Recruiting and retention are two big challenges faced by all business owners, including franchisees. Most franchisees rely on playbooks from the franchisor for many aspects of operating their business. Hiring is the exception and is something most franchisees must figure out on their own.

Fortunately, there are some helpful tools that business owners can use to help them run their business. One thing that should be in every franchise employer’s toolkit is an applicant tracking system (ATS), like CareerPlug. An ATS is a software that helps you automate recruiting, hiring, and onboarding candidates.

As a franchisee, you probably face a lot of choices when it comes to running your business. It can be hard to weigh your options and decide which software and systems you truly need. 

Let’s talk about some of the benefits of using an ATS and why CareerPlug is the best choice for franchises all around. 

Why CareerPlug is the best ATS for franchises 

At CareerPlug, we are on a very important mission: to make it easier for businesses to hire and develop the right people. We know that not everyone is an HR expert, so we created a software that’s easy to use and automates all the tedious steps in a typical hiring process. 

We’re proud to be trusted by over 30,000 businesses, including franchises in a variety of industries like restaurants, retail, home services, and more. Why do they choose CareerPlug? Because our software is both easy to use and packed with features that make it stand out from the competition. 

Let’s start with a quick overview of how CareerPlug works in the video below.

Make the right hires with a proven process

When choosing an applicant tracking system, you want to make sure the software actually gets results! Since 2007, CareerPlug has been helping franchisees make the right hires with software designed by hiring experts. Our software was built on a proven process that guides you through all the hiring steps easily so you can leave out the guesswork and be confident in your hiring decisions.

Let’s take a closer look at how CareerPlug helps franchises hire better.

Job posting process

The right job posting is the first step in attracting the right applicants to your open roles. We know that crafting the perfect job description can be time consuming. That’s why we offer templates that can be customized to get your job posted sooner. 

We know how to help your jobs stand out and get results with detailed job description fields and red flag warnings to help you avoid keywords that hurt your searchability. 

Once you create your job description, it’s important to distribute it to as many sites as possible. Manually doing this can take up a lot of your precious time! That’s why we automatically send your job postings to all the major job boards (like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Facebook Jobs, and many more) instantly connecting you to thousands of job seekers. 

Careers pages

High quality candidates do their research when it comes to applying for a company, and a branded careers page on your website can help you stand out. In fact, candidates who apply from a business’s careers pages are 7 times more likely to become hires than candidates who come from job boards. 

A huge benefit of using an ATS like CareerPlug is that we create a branded careers page that can include your logo, pictures of your team, employee testimonials, and more. 

Hiring automation 

You may already have other aspects of your business automated. Automation for things like client relationship management can save you time and energy and give your business much needed consistency. Automating your hiring is no different! 

One of the biggest reasons to invest in an ATS is for hiring automation that helps you move applicants through your pipeline quicker and provide all candidates with a seamless hiring experience. 

Make it easy to apply from any device

Now more than ever, it’s important to make the application process smooth and easy. Candidates have a lot of options and they’ll skip an application process that takes too long. 

Since many people job search on their phones, CareerPlug has mobile-optimized applications so that job seekers can apply from any device. 

Prescreen candidates quickly

Our applications include prescreen questions that can help you identify top applicants right away. And when a “Fast Track” applicant applies, we’ll instantly send you an email or text message to let you know. 

We’ll automatically remove unqualified applicants from consideration and send out a professional rejection email for you. Clients tell us these features give them an advantage against the competition and save them hours per week.

Interview scheduling 

We help you streamline all your interview scheduling from the initial phone screen to final interviews. Our in-app calendar invitation syncs with all of the major calendars like Apple, Google, and Outlook. You can either schedule your interview the old-fashioned way, or you can let candidates choose from a set of available days/times you’ve set aside. 

You can also text or email interview reminders automatically to help eliminate uncertainty and scheduling insanity. 

While other applicant tracking systems promote features like allowing candidates to upload a video introduction to employers, we actually discourage our clients from using one-way video interviews. Why? Because we know that’s not a good hiring practice. Instead, we focus on giving you the tools to provide a great candidate experience, which can help you make more hires. 

Evaluate candidates quickly

By sticking to a structured candidate evaluation process, you can make better hiring decisions. We’ve built our assessments to help you learn everything you need to know about your candidates, including:  

• Personality assessments
• Cognitive assessments (measuring math and verbal skills)
• Role specific scorecards and assessments

Plus, our interview guides have helped our clients make tens of thousands of great hires.

Text recruiting

Any business owner who uses text recruiting will tell you it’s a game changer. Text messages have higher open rates and faster response times than email. CareerPlug’s text recruiting software allows you to quickly send text messages to your applicants to schedule and confirm interviews and keep them moving through your hiring process. 

Customer service 

When choosing an ATS for your business, you want to be sure that great customer service is included. Everyone at CareerPlug is trained to be a hiring expert in order to provide the best guidance and service. This sets us apart from other ATS platforms. 

We are also highly experienced in working with franchises. This is huge! You want a platform that knows how your business operates. We understand franchises and their unique needs. 

CareerPlug has hiring experts standing by to answer your questions directly either through email or a quick phone call. We take a consultative approach and can give you advice on both using the platform and general advice on how to hire better.  

Hiring expertise

CareerPlug also makes hiring easier by providing a ton of additional resources for employers like offer letter templates, interviewing tips, onboarding forms, and more. We’re constantly doing research and updating our blog where we share the best recruiting and employee management tips for employers and hiring managers, including franchise and industry specific content. 

These additional resources along with our software’s capabilities, team of hiring experts, and vast experience with franchises make us the right addition to any business’s playbook.