What are the applicant tracking requirements?

Under most state laws, business with 15 or more employees are required to keep a record of all job applicants for at least one year after they initially applied to ensure that the employer is meeting its requirements against workplace discrimination and that it is otherwise following employment laws. Keeping track of the applicants also ensures you have proper records should legal action be taken against your company. It is therefore incumbent upon a company to also clearly define hiring policies to ensure against litigation. Businesses should create hiring and application systems that work within the framework of the company, and take careful notes on each job applicant.
Records for all applicants should be properly stored in file cabinets and folders, or in appropriate applicant tracking software maintained on in-house computers or in a web-based system maintained by an ASP (Application Service Provider). Each record keeping system (electronic or paper based) should include the following basic elements: 1) security; 2) word processing programs for composing letters and making notations; 3) copies of Equal Employment Opportunity reports; 4) listings of detailed job descriptions for every position within the company; 5) calendar programs for scheduling and tracking dates of interviews and phone conversations, 6) resume storage (which can be done by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) resume scanning if the system is electronic); and 7) storage of applicant information such as pre-employment testing scores and interview notes.