The Best Top 6 Applicant Tracking for recruiting System Software (ATS) – 2023

Applicant Tracking Systems: Comparison Criteria

You might be wondering how I choose the top applicant tracking systems for this list. Here is a list of my evaluation standards for ATS platforms:

It is simpler to organize each phase of the hiring process when the user interface (UI) is simple and clutter-free.

Usability: ATS systems must be easy to use, without requiring a lot of clicking or scrolling to get to the feature you want.

Integrations: The top applicant tracking systems have to work with widely utilized programs including email clients, social networking websites, and well-known job boards..

Applicant Tracking Systems: Key Features

The following are some of the key characteristics you can look for in the top applicant tracking systems:

The difference between talent pools and pipelines is that a talent pool is a list of prospective candidates for each position, but a talent pipeline is a visualization tool that reveals the stage of the hiring process at which each candidate is.

Workflow automation: These are programs that handle repetitive chores like reminding people of upcoming interviews, calling references, or sending out mass rejection emails.

Direct connections to job posting websites: Many ATS systems instantly submit newly published job posts to well-known job boards.

Applicant Tracking System Benefits

First of all, if you’re seriously considering purchasing a new applicant tracking system, have a look at our organizer worksheet, which includes sample demo questions and a wealth of useful information. You can use it in Google Sheets or just download it.

We won’t lie to you: purchasing new applicant tracking software is a lot of work. This is particularly true if you intend to switch from your old program to the new one. In order to justify the effort and expense of new recruiting software, it is crucial to consider its advantages.

Employer branding: A top ATS will assist your company in developing a career website by providing templates or pages that are customisable and showcase your culture to potential employees. Additionally, your ATS will probably link with social media sites like LinkedIn to disseminate information and job postings.

Talent Pools: By creating talent pipelines of competent applicants, your hiring team can reduce the time it takes to fill positions and the cost per hire by holding on to candidates you might want to hire in the future. In this approach, your hiring process won’t have to start over each time you post a new job opening or require hours of sourcing to get going

Hiring Managers and Employees: Although the HR/TA teams are involved in the use of recruiting software, the best solutions will also enable your hiring managers and employees to participate through employee recommendations, comments on job candidates, and the promotion of your new job openings on social media.

Hiring and Onboarding: A new applicant tracking system (ATS) can assist with fast and efficient employee onboarding in addition to streamlining your recruiting process. Numerous studies have demonstrated that HR must leave a positive impression on new hires within the first 90 days or the likelihood of retention troubles increases significantly.

Analytics: Employers must comprehend their hiring process through the use of intelligent dashboards that can extract the data that increases the effectiveness of the talent acquisition team. Examples of these metrics include recruiter productivity, cost per hire and cost per applicant for various job boards and other paid media, time to hire for various roles, and other crucial indicators needed to hire top talent.

Cloud-based Alternative Even writing this now seems unusual because so many human resources teams still use on-premise solutions that don’t utilize cloud architecture. That is one thing if you are employed by the government or have another urgent need to host your own software.

Customized Workflows: A contemporary applicant tracking system will enable your talent acquisition team to design a hiring procedure that is specifically tailored to the requirements of your company. The hiring process can be made more effective by using distinctive processes for processing applications, screening prospects, nurturing them with employer branding content, gathering feedback, etc. This is especially true if your company hires from very distinct talent pools (like truck drivers and software developers), necessitating the need for various applicant procedures.

Advice For Buying The Best ATS

In addition to applicant tracking, look for software that will aid in scheduling interviews, accelerating employee recommendations, assisting with resume parsing, and generally assisting your human resources team in hiring and onboarding new workers more quickly.

Hire procedure: Work with your hiring managers, staff, and recruiters to understand any flaws in your hiring procedure that they may see. Human resources shouldn’t make the decision to purchase a new ATS alone; rather, all relevant parties within a particular organization should be involved.

Consider the Long Term: You will need this solution for at least the upcoming several years. You need a solution that will work both today and in the future because your organization will change.

