What is an Applicant Tracking System and How Does It Work?
You don’t know what is an applicant tracking system?
Still Handling Job Applications Manually? You’re Already Behind.
Managing resumes in spreadsheets, emails, and folders? Then you’re already several steps behind your competitors, even if you don’t realize it yet.
Hiring today is no longer about just posting a job and waiting for candidates. It’s about speed, structure, and scale. If you’re struggling to manage applicants, losing good candidates, or feeling overwhelmed by hiring chaos, don’t worry, you’re not alone.
What is an Applicant Tracking System, and why has it become essential for modern recruitment?
If that question is on your mind, you’re in the right place. In this guide, what is an applicant tracking system, how it works, why businesses rely on it, and how to choose the right one.
What is an Applicant Tracking System?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is intelligent recruitment software that helps businesses manage, track, and optimize their entire hiring process, from job posting to final selection.
Instead of handling candidates manually, an ATS centralizes all hiring data in one platform. Recruiters can collect resumes, screen applicants, schedule interviews, collaborate with hiring managers, and analyze hiring performance without chaos or confusion.
According to FullSight, 94% of recruiters say that using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) has significantly improved their hiring efficiency, helping streamline workflows and speed up recruitment processes.
That’s the reason why organizations are moving fast towards ATS & learning what is an applicant tracking system.
Hiring Without ATS vs Hiring With ATS
To truly understand what an Applicant Tracking System is, let’s compare two hiring scenarios.
Hiring Without an ATS
Imagine a growing tech company hiring 5 developers. Within days, 500 applications arrive via email and job portals. The recruiter manually downloads resumes, creates folders, and tracks candidates in spreadsheets.
Follow-ups are missed, interview feedback is scattered, and strong candidates drop off due to delays. This chaos is common when teams don’t fully understand what is an Applicant Tracking System and rely on manual hiring.
Hiring With an ATS
Now, picture the same hiring process with an ATS. All 500 applications come through one structured form. Resumes are automatically parsed, shortlisted, and tracked in real time. Interviews are scheduled faster, feedback is centralized, and every candidate’s status is visible. This simple shift shows what is an Applicant Tracking System and why it has become essential for modern recruitment.
How an Applicant Tracking System Works
Confused about what an Applicant Tracking System and how it actually works in real hiring scenarios? Let’s look at a practical example.
Suppose you’re setting up a new company office in Indore and need to hire for 50 different roles, including developers, sales executives, HR, support staff, and managers. Within days, you receive thousands of applications from multiple job portals.
Now you have decided to manage this process using Hirium ATS, a popular hiring platform in India. Each job role is created once and published across job boards and the company’s career page instantly. All applications are collected in a single dashboard, where resumes are automatically parsed and structured.
The system highlights relevant candidates based on skills and experience, tracks every applicant’s stage in real time, automates interview scheduling, and centralizes feedback from hiring managers.
This is exactly what is an Applicant Tracking System: it transforms complex, high-volume hiring into a structured, transparent, and predictable process that scales with business growth.
Understanding What Is an Applicant Tracking System With Key Features
If you’re still unsure what is an Applicant Tracking System, the simplest way to understand it is to see how it handles hiring at scale. Let dive into its key features for a better understanding:
Centralized Job Posting
Recruiters publish a job once and distribute it across job boards and career pages. For example, a single developer role can be posted simultaneously on LinkedIn, Indeed, and the company website without manual duplication.
Resume Parsing and Candidate Profiling
The system automatically extracts skills, experience, and education from resumes and converts them into searchable profiles. This allows recruiters to instantly find candidates with “Java + 3 years experience” instead of manually scanning files.
Smart Screening and Shortlisting
Filters or AI logic shortlist candidates who best match the job criteria. For high-volume hiring frameworks, this reduces screening time from days to minutes while maintaining consistency.
Candidate Pipeline Visibility
Each applicant moves through defined stages like Applied, Shortlisted, Interviewed, or Offered. Hiring teams always know who is stuck, progressing, or ready for a decision.
Interview Scheduling and Communication
Automated emails, calendar integrations, and reminders eliminate back-and-forth coordination. For example, candidates can self-select interview slots based on recruiter availability.
Collaborative Hiring and Feedback
Hiring managers and interviewers add feedback, ratings, and notes directly in the system, ensuring faster and more informed decisions.
Reports and Hiring Insights
Dashboards show hiring progress and bottlenecks, helping teams optimize future recruitment strategies based on real data.
Security, Compliance & Scalability
Candidate data is stored securely, access is role-based, and the system scales as hiring volume grows, critical for fast-expanding teams.
Why Businesses Have Shifted to ATS-Based Hiring
To truly understand what is an Applicant Tracking System, you need to look at why companies across industries are moving away from manual hiring. Here are the key reasons for this switch:
Faster Hiring Cycles and Reduced Delays
One of the biggest reasons businesses adopt ATS platforms is speed. Automated resume screening, instant shortlisting, and interview scheduling drastically reduce delays. For example, instead of taking weeks to review 500 resumes manually, recruiters can shortlist qualified candidates within hours and cut hiring timelines significantly.
