Applicant tracking systems – Guide 2024

The recruitment process often involves a great effort. Earlier, we needed large HR departments to find potential candidates and handle the mass applications. Today, it is the norm to use applicant management tools to streamline these processes. These tools are no substitute for a good HR department, but they take over administrative tasks such as sending automated rejection emails - making the everyday tasks of recruiters easier. But what is the difference between the various applicant management tools? Which ones fit your needs the most? We will tackle these questions in the following article.

What is an applicant tracking system, and what does it do?

The main aim of an applicant management tool is to support the recruitment process. The goal is to centralize this process, speed it up and make it easier. The software digitally maps the recruiting process and offers solutions to the recruiter's daily routine tasks. Applicant management tools are necessary to make the hiring process more efficient. In this way, companies contribute to employer branding as it appeals to candidates when the application process is straightforward and fast.

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Applicant management tools are often referred to by their English abbreviation ATS.

How can an ATS support our HR department?

Since there are a lot of applicant tracking systems in the market, they also bring a lot of different functions with them. Every company should check which ATS function they require and compare to see which applicant tracking systems fulfill their needs. We will show you different types of applicant tracking software and then compare them to help you make the right choice.

According to a study by Staufenbiel Institute & Kienbaum from 2016, the below data shows the most frequently used functions of applicant management software:

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By centralizing all the data involved in the application process, one of the ways to filter efficient applicant acquisition channels is through metrics. That means the company can see which job platform performs best if job postings are shared on multiple job boards (Multiposting).

Are there any free applicant tracking systems?

There are several ways to get applicant tracking software for free. One of them is SmartRecruiters, which offers StartSmart, a free version that is especially suitable for startups and smaller companies. Besides the limited functionality, it allows up to 10 active job postings at a time.

In case you didn't know:

MoBerries offers seamless integration with SmartRecruiters. That means MoBerries applicants are imported directly into your SmartRecruiters system, saving you the time of learning a new interface.

In smaller companies, the Excel tool offers another option for applicant management. The free spreadsheet software from Microsoft offers the function to manage application processes with a lot of effort. Applicants can be entered and sorted manually, but this is very time-consuming and difficult to implement with a high number of applications. Additionally, the selection of functions is very limited and restricted to the most necessary. Nevertheless, Excel offers a real alternative to costly tools - especially for companies in the start-up phase.

Which paid applicant tracking system suits my needs?

To simplify this process, MoBerries have compared various paid applicant tracking systems and their features and presented them in a small overview for you:

Personio

• Recruiting, HR management, and payroll in one tool.
• It is integrated nearly with 500 job boards.
• Detailed reports and analysis
• Individual prices depend on company size, starting price at 94,05€ (limited functions and no recruiting)

Recruitee

• It can create Career pages and effortless management of jobs, candidates, and the recruitment team.
• Is integrated into over 1.250 job boards.
• Clear reporting dashboards
• Basic package from 166€ per month

Greenhouse.io

• Easy integration of new employees
• Extensive feedback functions, including from newly hired employees, to improve processes
• Access to and optimization of job offers on more than 1.000 job boards
• Individual prices on request

Workable

• Thousands of recruiting templates and tutorials 
• Provides automated compliance features to keep your company on the right side of regional and international law when recruiting.
• Easy to connect with LinkedIn, Google, Indeed, Facebook, and over 70 other popular apps and tools.
• Basic package from approx. 84€ per month

Lever

• It prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion. Collecting data, it generated reports to provide an overview of the diversity of past and current talent pools.
• Personalize communications (E-Mails) for every candidate
• Intuitive tools like scheduling and collecting interview feedback
• Individual prices on request

Info:

MoBerries is compatible with the above and further applicant tracking systems via a simple and easy integration. MoBerries offers intelligent filtering and AI-based candidate suggestions that match your needs.

Important aspects that every ATS should include are customizability, ease of use, free support, fast service, the possibility of a free demo, a cloud solution, and legal security.

We recommend that you make use of any demonstration of the software, as offered by most applicant tracking systems. This way, you can test if your needs really match the features of the software in practice.

MoBerries - The perfect link between ATS and applicant search

MoBerries is the perfect partner for any applicant tracking system available in the market. Through the simple integration with company-selected ATS, MoBerries offers an uncomplicated recruiting option that efficiently brings companies and applicants together. Through this integration, MoBerries suggests only candidates that match the job posting by the companies, and various filter functions immensely simplify the application process. 

MoBerries can also be used independently without ATS integration. This is especially beneficial for smaller companies that are looking for suitable candidates and do not have the budget for larger ATS systems.

Finally, companies can use the MoBerries Monetization feature to build their talent pool by adding non-hired candidates to their talent pool by recommending them to MoBerries. By recommending these candidates to other companies, the company earns rewards that can reduce hiring costs on MoBerries.