Choosing the Best ATS: The Ultimate Guide

Recruiting is a demanding job, often accompanied by high mental stress and time pressure.

Without a reliable ATS, finding the perfect candidate for a position within the given timeframe is nearly impossible. The right ATS is a tool that saves time and effort while ensuring that only qualified and relevant candidates reach the advanced stages of recruitment.

However, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, as each recruiter has specific needs. This article aims to help you identify the important criteria for choosing an ATS and understand the various options available in the market.

With this article, you’ll be able to customize this ready-to-fill ATS evaluation file with your specific requirements.

Download the ATS Evaluation File

What is a Modern ATS (Applicant Tracking System)?

ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System. It’s a software that allows recruiters to manage their hiring processes. Today, it’s much more than just a system for tracking applications.

Modern ATSs can assist with sourcing, email dispatches, job postings, application sorting, and interview management. They help build a substantial pool of qualified candidates and leverage it for new job openings.

Some ATSs even feature an integrated CRM component, enabling them to manage all clients and prospects, track interactions, and oversee the overall business relationship.

4 Questions to Ask Before Choosing an ATS

Your needs are unique, so it’s important to clearly identify what you require before starting your search.

Your Type of Business

The size of your company, its organization, and industry play a significant role in choosing the right ATS.

• ATS for Freelance Recruiters: You might need a tool focused primarily on efficient sourcing and client relationship management. A lightweight and flexible system would likely be more suitable for your independent work.

• ATS for Recruitment Agencies: With a team of recruiters, you need a solution that allows smooth collaboration among team members. The ATS should handle the volume of sourcing and applications you process. The CRM component is crucial for effective client relationship management and growing your agency’s business. Whether it’s the ATS or CRM, integrated management of email exchanges, LinkedIn, etc., can significantly boost your team’s productivity while providing precise and comprehensive reporting and tracking.

• ATS for Small Businesses: With generally lower application volumes, you might opt for a basic and user-friendly system. The goal would be to choose a solution that doesn’t strain your budget while meeting your essential needs and being easy for everyone on your team to use.

• ATS for Large Enterprises: In this case, you would need a robust and scalable system. The ATS should ideally integrate seamlessly with your other HR systems. The focus would be on large-scale efficiency, saving time for your entire HR team.

The Origin of Your Talent

• Job applications or spontaneous applications: CV recognition (CV parsing) is crucial for effective application management. Depending on your volume, quick screening features can be very useful.
• Sourcing: You need to check the compatibility of your ATS with the talent sources you use. LinkedIn is often the main source, but there are others like HelloWork, Indeed, APEC, etc. Check the quality of the integration of sourced profiles (one by one, or in bulk, whether you need to go through the CV, tracking InMail exchanges, LinkedIn connection requests, etc.).
• Referral: If you have implemented a referral management tool, ensure the ATS you are testing is compatible.

Integration with Your Ecosystem

You might have other essential tools for your business that your ATS needs to integrate with. Listing your existing tools and checking their compatibility with your ATS is crucial. Here are some examples of integrations that might be useful to you:

• LinkedIn
• LinkedIn Recruiter or Sales Navigator
• Google Emails / Google Workspace
• Microsoft Emails / Microsoft Office 365
• Google Calendar / Google Workspace
• Microsoft Calendar / Microsoft Office 365
• Job boards (HelloWork, Indeed, APEC, etc.)
• Referral solutions
• Personality/technical test solutions

Your Budget

Opting for a premium ATS isn’t a big deal if your business is thriving and your budget allows for it. This often means you can take advantage of highly advanced features. However, be cautious, as some premium tools can be very expensive and may not necessarily provide the added value you expect.

Every dollar counts when you’re a small business with a tight budget. You wouldn’t want to spend thousands on an advanced ATS. Therefore, finding an affordable ATS designed for small businesses becomes a key factor. But be careful, if your business is rapidly growing, a limited system can quickly become a hindrance and cost you valuable time.

In other words, budget can be one of the main criteria for choosing the right ATS software. Your budget should be analyzed to identify the ATS software that can adequately fit your financial situation while meeting your recruitment needs.

24 Features of a Modern ATS

Here is a comprehensive list of features offered by the best ATS software. Depending on your needs identified earlier, some features may be more or less important, or even completely unnecessary. You can sort through this list based on your priorities. We provide you with a ready-to-use RFP (Request For Proposal) template, containing all the elements to assist you in evaluating the ATS options you test.

Job Posting Management

• Multi-Posting: Automatically publish a job listing across multiple platforms and job boards simultaneously.
• Application Reception in the ATS: Centralizes all received applications directly in the system, regardless of their source. Even without multi-posting, the ATS should be able to gather applications received via your email, sent through a job board, or directly on your career site.
• Resume Parsing: Automatically analyzes resumes to extract relevant information and integrate it into the database. The best ATS can extract complex information such as skills, certifications, work experiences, and even the candidate’s profile picture.
• Career Site: If you’re building a strong brand image, you might need a career site. You can have a custom site that you want to integrate with your ATS, or alternatively, let your ATS generate your career site.

