Having gone through the worst economic period of this generation and now beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, it is quite possibly the most interesting, exciting and difficult time to be a recruiter. As with all other aspects of life, recruiting and HR are increasingly turning to technology and automation, moving away from manual processes and paper piles. A focal point of technologies being leveraged are applicant tracking systems (ATS), software applications designed to help organizations recruit more efficiently.

But if you're a recruiter that doesn't consider himself particularly tech-savvy, how can you be sure you're making the most of your applicant tracking system? These systems are capable of managing so many different aspects of your workload that you might not even be fully aware of its vast functionality.

Here's some insight into that vast functionality to make sure you're using your recruiting technology to the max.

1. Did you know your ATS provides...you with one central database to store candidate information for all your myriad sources? You have CVs coming at you from all directions: university recruiting, job-boards, referrals, LinkedIn. Your ATS can efficiently manage all of them.

• The tip: Leverage your ATS's analytical reporting tools! Don't just manage all your different sources; use the ATS to determine their value. These reporting capabilities can determine which sources are most effective, where your top talent comes from, what job boards convert poorly, and more.

2. Did you know your ATS...Are you inundated with CVs right now and don't have time to visually scan through the hundreds flooding your desk daily? Most applicant tracking systems give you the ability to create knock-out or screening questions, thereby automatically filtering out unqualified candidates, saving yourself more time to spend on the eligible applicants.

• The tip: Are screening questions powerful tools? Absolutely - but don't abuse them. It's best to create only 1 or 2 broad, overarching questions, such as education level or work eligibility. You risk eliminating valuable candidates if you get too much more specific.

3. Did you know your ATS has...powerful mass communication tools, also known as Candidate Relationship Management (CRM), to facilitate communication with candidates? This not only makes your life easier, but also vastly improves the candidate experience by keeping the lines of communication open.

• The tip: Be sure to make use of email templates. Instead of re-writing offer letters or rejection notifications over and over, utilize templates. Once you create a template, you can access it at the click of a button and save yourself an enormous amount of time.

4. Did you know your ATS can help...Piggybacking on these communication tools, you can use different folder statuses to manage your pipeline of top talent. If you have the ideal candidate that you know would be a great fit for your company, but there just aren't any positions at the moment, your ATS can help you maintain engagement with these contacts. This makes it easier to get them on board once an appropriate opportunity does arise.

• The tip: Manage your talent pipeline and keep them interested in your company by sending them your most recent press releases and newsletters. This way they stay abreast of what's going on at your organization, and also stay interested.

5. What the ATS can do: The resume parsing tool of an applicant tracking system is a highly useful feature that eliminates the need for laborious manual data entry, automatically parsing and inputting CV info into your database. Not only does it decrease administrative work, but the ATS can profile candidates by skills cited in their resumes.

• The tip: Within the applicant tracking system, create saved searches of the hottest skills sets at your company in order to continually scan your database for CVs with matching keywords. It's also important to keep in mind that when these matching keywords appear higher up in a CV, it indicates the candidate has recently been involved in or enacting these skills (as opposed to lower on the CV, which indicates experiences in the past). Therefore, set your resume parser to rank those CVs as better matches, and you'll be left with better quality candidates!

These are just a few tips on how to use your applicant tracking system, but there are plenty more which your ATS vendor should be able to help you with. If you're not leveraging HR technology for recruitment, it's time you did; and if you are using an ATS, it's time you make the most of it!