How to Choose an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) in 2025: A 5-Step Selection Guide
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Choosing the right applicant tracking system (ATS) can feel overwhelming—there are dozens of options, each promising faster hiring, better candidate experiences, and lower recruiting costs. But not every system fits every organization. The best ATS for your team depends on factors like your hiring volume, budget, integrations, and the kind of candidate experience you want to deliver.
In this guide, we’ll walk you step by step through how to choose an applicant tracking system, covering the features to prioritize, pricing models to understand, and the red flags to watch for during demos.
By the end, you’ll know exactly how to shortlist vendors, run an effective evaluation, and select an ATS that helps your team attract, engage, and hire the right talent faster.
What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a type of recruitment software that helps organizations manage the entire hiring process from job posting to offer. At its core, an ATS acts as a centralized hub where recruiters, hiring managers, and sometimes even candidates can interact.
Instead of juggling spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected tools, an ATS keeps all applicant information in one place—resumes, applications, interview notes, and communication history—so teams can move candidates through the hiring pipeline more efficiently.
An ATS is especially valuable for organizations that handle high volumes of applications, or those aiming to improve candidate experience, compliance, and hiring speed. Choosing the right system ensures your recruiting team can focus less on admin work and more on finding and engaging top talent.
Key Factors to Consider When Choosing An ATS
Selecting the right ATS isn’t just about ticking off features. It’s about finding a system that matches your company’s size, hiring needs, and long-term goals. Below are the five major areas to consider when evaluating applicant tracking systems.
1. Organization Fit
Your ATS should fit the scale of your hiring operations today, and where you expect them to be in a few years.
Team size:
- Small teams benefit from simple systems with core automation (resume parsing, email templates) and transparent pricing.
- Larger enterprises often need multi-user tiers, role-based hierarchies, and customization to accommodate different departments and locations— features which are more commonly found in enterprise recruiting solutions.
Hiring volume:
- High-volume recruiting requires bulk communication, batch scheduling, and AI-powered screening features to handle applications quickly and reduce bias.
- Seasonal or fluctuating hiring calls for flexible pricing and scalability to ramp up or down without paying for unused capacity.
Scalability:
Plan ahead—switching ATS platforms frequently is time-consuming and expensive. Look for a system that can grow with you, supporting additional users, regions, and advanced features as your needs evolve.
Automations:
Automation is key to efficiency. Features like resume parsing, auto-screening, scheduling, and automated reminders reduce manual tasks and free recruiters to focus on candidate engagement.
Why organizational needs matter: The better the system fits your organization’s size and growth path, the less time you’ll spend firefighting inefficiencies or migrating to a new tool down the road.
2. Operational Needs
An ATS should slot seamlessly into your existing workflows and tech stack, making collaboration smoother—not more complicated.
Customization:
Tailor workflows, pipelines, and reporting dashboards for different teams or job types, ensuring every stakeholder gets the insights they need.
Some useful features here:
- Customizable workflow: Look for an ATS that allows you to adapt workflows to fit your recruitment process. The system should be flexible enough to accommodate different job roles, departments, and hiring stages.
- Custom reporting: The ability to create custom reports and dashboards to track key metrics (e.g., time-to-hire, source of hire) is essential for making data-driven decisions.
Integrations:
Connect your ATS to your HRMS, job boards, background check tools, and communication platforms like Slack or email. This reduces data silos and ensures smooth handoffs across systems.
You can check on the vendor website or with their sales team which tools the software already has integrations with, and even ask them to build one if it doesn’t exist (note this might incur extra costs).
(If you need a bit more context on why integrating with your HR management system is so important, read about these HRMS features and benefits next.)
Collaboration features:
The ATS should facilitate the easy sharing of candidate profiles, feedback, and notes among team members, fostering better collaboration between hiring managers, HR, and recruiters.
By centralizing candidate data, all stakeholders and interviewers can share notes, give feedback, and score candidates in one place.
Role-based permissions:
Protect sensitive candidate data by controlling who can access, edit, or share information. This ensures compliance and prevents accidental oversharing.
Why operational needs matter: A well-integrated, customizable ATS reduces manual work, keeps teams aligned, and ensures sensitive data is handled properly.
