Choosing ATS/recruitment software: a comprehensive guide

Choosing an ATS or recruitment software isn’t about finding the platform with the longest feature list. It’s about finding the tech that fits how your organisation actually hires. This guide explains how to evaluate applicant tracking systems using realistic scenarios, so you can compare providers based on practical fit rather than polished demos or great salespeople.  

Keep reading to learn:

• What an ATS/recruitment software does
• How to identify your organisation’s ATS requirements
• How to compare ATS providers meaningfully
• What to test during an ATS/recruitment software demo
• How to assess candidate and hiring manager experience
• What to ask about ATS implementation, integrations and support
• How to build a weighted ATS comparison scorecard

Choosing an ATS is like hiring. You don’t start by writing a list of every skill on Google, interview based on gut feel, then hire whoever you had most rapport with. So let’s bring some rigour to the process👇.

There’s no ‘best’ ATS/recruitment software

First things first, let’s clear up the myth of ‘best’. Search for the best ATS or recruitment software and you’ll be inundated with results. Mostly from vendors, either paying for PPC ad space or writing wolf-in-sheep’s clothing “unbiased” competitor comparison lists. 

But whatever the lists say, there’s no universal ‘best’ talent acquisition software (or ATS, or recruitment software, etc). Nope, not even the ones winning the ‘Best ATS’ awards again and again. 

The platform that works brilliantly for a 200-person professional services business might buckle under the complexity of a multi-site care provider. The tech that’s ideal for a small, centralised recruitment team might flounder for an organisation with hundreds of sometimes-hiring managers. 

The right ATS depends on your unique hiring reality. Which means comparing ATS feature lists only gets you so far. You need to know whether the software can handle the situations your recruitment team encounters on its busiest, messiest, most ARGH days.

What is an ATS/recruitment software?

An ATS, or applicant tracking system, is a piece of software that helps you track applicants (at the risk of sounding facetious). Recruitment software is essentially the same thing – vendors often call the same stuff different names, although it can sometimes indicate that the product’s more complex and comprehensive than a basic ATS. Same for talent acquisition software.

Read more: What is an ATS and do you need one?

This distinction often correlates to what your team call themselves: recruitment or talent acquisition. There’s not clear sea between those concepts – many recruiters have talent acquisition job responsibilities, and many TA specialists lean towards a recruitment mindset. 

Read more: Recruitment vs talent acquisition: how are they different and why should you care? 

In a nutshell, talent acquisition is more concerned with building a workforce that meets the organisation’s strategic needs long-term. And recruitment is more concerned with filling current vacancies. Both, of course, are fundamentally about hiring.

The point is, whatever your team calls itself, you’re likely looking at products including ATS, recruitment software, and talent acquisition software. Maybe the odd hiring software thrown onto your shortlist for good luck.

At its most basic, that software will record applications and track candidates as they move through the steps of your hiring process. It helps you answer Qs like:

• Who applied and for which roles?
• Where are they in the recruitment process?
• What communication have they received?
• Who has reviewed or progressed them?
• Have the necessary steps been completed?
• Can we evidence how the decision was made?

Those are essential functions for any team that hires regularly, across multiple teams or regulated environments like healthcare recruitment or public sector recruitment. 

(Not sure if that’s you? Here are six signs growing businesses need to move from spreadsheets to an ATS). 

But most recruitment software usually goes much further than tracking applicants, especially as AI changes recruiting best practices. A good, comprehensive ATS/recruitment software probably also offers:

• Job advertising
• Recruitment marketing
• Careers site
• CRM and talent pooling
• Automated screening
• Candidate assessment
• Video screening 
• Interview scheduling
• Hiring manager collaboration
• Anonymous applications
• Recruitment compliance
• Digital onboarding
• Analytics and reporting
• AI-assisted recruitment workflows

Our comprehensive guide to talent acquisition software features explores those capabilities more, if you’re still working out which features matter to you. 

This guide tackles a different question: once you know which capabilities you need, how do you establish whether an ATS can actually deliver them? 

Because a tick beside “reporting”, “automation” or “candidate portal” doesn’t tell you much. Two providers can offer the same feature but deliver radically different levels of depth, flexibility and usability that determines whether it’s actually valuable for your team or not.

