The global financial crisis forced most corporations to reduce cost due to low sales and/or dropping prices. This prompts them to acquire lower cost personnel from other countries as permanent or contractual employees. Another way is to outsource jobs to overseas corporations. Either way, this reflects a large demand and rapid turnover of personnel. Companies now have to deal with large numbers of applicants and, consequently, large amounts of applicant data. This is specially relevant for recruitment agencies. The process of applicant tracking can be very overwhelming in management terms. Purely manual systems require lots of manpower. This option can be expensive in terms of salaries and benefits in the long run.
Thus, these companies rely more and more on computerized systems, specifically on applicant tracking software. Typically an application program, like MS Excel, these more sophisticated systems place data, like IQ test scores, years of experience in a required field and others, in databases. Application programs then processes these to track applicants suitable to the job. This helps in the selection process.