3. User Experience
Both recruiters and candidates need a system that’s simple, intuitive, and supportive.
Ease of use:
Look for a clean, intuitive interface with minimal training required. Always test usability with a live demo before committing.
Here are a few specific features to look out for here:
- User-friendly interface: The ATS should be intuitive and easy for your HR team and hiring managers to navigate. This is why it’s always important to ask for a live demo.
- Candidate experience: Ensure the application process is straightforward for candidates, offering a mobile-friendly, streamlined experience to prevent drop-offs.
Candidate experience:
Ensure the application process is fast, mobile-friendly, and branded. A clunky application form is a quick way to lose top candidates.
Onboarding support:
Evaluate the vendor’s training resources, customer support, and implementation services. Good onboarding can make or break adoption across your recruiting team.
Why user experience matters: If your team struggles to use the software or candidates abandon the process, even the most feature-rich ATS won’t deliver value.
4. Business Value
The right ATS should deliver measurable ROI—not just add another expense line.
Cost & pricing models:
Different solutions will have different pricing models (e.g., subscription-based, pay-per-use, or feature-based pricing) and be aware of any additional fees for integrations or added features.
Compare subscription-based, per-user, and per-job pricing. Ask about hidden costs for integrations, add-ons, or advanced reporting.
Consider the long-term benefits and return on investment (ROI) the ATS offers, including time savings, reduced reliance on external recruiters, and improved hiring efficiency. For further help here, check out Dan George’s excellent article on HR financial literacy.
Return on investment:
Consider the long-term value—reduced agency fees, faster hiring cycles, and improved recruiter productivity often outweigh initial costs.
Reporting & analytics:
Recruitment analytics are important for improving the recruiting process and making better quality hires.
Use dashboards and custom reports to track KPIs like time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, diversity metrics, and source effectiveness. Data-driven insights help refine hiring strategies and improve efficiency.
Detailed analytics help you make data-driven decisions, improving efficiency and reducing recruitment costs. Additionally, reporting features ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements by maintaining accurate hiring records.
Of course, standalone recruitment analytics software exists too but this is increasingly becoming a key feature of ATSs.
Tip: More advanced analytics might cost more, so be sure to check what's included in your ATS pricing.
Why business value matters: Framing ATS adoption in terms of ROI makes it easier to build a business case for leadership buy-in.
5. Risk Management
Hiring touches sensitive data and must comply with local and international regulations.
Compliance & legal requirements:
When selecting an ATS, ensure it supports hiring process compliance to streamline recruitment while staying within legal boundaries
If your business operates across different regions with varying hiring regulations (e.g., equal employment opportunity laws, GDPR), then multinational compliance capabilities is something to consider when choosing your ATS.
Ensure the ATS supports equal employment opportunity standards, GDPR, CCPA, and other labor or data protection laws relevant to your locations.
Geographic reach:
If hiring across multiple regions, look for features like multilingual postings, time zone support, and localized compliance tools. This is crucial when operating in countries or states with unique privacy and anti-discrimination laws.
Here's some additional guidance depending on the scale of your geographic needs:
Single location
- Simpler workflow: If your recruitment operations are centralized in a single location, your ATS doesn't need to handle multiple regions or offices. A basic system that tracks candidates, automates communication and organizes data should suffice.
- Localized compliance: Focus on an ATS that meets the regulatory requirements specific to your region or country, such as local labor laws, data protection, and reporting standards.
Multi-location (domestic or international)
- Multi-location functionality: If your business operates across multiple locations, an ATS should offer multi-location capabilities, allowing you to post jobs and manage candidates from various offices or regions within one platform.
- Localized compliance: For international recruitment, compliance is critical. The ATS should help you adhere to different hiring regulations and data privacy laws, such as GDPR in Europe or CCPA in the U.S.
- Language and time zone support: In international settings, consider an ATS that supports multiple languages and time zones to accommodate global recruitment efforts. The system should also make it easy to schedule interviews and communicate with candidates in different locations.
- Regional talent pool: If you recruit globally, an ATS with sourcing features that target talent pools in specific regions or countries can be invaluable for reaching diverse candidates.