The value lies in what each feature allows your people to do. So that’s what we’re going to explore here. 

How to evaluate the best ATS/recruitment software for you

Buying an ATS often starts the wrong way around – with researching software providers. 

Someone downloads a requirements template. Then a laundry list of desirable features begins circulating. Then vendors are invited to demonstrate their platforms. 

And now, everyone is comparing solutions – but nobody’s actually agreed on the problem.

This cycle leads to bloated requirements lists where every feature is ‘essential’, generic supplier demos, and decisions based predominantly on whichever system appears easiest. Or has the most persuasive salesperson. Or Katie’s mum’s uncle’s friend used once and said was good. 

It’s one of the major roadblocks stopping teams realise ROI from new recruitment software implementations, according to Udder CEO Alan Walker:

“Take a long, cold, hard look in the mirror before choosing new tech. Not everyone’s Google and not everyone wants to be Google.

Are you genuinely as sophisticated and complicated as you think? What are your budgetary constraints? Your resource constraints? What’s your art of the possible? What can you achieve? What’s your best possible approach? Teams need to act in the context of their organisation.”

If you copy requirements from competitors, or build them around impressive-sounding buzzwords, you’ll often find yourself stuck with:

• A giant scroll of snazzy features that don’t address actual problems
• An overwhelming platform that’s too complex for how you work
• Recruiters and managers under-using expensive functionality
• Leaders frustrated that adoption is low and ROI isn’t happening

If you’re buying for the market instead of your business, you’re buying someone else’s priorities. And paying a high price: wasted spend, wasted time and mountains of frustration.

To avoid this problem, start with discovery. That is, gather evidence based on what’s actually happening for you, as opposed to wishlists and assumptions. Let’s talk about that process. 

Step 1 – discovery: pin down your recruitment problems

To start narrowing down the best ATS/recruitment software for you, start with diagnosing how your recruitment works right now. 

Map bottlenecks, candidate drop-offs, recruiter frustrations and manager pains. Then shape your shopping list, around solving those problems in your unique organisational context.

Who are you hiring for?

Do you recruit:

• Thousands of people into similar frontline roles?
• Small numbers of specialist professionals?
• Permanent, temporary, seasonal and casual workers?
• Across multiple brands, departments or locations?
• Into roles with worlds-apart recruitment processes?
• For a set number of working hours instead of fixed headcount?
• In several languages or countries?
• Into roles with lengthy pre-employment checks?

A university might recruit academics, professional services staff, cleaners, caterers and student workers. A care provider is probably hiring carers continuously while also competing for nurses, registered managers, chefs and head-office specialists.

Your ATS needs to support your operational range without turning every process into an awkward compromise. 

Where’s the pressure now?

What hurts right now? Perhaps:

• Recruiters are drowning in admin
• Hiring managers avoid the existing system
• Candidates keep abandoning applications
• Good applicants accept other jobs before you respond
• Compliance info is scattered across inboxes
• Application volumes are sky-high; quality’s rock bottom. 
• Your data is unreliable or impossible to report.
• Small system changes are impossible without lengthy supplier involvement
• You have software but everyone uses workarounds anyway

Be as specific as you can. “Improve candidate experience” is fine. But “reduce application drop-off for frontline roles” is better. “Improve reporting” is fine. But “give operational directors a monthly overview of vacancies, time-to-hire, and agency spend is much more useful.

Who needs the ATS to work?

Your recruitment software isn’t only for recruiters. Your platform might also be used by:

• Candidates
• Managers
• Interviewers
• HR teams
• Onboarding and compliance teams
• Finance and procurement
• Senior leaders
• IT and information security
• External recruitment partners
• Temporary administrators

Each group has different needs. Recruiters might use the system every day and value depth. Hiring managers may log in twice a month and need simplicity. Candidates don’t care how sophisticated the back-end is if the application form is slow, inaccessible or impossible to complete on mobile.

Your requirements need to reflect every important user, not just the project team choosing the software.

What’s likely to change?

An ATS is a long-term investment, so don’t choose purely for today. (Some of our first-ever customers are still with us since we started in 2008, for example. That sort of longevity demands real commitment to evolution.) 

