I've been an HR leader since 1984 and I have met at least a thousand other HR leaders, especially over the past few years.
I've spoken in front of ten to fifteen thousand of them and I have never heard an HR leader defend, much less praise, his or her Applicant Tracking System.
Not once. Not even once!
HR leaders say "I hate the blasted Applicant Tracking System, but I'm forced to screen resumes that way." IT people don't like their ATS mechanisms. No one likes them! Hiring managers hate them. They slow down the hiring process. Everybody says "We have to use it."
There's no legal requirement to funnel applications through a huge stupid database, but nearly everybody does it anyway. In the technology industry where I worked for many years, there is a big problem called the Installed Base Problem.
When anybody wants to do something new and cool in technology, they have to deal with the fact that clients -- that is, the companies who might buy their software -- already have something installed.
That's the Installed Base Problem. Once a big stupid piece of software is installed, it's very expensive to get rid of it!
That's why, as much as I hate Applicant Tracking Systems, especially since none of the ATS vendors has managed to come up with an easy-to-use, friendly ATS that would welcome job-seekers instead of treating them like cattle, I don't tell HR leaders "Just junk your ATS and start over!"
I know they would tell me "It's not that simple."
Instead, I tell them "Pick a job that you're having trouble filling. Screen resumes for that job opening a different way. Have the applicants send their resumes via email to a designated person in HR. Respond to every candidate quickly with a human message -- a friendly and personal one. See what happens!"
HR leaders are enchanted when they see how a human voice in their recruiting process changes the quality of their candidates. Little by little, HR leaders and their IT comrades are realizing that an ATS application is a crusty, 1980's-style solution in search of a problem.
I predict that no ATS vendor will be business in 2020 except the ones who figure out how to make the process of applying for a job as pleasant and simple as the process of buying something online.
Even though nearly every medium-sized and large employer uses an ATS and even though if you ask an HR person or recruiter outright "Can I reach out to my hiring manager directly?" they'll say "Heavens, no!" the truth is that you can.
I've been writing about this topic for fifteen years. Every day in our office we get mail from new employees who say "It works! You really can circumvent the automated application and reach out to your hiring manager. I did it, and I got a new job!"
The people who staff the broken recruiting system, naturally, can't tell you "Just go around the back way and forget the online application." They're not allowed to say that.
They have to say "No, you must follow the rules" but they know it's not true. Hiring managers have problems. They are desperate for talent.
They don't want to receive a stack of resumes to review six to eight weeks after they run a job ad. They want to hire someone now! Why shouldn't they hire you?
You can reach out to your hiring manager directly with a letter that you send in the mail the old-fashioned way. Nobody gets paper mail anymore, especially mail that's directed to them by name.
When a hiring manager opens your envelope and sees your Pain Letter inside, you've grabbed his or attention already.
Of course, you have to figure out who your hiring manager is, and learn his or her name. Here's how to do that!
Your Pain Letter can't sound like a traditional cover letter, though. If it does, it's headed right back into the Black Hole recruiting system you were trying to avoid. You have to talk about your hiring manager -- not about yourself!
You'll start your Pain Letter by congratulating your hiring manager on something cool the company has done recently. That's an easy thing to find. It'll be in the Press or Newsroom section of the company's own website.
Then you go on to advance a Pain Hypothesis about the hiring manager's most likely Business Pain. Then, you'll mention the way you solved a similar type of Business Pain on your current job a previous one.
Above all, you'll sound like the vibrant human being you are in your Pain Letter. You won't use the traditional robotic business voice most suck-uppy job-seekers use in their cover letters.
You won't say "Dear Sir or Madam." You won't blather on about your qualifications. No one cares! The only thing your hiring manager cares about is your answer to the question "Can you solve my problem?"