Why risk management needs matter: A compliant ATS reduces the risk of fines, lawsuits, and reputational damage while helping you build trust with candidates.
Key Takeaways
When evaluating ATS platforms, prioritize:
- Fit with your team size and hiring volume today and tomorrow.
- Automation, integrations, and customization to streamline operations.
- User-friendly design for recruiters and candidates, backed by strong vendor support.
- ROI and analytics that prove value and guide smarter hiring.
- Compliance and global readiness to protect your organization as you scale.
Choosing an ATS through this lens ensures you’re not just buying software—you’re investing in a system that supports efficient, fair, and scalable hiring.
ATS Features vs. Business Outcomes
To make these factors easier to digest, here’s a quick comparison of common ATS features, what they do, and the business outcomes they drive. Use this table as a quick reference when evaluating vendors—it’ll help you connect features directly to the results that matter for your team.
| Feature | What It Does | Business Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Automation | Resume parsing, auto-screening, interview scheduling, reminders | Saves recruiter time, reduces manual errors, speeds up hiring |
| Role-based permissions | Controls access by user type (recruiter, manager, executive) | Protects sensitive data, ensures compliance, improves collaboration |
| Customization | Tailors workflows, pipelines, and reports to team needs | Aligns hiring with business goals, reduces bottlenecks |
| Integrations | Connects ATS to HRMS, job boards, background checks, communication tools | Eliminates data silos, streamlines processes |
| Collaboration tools | Centralizes candidate profiles, notes, and feedback | Improves teamwork, accelerates decision-making |
| Ease of use | Intuitive dashboards and simple navigation | Faster adoption, less training, happier recruiters |
| Candidate experience | Mobile-friendly, branded applications with status updates | Higher completion rates, stronger employer brand |
| Onboarding support | Training, help desk, and implementation services | Faster rollout, higher adoption, fewer implementation issues |
| Reporting & analytics | Tracks time-to-hire, source of hire, DEI metrics | Enables data-driven hiring, improves efficiency and fairness |
| Compliance features | GDPR, CCPA, EEO tools, audit trails | Reduces legal risk, ensures ethical hiring practices |
| Scalability | Supports more users, regions, and advanced features as company grows | Future-proofs investment, avoids costly ATS switches |
As you can see, the real value of an ATS isn’t in the features themselves but in the outcomes they enable—from faster time-to-hire to improved compliance and candidate experience. Keeping this feature-to-outcome lens in mind will make it easier to cut through sales pitches and focus on which systems actually support your organization’s goals.
Need expert help selecting the right tool?
How to Choose an Applicant Tracking System: 5-Step Process
Selecting an ATS doesn’t have to be overwhelming—but it should be structured and thorough. Following these five steps will help you evaluate options with confidence and secure stakeholder buy-in.
Step One: Identify Needs
Before researching vendors, start by clarifying what your organization truly needs. Involve recruiters, hiring managers, IT, and finance teams early so you capture all perspectives.
Key questions to ask:
- How many hires do we expect in the next 6–12 months?
- Where are we recruiting (single market vs. multi-region)?
- What does our interview process look like?
- Who will be the primary users of the ATS?
- What’s the maturity of our employer brand?
- If we’re replacing an existing ATS, what pain points must change?
Asking these questions will help you determine what exactly it is you need from your ATS.
For example, if you’d like to gather more data to help track recruitment metrics and improve your hiring processes, a good analytics and reporting feature will be high on the list.
Get input from your stakeholders (IT and finance are always useful) and use their feedback to write use cases and build a matrix comparing what’s important to each stakeholder group.
From there, document must-have and nice-to-have features for each stakeholder group. For example, if your recruiting team needs richer analytics, prioritize reporting tools. If IT is concerned with security, highlight compliance features.
Step Two: Research Vendors
Once you know what you need, scan the market. Start with comparison guides (like our best ATS roundup), vendor websites, and HR community discussions.
