"Candidate needed yesterday!” - do you know that feeling? The modern market dictates a lightning-fast recruitment pace. Recruiters balance on a fine line – on one side, there is business pressure for swift and accurate recruitment, on the other, candidates expect high-quality processes – constant contact, feedback, and a thorough analysis of their profile and application.

An ATS system becomes the answer to this challenge. It can reduce the average time to hire by up to 60%, support building relationships with both active and passive candidates, facilitate sourcing and contacting candidates via social media, and improve the candidate experience, contributing to positive employer branding.

We must also mention the direct benefits for recruiters – time savings, automation of repetitive tasks, data structuring, an advanced reporting system, and suggestions for recruitment process optimization.

In 2024, 70% of large organizations and 20% of medium and small enterprises declared the use of ATS systems.

What else can it support you with? In this article, you will learn:

• What is an ATS system?

• What do you gain by using ATS?

• How does the ATS system support the recruitment process?

• Which top ATS solutions are currently leading the market?

• How to convince decision-makers in your company to invest in an ATS system?

• How to choose the best ATS system for your needs?

Designed for recruiters, with candidates in mind. What is an ATS system?

Imagine a recruitment process where every candidate feels cared for and is clearly led through the recruitment process, and you, as a recruiter, have time for what matters most – building relationships and finding the best talents. Sounds like utopia? Not necessarily!

The ATS (Applicant Tracking System or Application Tracking System) was created with you and your candidates in mind. Also known as a candidate tracking system, it is software for streamlining and automating the recruitment process. It serves as a central database for all candidate information, making it easier to manage at every stage of the process.

You might be surprised when I tell you that the capabilities of the first ATS systems resembled more… prehistory than a revolution. They were tools for basic data entry, requiring extensive manual work for anything to function.

The ATS appeared on the market in the 1990s, driven by the need for legal compliance and digitization. While some companies sought ways to manage the influx of applications and transition from paper-based recruitment to digital, early ATS users benefited from databases not only ensuring recruitment compliance but also providing extensive data for analyzing, organizing, and digitally storing CVs, job offers, and candidate profiles.

With the development of online recruitment in the 2000s, expectations for ATS technology rose. The emergence of websites enabling job posting compelled ATS providers to implement solutions allowing recruiters to send job offers worldwide with a single click. Increasing attention was also paid to the consistency of recruitment practices, for which the ATS with personalized templates for various occasions was the answer.

However, the last five years have brought a true revolution. Automation and artificial intelligence have finally entered the world of ATS!

Gain an advantage with ATS. How can the system streamline your recruitment and more?

How to determine if it truly makes sense and, more importantly… if it's right for you and your company? Explore the benefits an ATS system will bring to your recruitment processes.

But first, the best ATS systems:

• Lead to a reduction in recruitment time through the automation of tasks.

• Increase candidate quality by easing the selection and choice of those with the best qualifications.

• Reduce recruitment errors by standardizing recruitment practices and behaviours of all process participants.

• Lead to effective collaboration between the recruiter, candidate, and hiring manager by collating all documents and pertinent process and candidate information in one place, complete with a notification grid configured according to each person’s preferences.

• Significantly enhance candidate experiences by facilitating communication with them and providing current information on recruitment process progress.

• Positively impact the company’s employer branding by ensuring accurate communication with candidates, which can significantly affect their overall perception of the firm.

• Lead to better data analysis based on performance indicators organized by the system, including recruitment sources, process duration, and more. This allows companies to better understand their recruitment processes and make more informed recruitment decisions.

• Ensure compliance with regulations. ATS systems are fundamentally designed to ensure compliance with candidate processing protocols and data storage – currently, with a system, you don't need to remember this independently.

Which top ATS solutions are currently leading the market?

ATS systems were created to ensure recruitment compliance and digital transformation – shifting from offline to online recruitment. That was the case, but what about now? What functions do they currently offer?

• Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Now AI assists in CV analysis, candidate selection, recruitment meeting scheduling, and candidate communication, which saves recruiters time and increases recruitment process efficiency.

• Mobile recruitment. With increasing mobile device usage, ATS systems are becoming increasingly mobile-user-friendly. Candidates can now conveniently browse job offers, apply, and communicate with recruiters via their smartphones or tablets; analogously, recruiters can manage recruitments from a mobile app or a smartphone- or tablet-optimized site.

• Candidate experience personalization. Modern ATS systems offer more tools for personalizing candidate experiences, distinctly responding to market needs. ATS assistance can include email notifications, personalized application pages, interactive application forms, and individual messages regarding application status. Moreover, AI-powered chatbots streamline communication with candidates, responding to inquiries and providing information in real-time, not just during recruiter working hours.