Think about whether you might:

• Increase hiring volumes
• Enter new markets
• Open or close locations
• Acquire or merge with another organisation
• Centralise or decentralise recruitment
• Introduce shared services
• Change HR systems
• Adopt skills-based hiring
• Expand your use of AI
• Face new regulatory requirements

You can’t predict everything, obviously. But you can establish how easily each platform adapts if your requirements change. And you can choose a platform with a robust track record of evolving over time. (At least, if you choose providers who’ve been around a while, not three-year-wonders). 

Step 2 – evaluation: nine SJTs for assessing recruitment software

Evaluating ATS/recruitment software is like adding situational judgement tests in your hiring process. Once you understand your real recruitment landscape, you can turn your biggest risks and priorities into practical scenarios, then ask every ‘interviewing’ supplier how their software navigates. 

Your own test scenarios might look different based on your reality, but let’s look at some examples. 

SJT #1: the application avalanche

You publish a role on Monday morning. By Tuesday, 2000 people have applied. 

Good problem to have, once upon a time. But more applications don’t mean more suitable applicants, better decisions or easier hiring. Not post-AI. 

Now, most teams face what Arctic Shores’ Estelle McCartney calls “a sea of sameness”: astronomical application volumes combined with increasingly similar-looking candidate submissions.

Read more: How should recruiters respond to the AI-enabled candidate?

Traditional keyword searches and CV reviews become heaps less useful (verging on a complete waste of time) when everyone’s AI-bot spits out the right things.

Ask your shortlisted ATS providers to show you how their system helps a your-size team assess 1000 applications fairly, efficiently, and confidently. 

• How do recruiters filter and review candidates?
• Can you add knock-out questions?
• Can you add candidate assessments?
• What does the application process look like?
• How do you build application journeys?
• Is the application process flexible?
• How does the system support skills-based hiring?
• Does the platform offer video screening?
• How and where does the platform use AI?
• Is AI fair, transparent and inclusive? How do you know?
• Can recruiters process in bulk?
• Can recruiters complete actions in bulk?
• How is candidate info summarised?
• How many clicks does it take to review each candidate?
• Does the system auto-shortlist around your criteria?
• How do managers interact with the system?
• Can recruiters move between applicants without opening 1000 tabs?
• Can they compare relevant info easily?
• How do several reviewers work together?

This is also a good test of system performance and usability. How does the system cope with 1000; 10,000; 100,000 applicants? Is there any performance loss?

SJT #2: the reluctant manager

Recruitment is your recruitment team’s day job. It’s not your managers’. 

They’re busy delivering services, running teams, managing customers or caring for people. Recruitment is one part of their role, possibly a tiny part. Some might log into the platform a handful of times each year.

So…

… they forget passwords. Ignore notifications. Email feedback instead of entering it into the system. Ask recruiters to complete tasks on their behalf. Or delay decisions while good candidates disappear. 

This is one the most common gaps between an impressive software demo and a successful implementation. 

A platform can be powerful but still fail if your managers find it confusing or difficult. Because manager adoption affects everything else: decision speed, data quality, candidate comms, compliance, recruiter workload.

The ‘best’ ATS/recruitment software for your team isn’t the same as the ‘best’ for managers. Choosing software means treading the line between those priorities, if your managers are any meaningful part of your hiring process.  

Give your shortlisted recruitment software suppliers a realistic manager scenario. Like, maybe:

A manager has ten minutes between meetings. They need to review five candidates, record structured feedback and confirm who should progress. Show us exactly what they would do.

Count the clicks. Look at the language on-screen. Notice whether important actions are obvious. Check whether managers can see the candidate info that matters without being overwhelmed by three pages of recruiter-only detail. 

Test:

• Candidate summaries
• Review and scoring tools
• Mobile accessibility
• Interview feedback forms
• Notifications and reminders
• Clear task ownership
• Approval workflows
• User-specific dashboards
• Bulk actions
• Protection against accidental decisions

Permissions are crucial for managers. Simplistic software may give everyone the same view. In fact, some ATS are so basic they’re essentially a spreadsheet in a nicer wrapper.

More advanced software should offer granular permissions so different users can do and see different things – to stop mistakes, manage overwhelm, and protect your data.

The best manager experience presents the right stuff to the right person at the right time. 

