Recruiters worldwide currently rely on applicant tracking systems (ATS) to manage their process. But which is their favourite? A new Recruiting Brainfood survey sheds light on it.
What is an ATS?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a software application that allows employers and agencies to efficiently and effectively manage their recruitment process, candidate flow and interpersonal communication. An ATS can also help coordinate hiring teams, streamlining the hiring process and improving the experience for everyone involved. Some ATS’s are free, while most organisations use a paid version.
Which ATS do recruiters want?
Recruiters have steadily become heavy users of an ATS. And while every system is a matter of preference, Recruiting Brainfood’s Hung Lee set out to create an in-depth oversight of applicant tracking systems, as used by recruiters. He posed recruiters two questions. For a positive sentiment, he asked: ‘If you could choose one ATS, which product would it be?’. And for negative sentiment: ‘Which ATS would be a deterrent for you if you found out that it was in use in a potential new employer?’.
“It tells its own story on how fragmented the ATS market really is.”
The survey had a total of 200 applicant tracking systems nominated. The list was cut off at 30, requiring a minimum of 10 mentions (positive or negative). “It tells its own story on how fragmented the ATS market really is”, Lee commented. “We decided to display the sentiment data in a two sided bar chart, filtered by country, so you can see which products are most and least preferred for each country.”
Greenhouse’s ATS leads the way
With a whopping 497 net positive responses, Greenhouse leads the way in Recruiting Brainfood’s survey. Followed by Lever, with 201 net positive responses. SmartRecruiters, meanwhile, rounds off the top three with a total of 127 net positive responses. Respondents mainly originated from the two countries where Applicant Tracking Systems were born — and have largely been used. The United Kingdom led the survey with 451 respondents, followed by the United States with 377 respondents.
For every positive, there are negatives that have to be highlighted. In the recruiter survey, Taleo finished with the worst general ATS sentiment with a net response score of -252. Workday came off second worst, with a net response score of -140. SuccessFactors rounded off the negative top three with a net response score of -89.
Solely positive or negative scores
Some systems, remarkably, received solely positive or negative scores. TeamTailor stands out with 77 positive responses, and zero negative responses. Jobadder received 25 positive responses and zero negative responses. As did Loxo (22 responses) PageUp (12 reponses), Comeet (11 responses), RecruitCRM, LiveHire and PinPoint (all 10 responses).
On the flip-side, Excel (41 responses), Brassring (35 responses), Oracle (33 responses), Cornerstone (12 responses), Bond Adapt and Sage (10 responses) all received zero positive responses in Recruiting Brainfood’s survey.