Understand the Roadmap: It’s critical to comprehend a company’s product roadmap, the significance of the features it plans to provide, and its track record of meeting its delivery commitments.

Focus on Features: ATSs offer a staggering number of features. It’s simple to get caught down in comparing the 50 unique traits that each person possesses that can be helpful to your team. Pick three to five essentials, and use those to decide whether or not you want to work with a particular provider. There is probably no ATS that is ideal for you

Consider the return on investment: An ATS, which is essentially a workflow tool with certain compliance capabilities built in, is seen by many HR departments as a necessary piece of software. However, contemporary applicant tracking systems increase return on investment (ROI) through enhancing sourcing and recruitment marketing capabilities, improving linkages with other HRTech, and increasing the value of the full employee lifetime.

A contemporary ATS is a smart investment for businesses whose talent is a competitive advantage for their organization and for those businesses operating in tight labour markets, even though the cost may be more than you are currently paying.

ROI Calculator for ATS

The creation of a business case is crucial if you’re planning to purchase a new ATS. You may create a strong business case using our ROI spreadsheet to secure the funding you require.

It considers:

• subscription fees and one-time expenses
• Boosts in the productivity of recruiters
• alterations to the hiring process
• a shorter time to fill

For the greatest understanding of how to use this spreadsheet, we strongly advise you to watch the video to the right!.

Such assessments are excellent for gaining support from internal stakeholders, such as the CFO’s office. They can also help you think more clearly about why your team needs this buy and, consequently, what features to put first. Finally, you can revisit your analysis after six, eighteen, or twenty-four months to see where you were correct and incorrect. This reflection will assist in improving the way you approach budget allocation for decisions in the future. Your model becomes a kind of journal record you can refer to later.

Download ATS ROI Calculator

ATS Pricing Models

These are the numerous cost structures you might anticipate seeing from different applicant tracking systems. It’s interesting to observe how each vendor believes their solution offers value because most businesses charge for the value provided to customers.

Hires/Job Postings/Applicants: We prefer charging based on the number of hires you make because an ATS is clearly more valuable when you hire more (adding two employees next year? An ATS is not required. The exact opposite was true for hiring 1,000).

Employees: Some ATSs calculate their fees on how many employees you have. This is good since it suggests that your hiring process will involve more input from your staff (via referrals, social shares, etc).

Seats: It might be challenging to determine who needs admin access and how that will vary over time because some ATS charge based on the number of logins you require.

Features: Several ATSs have released modules that, in their opinion, go above and beyond what is usual of an ATS. As a result, they charge more for these modules. This typically includes a CRM, a more complete set of statistics, onboarding, etc.

Pro Tip: Recognize that certain applicant tracking systems (ATS) charge for connections with products you may currently use (recruitment marketing systems, HRIS systems, etc.), which can significantly increase your annual budget.

Another piece of advice: You can negotiate whatever pricing you are initially given by a vendor, especially if you want to sign a multiyear contract.

ATS Pricing: How Much Do Applicant Tracking Systems Cost?

Here are some general cost guidelines for applicant tracking systems so you can get an idea of what to anticipate to pay dependent on the size of your firm. It’s important to remember that these ranges are only approximations. There are free and paid application tracking programs available. This serves as a general guideline for businesses that aren’t looking for the cheapest or most expensive ATS.

In order to provide HR teams more options, we are also gathering information on ATS prices through a poll. Anyone who fills it out anonymously and in under two minutes for the community will have access to the whole data set.

Applicant Tracking Systems Pricing

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES

ESTIMATED ANNUAL COST

0-100       $2,500

100-250   $10,000

250-500   $15,000

500-1,000        $22,500

1,000-5,000     $50,000

>5,000     $125,00+

Key Applicant Tracking Features

There are countless applicant tracking systems available, and most of them just contain the essential elements needed for your HR team’s hiring procedure. The top applicant tracking systems, however, will also come equipped with extra features that make transitioning to a new one worthwhile. The following are some of the main ATS suppliers’ key features:

Video interviews have grown in popularity as a quick and effective tool for recruiters to learn more about a larger pool of job candidates. Search for solutions with a video interview module or a close relationship to a prominent video interview platform.