What to look for:
- Trial access or demo options
- Customer reviews, case studies, and testimonials
- Best-rated features by category (SMB vs. enterprise tools)
- User experience (intuitive navigation, clean interface)
- Flexibility and customizability of workflows
- Pricing transparency and what’s included in each tier
- Security standards and compliance certifications (e.g., GDPR, SOC 2)
- Onboarding resources, training, and support availability
Top Applicant Tracking Systems to Consider
Here’s my list of the top 10 ATS platforms available, to help you get started in your search:
Some vendor-specific questions to ask:
Once you're ready to dig into the details, use these questions to guide your evaluation process:
- Who are the top vendors for your use case?
- Which are the best-rated in their category?
- What is each tool’s top-rated feature?
- Is it a small business solution or is it more suited for enterprise use?
- What do customer reviews and testimonials have to say? What are the most commonly reported benefits and drawbacks?
- What kind of onboarding, ATS training, support, and other resources does the vendor offer?
- Is there robust documentation available?
- Do the tool’s features meet your needs?
- Does the software integrate with the HR tools you’re already using?
- User interface: is it visually appealing?
- User experience: is it intuitive to navigate and easy to use?
- Is this tool simple or complex enough for your human resource management needs?
- Does it offer the flexibility or customizability you need?
- Does it offer robust security standards and comply with data privacy regulations and best practices? Is an on-premise option available?
- Does the pricing meet your budget? Is the pricing clear? Is the price warranted based on the software’s capabilities? Are certain key features only available in more expensive pricing tiers?
- Does it offer a demo or free trial?
Step Three: Make a Shortlist and Reach Out
Narrow your options to a handful of promising vendors, then go deeper.
- Request demos: Book live sessions to see the product in action.
- Send an RFI (Request for Information): Collect standard data across vendors.
- Consider an RFP (Request for Proposal): For larger or enterprise teams, issue a formal RFP. Here’s our guide to writing an ATS RFP.
- Evaluate fit: Ask about integrations with your HRMS and other tools, onboarding support, and pricing flexibility.
Step Four: Make a Business Case
Once you’ve compared vendors, it’s time to secure leadership approval. Keep your business case focused, clear, and ROI-driven.
Decision-makers want to know:
- How much will it cost?
- What problems will it solve?
- What happens if we don’t invest now?
- How long will it take to implement?
- What’s the expected ROI?
You may not know the answers to the cost question; however, seeking approval at this stage will set you up for success.
In my experience, getting stakeholder buy-in is all about clear communication and solid planning. You need to be both specific and realistic about what you expect the ATS to accomplish in terms of value and expected ROI.
Here's a business case template you can use for ATS Software:
- Executive Summary: Brief overview of the proposal, key benefits, and conclusions.
- Current Situation and Problem Statement: Description of the current state and specific challenges or problems being addressed.
- Proposed Solution and Benefits: Detailed description of the proposed solution and its expected benefits, including a cost-benefit analysis.
- Implementation Plan and Risk Assessment: Step-by-step implementation strategy, timeframe, and a summary of potential risks with mitigation plans.
- Conclusion and Recommendations: A concise summary of the business case with final recommendations for decision-makers.
Step Five: Implement and Onboard
Often, the biggest challenge is not selecting the right ATS but rather implementing it effectively. Without proper onboarding and ongoing support, even the most advanced ATS might not deliver the results you're expecting, leading to frustrated users and missed opportunities.
Tips for a smooth rollout:
- Communicate early: Announce the change, explain why it matters, and invite questions.
- Leverage vendor training: Make onboarding and training mandatory for recruiters and hiring managers.
- Assign a project lead: Designate someone to manage implementation and act as the go-to contact for feedback and issues.
- Provide resources: Share vendor help docs, FAQs, and ticketing info for support.
- Encourage adoption: Highlight how the ATS saves time, improves candidate experience, or supports better hiring decisions.
Following this 5-step process—identify needs, research vendors, shortlist, build a business case, and implement carefully—will ensure you choose an ATS that not only fits today’s requirements but scales with your future growth.
Need expert help selecting the right tool?
What’s Next:
If you're in the process of researching how to choose an applicant tracking system, connect with a SoftwareSelect advisor for free recommendations.
You fill out a form and have a quick chat where they get into the specifics of your needs. Then you'll get a shortlist of software to review. They'll even support you through the entire buying process, including price negotiations.