An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a system (computer software program, spreadsheet, or similar) that manages the hiring process. It does this by collecting and sorting thousands of resumes. On the enterprise level the ATS may be offered as a module or functional addition to a human resources suite or human resource information system (HRIS). For example, workday.com has a module for ATS. The same if with SAP Insights.

But if you are not a large corporation, the best is to setup a simple ATS using email and Google Sheet.

Email parsing can dramatically streamline the workflows of recruiters and hiring managers. You can surface the applications you need to prioritize in a few clicks, significantly lightening your workload. Here are a few ways to include email parsing in your strategy.

Candidate Skill Search

Whether it’s an engineering, manufacturing, health care, computer programmer position, or any skills-specific job on the market, you need applications with specific skills as a recruiter or hiring manager. Email parsing can make it far easier to identify qualified applicants than manually perusing dozens — or hundreds — of cover letters and resumes.

For example, suppose you’re recruiting for an engineering firm that needs someone for a short-term position to complete a specific project. Here’s the potential hangup: The firm has already started the project and is using the design app MechDesigner. They need someone who can hit the ground running and make a meaningful contribution off-the-bat, so the applicant must have experience in MechDesigner.

With email parsing, you can automatically pull out all applications that list MechDesigner in the skills section. In this way, the cream digitally rises to the top, saving you tons of time and energy.

Reviewing Applications By Platform: LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Indeed, and Others

Reviewing applications from a certain source can not only help identify stronger candidates but can also be useful when setting up recruitment metrics that you can use later to evaluate the success and efficiency of the hiring process.

For example, suppose you’re a hiring manager or recruiter for a hospital. You’ve listed a nursing position in three different places: CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, and Indeed.

You can use an email parser to pull out all emails about applications from these three sources and put them into a spreadsheet. Then, you can have your hiring or recruiting staff evaluate the quality of each of these applications using a few simple numerical metrics, such as years of experience, communication/writing skills, and educational level.

After analyzing the results, suppose you discover that applications from Indeed and LinkedIn consistently rate 45% higher across all metrics. While you may still list positions on CareerBuilder, you now know that, when in a bind, it may make more sense to invest your energies in evaluating applicants from LinkedIn and Indeed instead.

Differentiating Earnest Applications From Spam

As hiring managers know all too well, spam doesn’t only come from irritating advertisers and hackers. Job applications often use the “shotgun approach,” spraying their resume and cover letter out to several companies at once. While most people respect the desire to find a job, this challenges hiring managers because it means they have to comb through many applications that may be only somewhat legitimate. But an email parser can easily help solve this problem.

Some hiring managers ask applicants to include specific phrases or formatting in their cover letters to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words, if an applicant shoots out the same cover letter to 20 companies a day without carefully reviewing the requirements or company details, their cover letter may not contain the required wording or formatting, showing less personal investment in the position than someone who takes the time to review the application requirements carefully.

For instance, the head of HR in a tech firm may require that all applicants include, at the top of their cover letter, the following info in this exact format: the company name, followed by a colon, then a space, and then the exact job title, “Junior Programmer.” It may look like this:

ABC Tech: Junior Programmer

Programmers need to be able to follow specific directions and have respect for detail and proper formatting. So, in addition to identifying earnest applicants, this requirement also tests their attention to detail and format.

Using an email parser, the HR head can first pull all applications for this position into a spreadsheet. Then, in the search bar, enter: “Junior Programmer” — being sure to include the colon followed by a space. If there were 100 applications, but only 25 followed the directions, the HR department just used email parsing to slash its workload by 75%.

With cloudHQ’s Export Emails to Excel, CSV, or Google Sheets, you can chop hours or days off your workload using these and other parsing techniques.