SJT #3: the impatient candidate

Imagine: a great candidate scrolls across your vacancy while sitting on a bus. They have five minutes before their stop. Their CV’s on a laptop at home. Their signal’s patchy. They’re interested but they are also considering several other employers.

What happens next?

Recruitment teams often evaluate ATS platforms from inside the recruiter interface. But most candidates will never see under the hood like that.

They experience:

• Your careers site
• The application journey
• Account creation
• Screening questions
• Interview booking
• Emails and text messages
• Document requests
• The candidate portal
• Your rejection or offer process

That’s your recruitment brand in action. Ask your shortlisted ATS vendors to complete an application from the candidate perspective during the demo. 

Watch for:

• How quickly do jobs load?
• Are listings easy to search?
• How does the application render on a small screen?
• Do candidates have to create an account?
• Can candidates save progress and return?
• How many fields are mandatory?
• Is progress clear?
• How are CVs and documents uploaded?
• Can candidates express info without a full CV?
• Is information requested multiple times?
• How do accessibility tools behave?
• What confirmation and next steps info do candidates get? When?
• How does the application process look and feel?
• What happens if there’s an error?

Custom application processes will be important for most teams. You’re not just asking whether the ATS offers mobile applications – almost every provider will say yes. You’re asking whether it lets you design relevant, proportionate, accessible candidate journeys for the different people you need to hire.

So you’re not sending entry-level frontline candidates through the same detailed process as a senior specialist vacancy, for example. 

And don’t assume that because you have heavy compliance reqs, there’s nothing you can do about the application process. A good system should make the application process feel manageable and fluid, even if you need to collect lots of info.

Look for a provider who knows your industry and can offer expert input into refining your processes. Teams sometimes treat buying recruitment software as a digital mirror of their current set-up, when really it’s a chance to reset. 

As Udder’s Alan Walker puts it:

“Buying new recruitment software is a time to reset. Implementing a new ATS to do everything exactly as you did before is pointless. Yes, you might do it slightly quicker. Yes, the interface might look slightly sexier. Yes, your team might enjoy using it slightly more. But the end results are going to be very similar if you’re just doing exactly what you always did.”

SJT #4: the messy, non-standard vacancy

Software demos often defer to showcasing the tidiest possible role. One role; one location; one manager; one interview. Then BAM: one successful hire. 

When is real recruitment that obedient? You might need to:

• Hire 40 people from one campaign
• Fill the same role across several sites
• Recruit to a talent pool before confirming vacancies
• Hire against a required number of working hours
• Run different checks based on location
• Add an assessment for only certain candidates
• Use several interview panels
• Manage internal and external applicants differently
• Recruit permanent and temporary staff through different workflows
• Move people between suitable vacancies
• Make multiple offers from one requisition

If your recruitment software is too rigid, you’ll find it starts creating work instead of streamlining it. And you’ll end up with more workarounds than workflows. 

Give suppliers a couple of awkward examples from your organisation and ask them to show you how you’re build the process. 

• Who can create, amend and approve workflows?
• Can workflows vary by role, team, location or brand?
• Do changes need coding?
• Can you make changes yourself?
• How long does configuration take?
• How much are suppliers involved and what do they charge?
• How do you handle exceptions?
• How does automation work?
• What happens to reporting if processes differ?
• Can you accidentally make non-compliant workflows?
• How long does the whole process take?
• Is the process easy and intuitive?

You’re looking to tread a line between configurability and standardisation. The best ATS/recruitment software won’t replicate every broken process or create edge cases out of every role. It should support genuine operational differences without preserving pointless ones, so complexity doesn’t snowball into something ridiculous. 

SJT #5: the compliance bottleneck

You’ve found the right person and they’ve accepted the role. Everyone’s excited. And then the process grinds to a halt.

The candidate needs to complete checks, provide documents and supply references. Recruiters chase. Managers save files in inboxes. A spreadsheet records what’s outstanding. Nobody has a complete view. The candidate hears nothing and wonders if you’ve forgotten them. Or becomes totally disillusioned, when you ask for the same info the 14th time. The hire stalls. 

This scenario is way too common, especially for highly-regulated sectors. 

Yes, you probably need a heap of compliance checks. RtW. DBS. Criminal record. References. ID verification. Employment history. Qualification evidence. Occupational health. Safeguarding. License checks. The list goes on.