• Integration with other recruitment tools. ATS systems increasingly offer integration with other recruitment tools, such as platforms for psychometric testing or recruitment marketing tools. As a result, under one ATS umbrella, recruiters can access various tools, increasing recruitment process efficiency and consistency.

• Recruitment analytics: Another critical trend is the development of analytical functions within ATS systems. Built-in advanced data analysis tools allow recruiters to track key recruitment performance metrics, like time-to-hire, application conversion rates, sources of top candidates, or recruitment costs. Moreover, the systems identify areas needing improvement in the recruitment process, such as lack of candidate diversity or extended recruitment duration and bottlenecks causing them, enabling recruiters to optimize the process.

• User-friendliness: Although it may be surprising, as functionality increases, the larger challenge becomes developing an interface so user-friendly that feature awareness and availability are easy. ATS providers also face the challenge of delivering the highest quality user system implementation processes.

Show the benefits, gain support. How to convince your boss to invest in ATS?

Let's start with how NOT to do it.

Don’t say: “Everyone has an ATS, so we should too”, or "ATS investment will pay off, but I’m not sure exactly how or when.”

Avoid arguments based on assumptions, generalities, and intuition. Moreover, don’t dismiss your boss's concerns and objections – address them head-on.

Instead of: "The costs of purchasing and implementing ATS are nothing. It’s the standard now, so I expect the company to invest in such a system", say: "I understand your concerns about costs. I’ve prepared an analysis showing that ATS investment will pay off within 12 months and how it will do so".

Instead of: "This system uses machine learning algorithms to analyze CVs.", say "The ATS system automatically analyzes candidate CVs and identifies those who best match the job requirements. This saves us time and effort spent on manual selection.”

Instead of: "ATS will certainly improve our employer branding.", say "Implementing ATS could improve EB by streamlining the recruitment process and improving communication with candidates, which directly impacts candidate experiences and their brand perception."

Instead of: "ATS implementation is easy and quick, we can skip it. For sure everyone will immediately grasp the new system and work on it with full efficiency.", say: "ATS implementation involves a training and technical support process. It’s crucial we go through it to fully leverage all the tool’s features, otherwise, why invest if we can’t utilize its full potential?"

Be prepared!

Considering your company’s needs and recruitment team:

• Identify bottlenecks in your existing recruitment processes – areas where the recruitment process requires improvement, stalls, and where an ATS system can provide a solution.

• Research problems reported by recruiters and HR departments and consider how ATS can address them.

• Determine the goals you aim to achieve with ATS implementation (e.g. positive employer branding, reduced recruitment time, decreased costs, enhanced candidate quality).

Then:

• Clearly describe the benefits of ATS implementation, based on data and analyses.

• Present a return on investment calculation, considering cost savings and efficiency improvements.

• Provide a deployment schedule and training plan for employees.

And ultimately:

• Select the right ATS system after a thorough analysis and comparison of available market solutions.

• Define essential features for your company and budget.

• Prepare a list of questions for ATS vendors.

• Justify why this solution is the best fit for your company.

And most importantly – ensure you communicate and highlight all of this appropriately! Also, remember that the ATS vendor is your partner in this endeavour – don’t hesitate to ask and request them to provide data and analyses that can support the decision-making process in your company.

Speak with data! Did you know that…

• According to recent studies (Q1, 2024), almost all (99%) companies from the Fortune 500 list regularly use ATS in their recruitment processes.

• 75% of recruiters use ATS or similar technological tools to review applications and enhance overall candidate impressions.

• 94% of recruiters acknowledge that ATS positively impacts their recruitment processes.

• Recruitment time with ATS can be reduced by an average of 60%.

• 62% of teams report finding more high-quality candidates using ATS compared to traditional methods.

• 70% of respondents believe that automating key recruitment tasks, such as candidate sourcing, leads to increased productivity.

• 68% of recruiters express a willingness to invest in newer tools, like next-generation ATS platforms, to improve daily productivity.

• Over 86% of recruiters agree that the ATS system has shortened their overall recruitment time.

• 79% of recruiters report an improvement in the quality of new hires since implementing ATS.

SOURCE: https://www.selectsoftwarereviews.com/blog/applicant-tracking-system-statistics study from Q1 2024.

Gain time for what matters most. Talk to us about your recruitment needs and how our system can meet them. Try the DEMO or schedule a meeting with us, don’t wait 😊

Learn more about ATS and recruitment systems:
Sourcing 2.0. How to source candidates with ATS?
The Evolution of ATS Systems: From Manual Processes to AI-Driven Recruitment
Change your ATS system without losing data!