Open APIs: The top applicant tracking systems now all come with robust APIs that allow other tools to build deep integrations.  This means your onboarding, background screening, etc all integrate with your ATS.  This is a tough one to vet as most HR professionals are not technical in nature.  However, you can ask your other favourite vendors if they have integrations with a given system.  You can also look at how extensive the partner ecosystem is for an ATS you are considering.

Sourcing: Many top ATS’s realize that their solution needs to be much more than simply a database full of job applicants.  It needs to help you actually get those applicants!  Look for recruiting software that will help you find and hire the best through chrome extensions that allow you to source, databases of candidates that you can query, and outreach tools that allow you to build sequences to engage the right candidates through email and texting.

CRM: Candidate relationship management or CRM is a term that many recruiting teams throw around, although it seems that most times it’s misused.  Specifically, when looking at applicant tracking systems, it’s important to understand how you can keep tabs on silver medalists, talent pools of more passive candidates, and generally speaking your entire job seeker ecosystem.  A CRM will let you set reminders to ping candidates in the future, email nurture talent pools, and have ways that your recruiters and sourcers can re-discover old candidates that may not be a good fit for an open role.

Blind Screening: It’s hard to get most D&I initiatives off the ground without the ability to blind screen applicants.  Look for an ATS that will take out names, photos, and addresses and allow your recruiters to screen without these biases. You may even find one that will allow you to evaluate the bias of individual job descriptions to allow for more equitable hiring.

Employer Branding and Career Site: Modern applicant tracking systems are built with the candidate experience in mind, not just your recruiting process.  They will allow you to build and maintain a beautiful career site that showcases your employer brand.  They’ll also allow you to embed employer branding messaging and media into all candidate communication.

Data and Analytics: While most ATS’s will have some standard dashboards, it’s important to align the reporting you’ll need for internal and external stakeholders and the analytics offered by any potential vendor. In the best case, you can export data via .csv or API to pull it into your custom dashboard. However, not all companies have the ability to run this sort of analysis.  So, look for solutions that have analytics around time to fill, cost per hire, your best channels, and conversion rates throughout your funnel (applicant to screen to interview to hire).

Interview Scheduling: ATS software that is focused on recruitment automation will include scheduling for everything from phone screens to final-round interviews.

Offer Letters: Many ATS solutions will automate the distribution of offer letters to potential new hires so that your hiring team can

Onboarding: While some ATS’s are complimented by a full-on suite of hr software (HRIS, performance, engagement, payroll, etc), at the very least many have employee onboarding capabilities to ensure a smooth handoff once someone is hired.

If you’re buying a new ATS, there is way too much information to keep track of.  You can use this organizer to keep track of your notes on the various vendors, etc during your process.

Questions To Ask ATS Vendors On Demos

Below is a spreadsheet complete with several questions you can ask vendors while looking at a new ATS.  We also wanted to share some of the questions we think every recruiting team should be asking vendors while on demos:

Is there a bi-directional API to share information between this system and my HRIS?

How does this ATS help my recruiting efforts beyond capturing candidate information?  For example, will it allow me to pipeline candidates, source, boost referrals, etc?

How does this system improve the candidate experience?

What is your partner strategy, and do I have to pay to integrate my other recruiting tools?

What metrics do you focus on to prove the effectiveness of this solution, and where can I see these in my analytics dashboard?

Can I speak to my future customer service rep about implementation, and how exactly your organization will be involved?

Walk me through the candidate experience.

Can I store candidate profiles in this system in a way that is searchable for future candidate sourcing?

Walk me through how recruiters post jobs, vet applicants, and leave feedback.

How do employees outside of HR interact with this ATS?

Do you have social recruiting capabilities?

We use {{XYZ indispensable recruiting tool}}, how do you integrate with it?

What is the onboarding process after we buy this solution (ask for specific steps and who in your org needs to be involved)?