What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?

An ATS is a centralized platform that stores and parses candidate data, streamlines sourcing, scheduling, communication, and hiring workflows, and supports recruiters and HR across the entire hiring journey.

What are the key benefits of using an ATS?

An ATS saves time and cost, improves identification of qualified candidates, centralizes hiring data for collaboration, enhances compliance and reporting, and delivers better candidate and user experiences.

How should we choose the right ATS for our organization?

Start by identifying pain points and goals, then evaluate essential features and integrations, usability and customization, candidate experience, and vendor partnership quality including support and training.

What is a private label ATS and who is it for?

A private label ATS is a rebrandable, fully featured recruiting platform tailored to your audience; it’s ideal for HR solutions providers, franchises, multi-location businesses, staffing firms, associations, and vertical SaaS platforms.

How does an ATS improve ROI?

By reducing time-to-hire and manual review, improving candidate quality and retention, supporting analytics-driven decisions, and ensuring compliance, which together lower costs and boost hiring outcomes.

HR 101

How to Pick The Right ATS

Alisiana Peters

A satisfied employee leans back from his computer and smiles.

Picking ATS software is not something that your team can't take lightly. I will share some of the basics your recruiting and HR teams should take into account when choosing the software that is foundational for 21st century talent acquisition.

Summary

Applicant Tracking Systems streamline recruiting by centralizing candidate data, automating processes, and improving hiring efficiency for organizations of all sizes.
Choosing the right ATS requires evaluating pain points, essential features, user and candidate experience, and ensuring the provider acts as a long-term partner.
A well-selected ATS improves ROI by reducing time-to-hire, enhancing compliance, supporting better hiring decisions, and offering tailored options like private label solutions for specialized businesses.

I’ve heard recruiters say that finding that one special job candidate is like looking for a camel at the bottom of the ocean. This actually understates the daunting task of sifting through thousands of resumes and cover letters for that candidate. Years ago software companies like HiringThing began streamlining the recruiting process by creating branded, highly adaptable applicant tracking software. The early iterations of ATS SaaS were simplistic and janky. However; they evolved almost as rapidly as they were adopted by a majority of employers across the U.S. (99% of Fortune 500 companies now use ATS software).

What Exactly Is an ATS?

Most people know what an ATS is at a high level by now but most don’t know the capabilities of the recruiting software. The simple definition is that ATS software is designed to simplify the recruitment process. This is just the tip of the iceberg of capabilities that a top ATS can accomplish today.

The HiringThing definition of an ATS is:
An ATS is a centralized platform to recruit job candidates that stores and parses candidate data like resumes and applications that facilitates communication with and about applicants. The platform is built to assist recruiters and other HR professionals at every stage of the hiring journey from sourcing candidates, scheduling interviews and finalizing hires.

Key Benefits of Using an ATS

Employers, regardless of their size, find that a fully integrated ATS can not only save time and money but also significantly improve the accuracy in identifying qualified candidates. By centralizing all hiring data, an ATS enables recruiters and hiring managers to access and review candidate information seamlessly, coordinate interviews, and streamline internal communication.

Five Critical Considerations When Choosing an ATS

Identify Your Pain Points: Understanding the bottlenecks in your current recruitment process is crucial. Consider your goals, the number of users, recruitment volume, technical capabilities, decision-makers, and budget constraints.
Essential Features: Your identified challenges will guide you in selecting an ATS with features that cater to your specific needs, such as social media integration, job board access, multi-user support, EEO compliance, automated screening, and onboarding documentation.
Usability: The ideal ATS should be user-friendly, requiring minimal training with an easy-to-navigate dashboard that offers a comprehensive view of all recruitment activities. Customization and personalization should be straightforward, enhancing the user experience.
Candidate Experience: Opt for an ATS that ensures a positive applicant experience with a streamlined, mobile-friendly application process. This aspect is critical in not losing potential candidates due to a cumbersome application process.
Partnership Over Vendorship: View your ATS provider as a partner rather than just a vendor. Continuous support and educational resources are vital for making the most of your ATS. Inquire about support response and resolution times, customer satisfaction, and retention rates during product demos.

The Ultimate ROI of an ATS

Investing time in selecting the right ATS pays off significantly by reducing the time to hire, facilitating efficient applicant sourcing, streamlining candidate vetting, and saving manual review hours. Moreover, an ATS helps identify the best candidates quickly, offers powerful reporting tools for monitoring recruitment effectiveness, and ensures compliance with diversity objectives.

Beyond the Basics: The Private Label ATS

For specific businesses such as HR solutions providers, franchises, multi-location businesses, staffing agencies, associations, and vertical SaaS platforms, a private label ATS can offer tailored benefits that align closely with their unique operational needs, making it an indispensable tool in their recruitment arsenal.

In conclusion, whether for a small startup or a large corporation, the right ATS can revolutionize your hiring process, ensuring you not only attract but also retain the best talent. Remember, the time and effort spent in choosing the perfect ATS is an investment in your company’s future success.

Every business can benefit from an applicant tracking system, but some businesses like HR Solutions (PEOs, ASOs, etc.), franchises, multi-location businesses, staffing agencies, associations, and vertical SaaS platforms (among others) can take things a step further with a private label ATS—it makes all the difference.

About HiringThing

HiringThing is an integrated recruiting platform that creates seamless hiring experiences. Approachable and adaptable, our platform empowers everyone, everywhere to hire their dream team.

Expand your solution with our private and white label Applicant Tracking System software. With our open API and developer-friendly documentation, we enable customized workflows and seamless connectivity for HR Solutions, PEOs and ASOs, Vertical SaaS, Franchises, Staffing Agencies, and more.