Now that 2020 is here and the candidate experience is top of mind for many talent acquisition teams, lets talk about the ATS experience for job seekers. To get more specific, lets focus on the apply experience.

For too long, the average job seeker has had to navigate a myriad of logins from disparate systems of record, forced to create and remember passwords and usernames in order to apply. But jumping through these hoops has made job search a painful one for candidates. It’s time to start reversing that trend.

The ‘login to apply‘ feature prominent on most applicant tracking software is an element of days gone by. It is a relic of software past, and if I had a choice I would ban this barrier to apply.

The modern job seeker has zero interest in creating another user account to apply to your company. They simply want to upload their resume quickly and move on.

Appcast, the programmatic ad platform says that only about 6.6% of candidate traffic converts into an actual apply on desktop. And its even lower on mobile at 4.7%. Though there are a variety of factors as to why someone doesn’t apply, making them login is certainly a big reason they don’t.

There is a use case for having to create a login. But only if its a seamless process. The ideal solution would require adopting an industry wide single sign-on process shared by all recruiting software vendors.

Indeed has their apply button, so does LinkedIn. Why don’t ATS vendors band together and create one of their own? Imagine a world where each ATS could have their own version of Easy Apply! Two things would happen in my opinion.

Job seekers would rejoice. Applications would rise.

There are hundreds of ATS platforms in the market so this idea presents quite a challenge. For it to gain traction it would have to start with the bigger players like WorkDay, Brassring and Taleo’s of the world to lead the way.

The rest of the industry would be sure to follow if they saw the major recruiting software companies sponsor such an open source initiative.

If I were the CEO of companies like iCIMS, Greenhouse and others, I would take this suggestion seriously. Job seekers have the RIGHT to an efficient and speedy apply process. A single shared apply account could make that a reality.

Pipe dream? Probably. But its worth throwing the idea out there for the powers that be to contemplate.

Recruiting software companies must adapt to the times or risk becoming extinct in this new world of experienced based software.