The checks are essential but the administrative chaos is not.

Ask your shortlisted recruitment software vendors to demonstrate what the pre-employment journey looks like, ideally from the perspective of the candidate, the recruiter (or compliance administrator) and the manager. 

Can the ATS…

• Trigger the correct checks automatically?
• Integrate with checking providers?
• Request role-relevant documents?
• Stage requests in a logical order?
• Show candidates what’s complete and outstanding?
• Send proportionate reminders?
• Prevent repeated information requests?
• Store evidence securely?
• Restrict access to sensitive data?
• Flag delays and exceptions?
• Maintain a complete audit trail?
• Report on time spent within each stage?

Ask what happens when the normal process fails too. The ATS should allow your team to handle exceptions without losing oversight or breaking the process. 

What if a reference is incomplete? A document expires? A check reveals something requiring review? A candidate changes their name? One role requires an additional safeguarding step?

The best ATS recruitment software makes compliance a natural, visible part of the candidate journey rather than a disconnected obstacle after recruitment has finished

SJT #6: the questioning CEO

Hey, can I grab you a sec? What’s our time-to-hire this quarter?

Why’s TTH getting worse?

What’s our best hiring source?

Why aren’t we moving the needle on diversity?

… and the monster question, the wizard behind the curtain: what value does the recruitment team actually add?

These are questions recruitment teams should be able to answer, without three days and seven spreadsheets and a load of umming and aahing. Can you? We see time and again that most teams can’t.

Better reporting and insights should be a major priority in buying a new ATS/recruitment software. But “reporting” can mean anything from a few fixed charts to a dynamic 300-module business analytics suite that needs an advanced computer science degree to navigate. 

A system containing data is not necessarily one that helps you understand it. Ask suppliers to walk you through how you’d answer a real question that feels relevant for you. 

Like…

Show us which region has the longest time-to-offer, where the delay happens and whether the pattern differs by job family.

Or:

Show us application, progression and appointment rates by source.

Or:

Show us how candidates from different demographic groups progress through the process.

Can you drill down from a headline into the underlying information? Can reports be scheduled for different stakeholders? Are definitions consistent? Can access be restricted? How long does the process take?

Impactful recruitment data doesn’t just tell you what. It helps you start to understand why and what next. To resolve bottlenecks, improve processes, allocate resources better and build a credible case for investment.

SJT #7: the biz-critical integration

Your ATS could be the most amazing tech in the world. But if it doesn’t play well with others, it’ll create bottlenecks, siloes, and workarounds that slow down and snarl up your hiring.

Many organisations, especially big ones, end up with a Frankenstack of poorly stitched-together platforms that were introduced to address certain needs but without considering the whole.

Each individual part is good – arms, yay! Legs! – but they don’t work together effectively. So there’s little forward momentum. 

When you’re shopping around for new recruitment software, look at your current stack too. What does it need to integrate with? Are there any opportunities for consolidation? 

Ask your supplier questions specific to your tech environment. Say you need to run video screening, for example. Does video screening need to be another-of-many HR tech tools? Or does the platform have in-built video screening?  

Where integrations are needed to wider systems – like HRIS and payroll, say – how do they work? 

For your most critical integrations, go beyond ‘does this work with that’ to ask deeper questions, like:

• What information moves between the systems?
• What triggers the transfer?
• What happens when information is changed?
• How are errors identified and resolved?
• Is there an additional licence or implementation cost?
• Is the integration live and used by existing customers?

A (genuinely) joined-up ecosystem should make processes feel simpler. Technology should remove the gaps candidates and recruiters can fall into, not create new ones between platforms.

SJT #8: the organisational change (dun dun duuuuun!)

Your ATS isn’t just for Christmas. Bringing home a platform that works for today but falters when the tree’s down and the turkey’s on its seventeenth leftover dish isn’t a sustainable future-proof decision.

Talk to suppliers about possible future-state scenarios that feel realistic for you. 

You’ve acquired another business, say. Restructured. Introduced a new brand. Doubled recruitment volumes. Centralised your hiring function. Changed your HRIS. Expanded internationally. Or entered a regulated market with completely different workflows.

Can the ATS adapt? Scalability is often discussed as a technical question: can the software handle more users, vacancies and applications? And yes, that’s crucial (see our Tesco point, above. One million applications in three days – ouch; phew.)

