Talent rediscovery solves the age-old problem of recruiting departments spending time and money to collect hundreds, thousands, and even millions of resumes for previous positions and not being able to utilize them for open reqs.

94% of companies who use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) say it’s improved their hiring process.

But a traditional ATS has a major limitation: it doesn’t allow you to search through your existing resume database quickly, easily, and accurately.

These are candidates you’ve already paid to source and spent time screening their resumes. But once these resumes get collected into your ATS, the majority of them are never looked at again.

For high-volume roles, 65% of resumes received on average are completely ignored and neglected.

That means most recruiting departments are sitting on a goldmine of potential candidates in their ATS but without a way to quickly, easily, and accurately access their resumes for open reqs.

Enter the next generation of resume screening: rediscovering talent already in your ATS.

To help you understand how talent rediscovery works, we created this guide on how it can increase your recruiting efficiency while reducing your spend by leveraging the candidates already in your ATS.

Talent rediscovery is the ability to automatically screen candidates who applied for a previous role at your company and match them to a current open req using your ATS resume database.

Rediscovery software is a new generation of technology that fall under the umbrella of AI for recruiting.

This type of AI-powered software automatically find previous applicants in your ATS that are good matches for your current open positions.

Over the years, large companies will amass thousands – even millions – of resumes. But once these resumes go into your ATS, the majority of them get lost in the ATS black box and are never looked at again.

This is because the typical ATS just wasn’t designed to have this functionality. An ATS tends to be “dumb” technology that can’t learn and improve its screening and matching function.

Although most ATSs allow you to use keywords and Boolean searches to search through your existing resume database, they have a couple of major limitations.

• False positives: finding candidates who are not actually the most qualified ones due to keyword stuffing on their resumes.
• False negatives: not finding candidates who have strong qualifications due to overly specific keywords and Boolean searches.

This makes it difficult to impossible to find and grade previous applicants for a new open req even if those applicants were screened and matched to a similar role previously.

Talent rediscovery holds the promise to solve this common recruiting frustration.

Talent rediscovery software is AI for recruiting that’s designed to integrate into your existing ATS. The software uses AI to rediscover candidates in your ATS using the following steps:

• Step 1: Integrates into your existing ATS to add a layer of intelligent sourcing functionality.
• Step 2: Scans the job descriptions of open roles to understand the qualifications needed.
• Step 3: Sources your existing resume database to find candidates that match the qualifications needed for an open role based on their education, work experience, and skill set.
• Step 4: Grades and shortlists matched candidates to your open roles using A, B, C, or D.

By allowing recruiters to tap into a candidate source that’s already under their nose, talent rediscovery holds the potential to dramatically increase efficiency, reduce spend, and increase competitiveness for talent.

1. Increasing recruiting efficiency by automating candidate shortlisting

A recent survey of HR buyers found that 66% evaluate new HR software based on its ability to improve efficiency and automate processes.

Why are improving efficiency and automating processes top priorities for HR departments?

A survey of recruiters found that 69% of them report their hiring volume has increased this year but only 26% of them say the size of their recruiting teams has increased.

As hiring volume grows, increasing efficiency will depend on a recruiter’s ability to intelligently automate their workflow.

By automating resume screening and candidate shortlisting, talent rediscovery has the potential to significantly increase your efficiency.

Speeding up this part of recruiting reduces time-to-hire, which means you’ll be less likely to lose talent to faster moving competitors.

2. Reducing recruiting spend by sourcing candidates who are already in your ATS

While the average job posting receives 50 or fewer applicants, job postings for high-volume roles such as retail and hospitality receive more than 250 applicants.

By default, sourcing, attracting, and screening candidates for high-volume roles is more expensive and require more of a recruiter’s time.

However, once these resumes are collected into an ATS, recruiters haven’t had a way to easily and accurately access previous applicants who would be good matches for current open reqs.

That means every new req re-invents the wheel. Money gets spent sourcing, attracting, and screening a brand new set of candidates even though large companies are sitting on thousands to millions of resumes already in their ATS.

Talent rediscovery software provides a tool for recruiters to match existing candidates in their ATS database to an open role which can save hundreds to thousands of dollars in recruiting spend per req.

3. Increasing recruiting competitiveness by leveraging a new source of candidates

The same survey found that 95% of recruiters predict the job market to remain or get more competitive. The top obstacles for recruiters finding talent include:

• Lack of skilled/qualified candidates: 56%
• Competition: 50%
• Lack of budget: 33%

Recruiters who leverage their ATS databases as a new source of candidates are better equipped to face these obstacles head-on.

In today’s competitive candidate-driven market, finding talent will depend on a recruiter’s ability to leverage new sources of candidates.

1. It requires a lot of data

Talent rediscovery software uses machine learning which needs a lot of data to learn how to screen resumes as accurately as a human recruiter. This can mean several hundreds to several thousands of resumes needed for a specific role.

2. It can learn human biases

Talent rediscovery software is trained to find patterns in historical recruiting decisions. That means any human bias that may already be in your recruiting process – even if it’s unconscious – can be learned by the software.

To avoid replicating human bias, make sure the software you use takes steps to reduce patterns of potential bias (e.g., hiring graduates from certain schools).

1. Talent rediscovery is the ability to automatically screen candidates who applied for a previous role at your company and match them to a current open req from your ATS resume database.
2. How talent rediscovery works: Software that integrates into your existing ATS adds a layer of intelligent screening. It does this by scanning the job descriptions of open roles, screening your existing resume database to find candidates that match the qualifications needed, and grading and shortlisting candidates for your open roles.
3. The benefits of rediscovering talent: By allowing recruiters to tap into candidates that are already in their ATS, talent rediscovery holds the potential to dramatically increase efficiency, reduce spend, and increase competitiveness for talent.
4. The challenges of rediscovering talent: To replicate human recruiters, talent rediscovery requires hundreds to thousands of resumes per open role and it has the potential to replicate human biases if left unmonitored.