an ATS system often remains locked up in features and capabilities that go unused for lack of internal resources or capabilities to make them work. For GM, the decision to outsource system administration and reporting has proven critical in ensuring that the full functionality is put to use. It's a decision that made sense two years ago, and it's a decision that continues to deliver value today.