But operational scalability matters too. 

• How would the ATS support changes?
• Can you add stuff on and take stuff away?
• Does it support multiple languages?
• Does it support different hiring models?
• What support will you receive after implementation? 
• Will someone help you redesign processes? 
• Is training available for new managers and recruiters? 
• What is the product roadmap?
• How does customer feedback influence the roadmap? 
• Are upgrades included or charged separately?
• Does the vendor have a track record of evolution?
• How long do the vendor’s customers usually stay?
• Can you make changes yourself?
• If not, how long does the vendor take to help?

Ask if you can speak to customers who’ve used the platform for several years. The best ATS/recruitment software should evolve as the organisation evolves. Or your recruitment risks getting stuck in a rut.

SJT #9: the implementation scaries

You’ve been here before – and you’ve been burned. Demos? Shiny. Promises? Plentiful. Everyone agreed the old system had to go. 

Then implementation happened. 

• Data didn’t migrate properly. 
• Integrations took heaps longer than expected. 
• Nobody could agree on processes. 
• Managers weren’t trained. 
• Recruiters were trying to use two systems at once. 
• Launch moved three times, then arrived before anyone was ready.

Six months later everyone was exhausted, cynical, and working in the same spreadsheets the new tech was supposed to replace. And now you need a new ATS again. But cynicism is sky-high from every corner: good luck galvanising the troops.

The point is, a bad implementation doesn’t just waste time and money. It creates scar tissue.

Recruiters become wary of change. Managers assume the new platform will make their lives harder. Leaders question why they should invest again. IT remembers the integration headaches. Procurement remembers the spiralling extras.

Even the best recruitment software will struggle if everyone approaches it with folded arms and a muttered, “Here we go again.”

Don’t treat implementation as the admin bit that happens after you’ve chosen an ATS. It’s a major part of what you’re buying. You need good tech, obviously. But you also need a provider who can get that tech embedded into your organisation without detonating trust along the way.

Start by being honest about what went wrong last time. Maybe:

• Nobody clearly owned the project
• The supplier underestimated your complexity
• Your team underestimated the internal work involved
• Data was incomplete, inconsistent or difficult to migrate
• Processes hadn’t been agreed before configuration started
• The system was built around how you used to work
• Scope kept changing
• Integrations were promised but poorly understood
• Managers were consulted too late
• Training was generic, rushed or quickly forgotten
• Recruiters had no support once the system went live
• The provider disappeared after the contract was signed

Don’t bury those fears because you’re worried about sounding difficult; bring them into the sales and evaluation process. Tell shortlisted providers:

Our last recruitment tech implementation went badly. Here’s what happened, here’s what our people are worried about, and here’s where we can’t afford another failure. Talk us through exactly how you’d help.

Ask:

• Who’ll lead implementation from the supplier side?
• Will we meet that person before signing?
• What implementation experience do they have with organisations like ours?
• What internal resource will you need from us?
• Who should own the project internally?
• How will you help us agree and simplify our processes?
• How will you stop us recreating every broken workflow?
• How will you identify risks early?
• What does the data migration process involve?
• Who cleans, maps, validates and signs off data?
• How are integrations scoped and tested?
• What happens when an integration is delayed?
• How do you manage changes in scope?
• What could push the launch date back?
• How much contingency should we build in?
• How will recruiters, managers and administrators be trained?
• What support is available after go-live?
• How will you measure adoption?
• When does implementation end?
• Who supports us after the implementation team steps away?

You should come away with more than a timeline. A credible provider should be able to explain:

• The decisions you’ll need to make
• The people you’ll need involved
• The work your team will own
• The work they’ll own
• The risks and how to protect against them
• How they’ll test before launch
• How they’ll protect business-as-usual recruitment
• How they’ll build confidence before asking people to change

Be wary of an implementation that sounds effortless. Implementing an ATS does take time, decisions and involvement from your side. A supplier pretending otherwise is probably trying to get the contract signed, not preparing you for success.

But also, you shouldn’t be left to drag the project uphill alone. A good implementation partner brings structure, momentum and expertise. 

They challenge unnecessarily complicated processes. Keep decisions moving. Explain trade-offs clearly. Spot problems you won’t know to look for. And help you communicate the change so users understand and buy-into doing things differently.