Talent Pool Building and Utilization

• LinkedIn Sourcing: Allows direct import of profiles from LinkedIn into the ATS. Ideally, this process is almost instantaneous and doesn’t require going through the resume. Some ATS also let you import your LinkedIn network with a single click.
• LinkedIn Recruiter / Sales Navigator Sourcing: Enables importing LinkedIn Recruiter projects or Sales Navigator lists into the ATS.
• Resume Database Sourcing: Facilitates searching and importing profiles from various resume databases like HelloWork, Indeed, Apec, etc.
• Advanced Search in the Talent Pool: A talent pool is only useful if it’s easy to utilize. Advanced search features are essential, including Boolean searches, filters on skills, experiences, education, etc. Also, the ability to tag/segment your talent pool to make it more relevant and easier to use.
• Duplicate Management: Automatically identifies and manages duplicate profiles to maintain a clean database. Additionally, when a candidate applies multiple times to different positions, it’s important that the ATS doesn’t create multiple profiles but consolidates these applications into a single profile.
• Excel/CSV Export: It’s important to easily export your profiles to integrate them into other tools, share them with clients, partners, etc. This also ensures that your data remains in your possession, and you are free to take your data with you as is.
• Excel/CSV Import: Facilitates bulk importing of profiles from Excel or CSV files. It’s convenient to import profiles obtained in an Excel file format, for example, to integrate them into your talent pool.

Recruitment Process

• Customization of recruitment processes/steps: Allows you to create and adapt recruitment stages according to your needs or those of your clients.
• Structured and personalized interviews: The interview with the candidate is a crucial step. Some ATS systems allow you to customize interviews, making them more structured and tailored.
• Automated actions: It’s common to want to trigger automated actions based on recruitment process events. For instance, when you reject a candidate, you could automatically send an email explaining why their application was declined. Or, when scheduling an interview, you could set an automatic reminder for the candidate about the appointment date.
• Statistics, metrics, KPIs, reporting: Provides analysis and reporting tools to track recruitment performance and enhance your team’s productivity.

Communication / Outreach

• Email integration: Enables sending and receiving emails directly from the ATS. Note that some ATS only handle sending emails, while others only manage receiving. Many ATS do not support attachments, so sending resumes via email might not be possible. Be sure to check this feature if it’s important to you.
• LinkedIn messaging: Sending LinkedIn invitations or messages directly from the ATS saves time and increases personalization. It’s also worth noting that response rates are higher when recruiters send LinkedIn messages rather than emails.
• LinkedIn Recruiter and/or Sales Navigator messaging: These tools allow you to contact profiles outside your LinkedIn network via InMails.
• WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS messaging, etc.: More candidates are using these communication channels, creating greater proximity and responsiveness, and helping you stand out from other recruiters.
• Follow-up automation: Automatically scheduling and sending follow-up messages to candidates can significantly increase your response rate (by an average of 100%).
• Integrated appointment scheduler (e.g., Calendly): Makes it easier to schedule meetings with candidates.
• Internal team communication: Offers internal collaboration tools, such as reminders, action history, interactions, etc.

CRM: Client Relations

• Company Management: Integrating your clients into the CRM part of your ATS means you won’t have to enter data twice across different tools, and you can link clients, recruitment projects, and candidates seamlessly.
• Integration with a Company Database: Entering all your client’s information can be tedious. Some ATS/CRM systems include a company database (like LinkedIn, Pappers, etc.) that automatically provides a wealth of information (name, logo, contact details, website, industry, number of employees, legal information, company site locations, etc.).
• Contact Management: Beyond companies, you’ll likely want to manage the contacts (recruiters, business owners, managers, etc.) you interact with. Some ATS allow you to integrate these contacts into the CRM, tracking the history of interactions, emails, calls, meetings, and more.
• Integrated Prospecting: Integrated prospecting lets you find new clients from prospect lists, contact them directly from your ATS and CRM, track them in your prospecting pipeline, and convert them into clients.
• Client/Manager Sharing: Sharing features enable you to present candidates to clients while choosing which information to share. This saves time and provides an opportunity to transparently showcase the work done and highlight your company’s value.

3 Mistakes to Avoid

Even if you’ve clearly defined your needs and listed the key features for your business, you might still encounter some unexpected issues. Here are the pitfalls to steer clear of:

Not Testing the Software in Real-World Conditions

Evaluating an ATS solely during a sales demo can be misleading. Demos are often designed to showcase the software at its best, but they don’t always reflect the specific challenges you’ll face. It’s crucial to test the ATS in real-world conditions, using your own data and processes. This will help you determine if it integrates well into your daily workflow and truly meets your needs.

Not Assessing the Responsiveness of Support

Customer support is often overlooked when purchasing an ATS, but it’s essential. Even a high-performing ATS can encounter bugs or require adjustments for your needs. If customer support isn’t responsive, it can quickly become a nightmare for your team. Make sure to test the support before committing, for instance, by asking technical questions or requesting help with specific cases. The speed and quality of the responses are important indicators of the service quality.

Forgetting to Plan for Migrating Your Existing Data

When switching ATS, data migration is often overlooked or only considered after signing the contract. However, it can be a complex process, sometimes incurring additional charges from the ATS provider. Poorly planned transfers can lead to the loss of valuable data or inconsistencies in your talent pool and history. Before committing to a new ATS, make sure to confirm:

• the cost of migration
• the migration timeline
• the specifics of what information will be migrated
• ideally, ask the provider to connect you with a client who has migrated from the same ATS, to gather their feedback.

6 Solutions to Consider for Your Recruitment Activities

Among the most considered solutions by independent recruiters or agencies are: Bullhorn, Gem, Jarvi, Loxo, RecruitCRM, and Zoho Recruit (listed alphabetically).

That said, solutions less tailored for recruitment agencies might also be suitable. Feel free to explore further if these suggestions don’t meet your needs.

Download a Ready-to-Use RFP Template

To assist you in your search, we’ve created a ready-to-use RFP (Request For Proposal) template. You can use it to make a more accurate assessment of the different ATS options you’re testing. Feel free to tailor it to your specific needs. In particular, you can remove features that don’t apply to you or add others as needed.

Download the ATS Evaluation File