What is the purpose of an Applicant Tracking System? 

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS’s) organize candidate pipelines – ATS’s act as a single source of truth for all candidate information and communication. Teams that use an ATS are less likely to let candidates or important steps in the recruiting process slip through the cracks.

An ATS streamlines communication and process management – one-click candidate stage progression and email templates/automations make recruiting teams more efficient. From an internal standpoint, ATS’s create structured systems for collecting feedback and make it easier to adhere to compliance and documentation requirements. 

ATS’s become candidate databases – ATS’s store information about past candidates and job postings. Over time, they help maintain institutional knowledge about past hiring efforts and provide starting points when hiring for new roles. 

What are the different ATS solutions on the market? What are their pros/cons?

Product		Advantages		Disadvantages
Greenhouse		• User-friendly • Requires minimal training  • Seamless calendar integration • Strong template functionality		• Becomes expensive; pricing increases with company size • Reporting on large volumes of candidates can be slow (30-40 minutes), though you can pay a premium for overnight data feeds
SmartRecruiters		• Highly customizable reporting • Handles large data volumes well • Extensive filtering capabilities		• Less intuitive interface • May require support to help you build reports
Hirebridge		• More affordable  • Customizable to company needs		• Less polished user interface

What are the different key reports should you build out of your ATS? What are key metrics in each? 

Dashboards track overall performance at different levels within the recruiting organization – recruiting teams evaluate performance at a program, department, and individual recruiter level. Metrics tracked include:

• Comprehensive funnel metrics
  • Activity levels
  • Overall offer rates
  • Drop off rates
  • Yield
  • Hires 
• Stage progression analysis
  • Total candidates by stage
  • Conversion rates between stages
  • Time in each stage
• Source breakdown
  • Sourced vs applied candidates
  • Success rate by source

Stoplight reports provide an easy indication of performance – senior leadership drives accountability by monitoring recruiting performance at a high level. Red/ yellow/ green status indicators are often used to measure whether recruiting is on track to meet projections for:

• Number of candidates in the funnel
• Number of roles posted and filled
• Conversion rate 

**This is not something regularly available in most systems and requires some work in Microsoft Excel to be built out.

Special situation reports monitor performance for one-off or more nuanced recruiting initiatives – add additional tabs to your weekly dashboard to track any other processes that are key to recruiting success. Common additions include:

• International hiring tracking – track time-to-start when hiring in countries with long notice periods (e.g., 4+ weeks).
• Notice period monitoring – if turnover is high in your business, it can be helpful to monitor the time between an employee leaving and their role being filled. 
• Pre-employment assessments – if candidates are required to take tests, measure how many actually take the test, how many remain eligible after the test, and whether the remaining candidates progress through the rest of the pipeline at the desired rate. 

How should you leverage these reports to gauge the performance and quality of your talent team?

Use performance benchmarks to evaluate current vs historical/ projected performance – specific performance thresholds vary, but all recruiting teams should have clear targets for conversion, quality, and general activity. 

Performance category		Example benchmarks
Funnel conversion		• Assessment completion rate: 80% • Progression past recruiter screen: 50% • Progression to offer stage: 33% • Offer acceptance rate: 90%
Activity metrics		• Weekly screens conducted • Candidate response time: within 2 days • Interview feedback submission rates: 100% • Interview feedback submission time: within 24 hours
Quality metrics		• Retention target: 6 months • Time to productivity: Differs per role • Hiring manager satisfaction: 90%+ • Candidate satisfaction: 90%+ • Performance ratings: Meets expectations Note: quality metrics can’t be directly inputted into most ATS’s, but ATS reports can be combined with HR system data to track important quality indicators.

What are common issues identified through ATS reporting, and how can they be addressed? 

Top of funnel issues – if you have low applicant numbers for an open role, consider: 

• Revising the job title
• Adding remote options
• Expanding posting locations
• Reviewing job description appeal

Assessment stage issues – if you have low test completion rates, consider: 

• Implementing pre-test communication
• Following up via phone
• Setting clearer expectations around the interview process
• Improving candidate preparation 

Interview stage issues – if you see high rejection rates after initial interviews, consider: 

• Revising your screening questions
• Adding preliminary qualifying questions
• Conducting a second intake meeting/ re-aligning on must-have criteria

Offer acceptance issues – if a significant proportion of candidates reject offers for compensation-related reasons, consider: 

• Including a question about compensation in the initial application
• Discussing compensation expectations during the phone screen
• Reassessing the compensation strategy for the role
• Adding in cultural or “closing” interviews that are geared towards answering candidate questions

Language/ Communication stage issues – if communication barriers are identified too late, consider: 

• Adding written response questions
• Including a communication assessment
• Setting clear language requirements
• Implementing early-stage screening

Overall

What are the most important things to get right? 

Identify meaningful data and how you want to use it – most ATS’s are built by developers with a limited understanding of the information that’s most useful to recruiters. Default ATS outputs are raw data that must be cleaned up and analyzed through excel or a BI tool in order to generate reports that your team can use.  

Standardized processes and stages in the ATS – if each requisition is set up differently in the ATS then the reporting will be too difficult to set up in a meaningful way. 

Interviewer training – ensure the interview teams understand what information they should review before an interview, how to fill out a feedback form, whether or not they should be moving candidates between stages, etc. By taking the time to provide this training, companies allow themselves to have more clean data and reporting on the back-end.