Read more: a step-by-step guide to implementing Tribepad ATS.

A final stage – comparison: building a weighted ATS scorecard

Soo – you’ve run discovery, you’ve evaluated your ATS shortlist – now you need to narrow down the pick of the pack. A good way to do that can be building a weighted ATS comparison scorecard. 

Like all of this stuff, this’ll likely be unique to you. A regulated healthcare provider might prioritise compliance, candidate speed and multi-site workflows. A professional services firm might place more weight on CRM, specialist sourcing and structured assessment.

Here’s a template of an example weighting, to get you started:

Score each supplier using a consistent scale, like: 

• 0: Doesn’t meet the requirement
• 1: Major gaps or extensive workarounds
• 2: Partially meets the requirement
• 3: Meets the requirement adequately
• 4: Strong solution with minor limitations
• 5: Excellent fit, demonstrated clearly

The basic idea is, a supplier shouldn’t win because it offers ten exciting low-priority features while failing a requirement central to safe or effective recruitment. 

Coming back to the hiring analogy, we’re trying to take the decision away from Sam had great rapport on the call and everything is urgent into here’s a defensible, pragmatic system of evaluation. 

Let’s quickly cover off some red flags, to wrap up.

Final note: 9 ATS recruitment software red flags

No platform is perfect. (no, not even ours 😇). But certain warning signs should prompt investigation. Here’s a quick list we think should get your Spidey-senses tingling. 

1 – Everything you care about is on the roadmap, not live

Evaluate the software available today, first. Treat unreleased functionality as a possible future benefit, not a confirmed capability.

2 – The supplier avoids your scenarios

If every answer returns to a polished standard workflow, the software may struggle with your operational complexity. 

3 – Basic changes require paid development

Some specialist work will reasonably cost extra. Routine changes should not leave you permanently dependent on technical support.

4 – Reporting ends in a spreadsheet

Exporting data can be useful. Needing to export and rebuild everything before answering a basic recruitment question is not modern analytics.

5 – Recruiter experience is great; CX isn’t

Candidates are one of, if not the, most important user group. Assess CX with the same care as back-end. Happy recruiters twiddling their thumbs aren’t useful.

6 – Nobody can explain the AI

You should understand what the AI does, where, and how; where humans are involved and how fairness is protected. “Proprietary algorithm” is not a good answer.

7 – Pricing is impossible to establish

The cheapest initial quote can become the most expensive long-term contract. Clarify all the costs, not just the one vendors shout about. 

8 – References aren’t relevant

Ask to speak with organisations that resemble yours in volume, structure, sector or complexity. A glowing testimonial from a radically different employer proves little.

9 – They know their tech, not your industry 

Everyone’s an expert in the stuff they sell. Look for people who’re experts in what you do, not just what they do. Are they a credible recruitment industry authority?  

Conclusion: So, which ATS/recruitment software is best?

In the absence of an objective league table (wouldn’t that make life easy), the best ATS or recruitment software is the tech that best handles the greatest pressures with the biggest consequences for your organisation.

It should…

• Streamline complexity without unnecessary admin. 
• Give managers enough simplicity to participate well. 
• Make applying clear, speedy, and respectful. 
• Keep compliance moving. 
• Turn recruitment data into useful decisions. 
• Connect cleanly with the rest of your tech stack.
• Adapt as your organisation changes.
• Help you meet your strategic hiring goals.

Feature lists are a sensible starting point – and the real-life scenarios are how you find out whether those features really deliver what you need. And will keep delivering what you need, hopefully for many years to come. 

What are you waiting for? Get demoing! (And here are 51 questions to ask us.)

Explore how Tribepad ATS could work for you. 

Tribepad is the trusted tech ally to smart(er) recruiters everywhere. Combining ATS, CRM, assessment, video screening, compliance, onboarding, analytics and a fully-integrated AI assistant, our talent acquisition software is a springboard for fairer, faster, better recruitment for everyone.

B-Corp certified and multiple-award-winning (like Best ATS for Enterprises and Tech Company of the Year), Tribepad is trusted by organisations like Hotel Chocolat, cardfactory, Greggs, Tesco, Subway, DFS, Met Office, and Home Bargains.