Higher Hiring Accuracy and Better Decisions
Understanding what is an Applicant Tracking System also means recognizing how it improves hiring quality. Structured workflows, standardized evaluation criteria, and centralized feedback reduce subjective decisions. This ensures candidates are assessed fairly and consistently, especially when multiple interviewers are involved in the process.
Improved Candidate Experience and Communication
ATS platforms enhance the candidate journey by ensuring timely communication at every stage. Automated acknowledgments, interview updates, and status notifications prevent candidates from feeling ignored. For instance, applicants instantly know whether they are shortlisted or rejected, which builds trust and professionalism.
Scalable Hiring Without Adding Recruiter Burden
As organizations grow, hiring volumes increase, but recruiter capacity often doesn’t. ATS platforms scale effortlessly, allowing companies to manage hundreds or thousands of applications without increasing HR headcount. This scalability is a core reason enterprises and fast-growing startups rely on ATS-driven hiring models.
Time and Cost Savings Through Automation
When businesses understand what is an Applicant Tracking System, cost efficiency becomes clear. Automation eliminates repetitive tasks like resume sorting, follow-ups, and interview coordination, saving time to hire. This reduces reliance on external agencies and saves both recruiter hours and hiring costs over time.
Better Talent Quality Through Structured Screening
ATS-based hiring ensures only relevant candidates move forward. Keyword matching, skill filters, and experience-based screening help recruiters focus on quality over quantity. For example, a tech role can automatically surface candidates with the required stack, avoiding irrelevant profiles entirely.
Data-Driven and Measurable Hiring Outcomes
Hiring decisions become measurable with ATS dashboards and reports. Recruiters can track pipeline performance, identify drop-off points, and improve outcomes over time. Recruitment Metrics-driven hiring helps organizations continuously refine strategies instead of relying on guesswork.
Stronger Employer Brand and Professional Image
A smooth, transparent hiring process reflects positively on the employer brand. Candidates associate structured recruitment with organizational maturity. Even rejected applicants are more likely to speak positively about companies that use professional ATS-driven hiring workflows.
How to Know If Your Organization Needs an ATS
Many growing companies struggle to decide when to adopt recruitment technology. Understanding what is an Applicant Tracking System and how it fits into your hiring workflow can make that decision much clearer.
Your organization likely needs an ATS if you notice the following challenges becoming frequent and difficult to manage:
-
You receive a consistently high volume of applications for every open role
When hundreds of resumes arrive for a single position, manual screening becomes slow, unstructured, and difficult to manage efficiently. -
Your hiring team is small, but recruitment demand is increasing rapidly
Without automation, a lean HR team often struggles to maintain hiring speed and quality across multiple roles. -
Qualified candidates drop off because of delayed responses and follow-ups
Slow communication negatively impacts candidate experience and increases the risk of losing top talent to competitors. -
Hiring decisions lack visibility, documentation, and structured evaluation processes
Teams often lose track of candidates and feedback when hiring data is spread across emails and spreadsheets. -
Recruitment efforts feel reactive instead of planned, data-driven, and strategic
This is usually a sign that understanding what is an Applicant Tracking System and adopting one could bring clarity and control. -
You operate in a high-volume hiring environment with tight deadlines and competition
Scaling hiring without additional recruiters becomes nearly impossible without a centralized system.
How to Select the Best Applicant Tracking System
Before investing in any hiring tool, it’s important to first understand what is an Applicant Tracking System and how it fits into your organization’s real hiring workflows.
Selecting the right ATS should be a strategic, long-term decision, not an impulse purchase driven by feature lists or pricing alone. Here is how you need to do so
Look for Demo Trials to Test Real Hiring Scenarios
A demo trial gives clarity on how the ATS performs in practical situations like posting jobs, screening resumes, and coordinating interviews. It helps hiring teams experience daily workflows and identify usability gaps early. Tools that offer hands-on trials usually inspire higher confidence and smoother adoption across recruiters and hiring managers.
Evaluate Feature Depth and Meaningful Automation
Not every ATS delivers the same level of automation. Beyond resume storage, assess whether the system automates screening, interview scheduling, communication, and reporting. A strong ATS should eliminate repetitive tasks while supporting structured hiring processes that scale with business growth.
Prioritize Simplicity for Faster Team Adoption
Even the most powerful ATS can fail if recruiters find it difficult to use. Simple interfaces, intuitive dashboards, and minimal training requirements drive higher adoption. When teams clearly understand what is an Applicant Tracking System supposed to do for them, ease of use becomes a critical success factor.
Compare ATS Options Based on Business Needs
Instead of choosing the most popular platform, compare alternatives based on your company size, hiring volume, and future plans. Reading comparison articles and user reviews helps uncover real-world pros and cons, ensuring the ATS aligns with your recruitment strategy over the long term.
Analyze Cost Versus Long-Term Value
Pricing should be evaluated alongside efficiency gains, reduced hiring delays, and scalability. A slightly higher upfront cost may deliver better returns if the ATS improves recruiter productivity, reduces dependency on external agencies, and supports sustained hiring growth.
Wrapping Up: What is an Applicant Tracking System
Understanding what is an Applicant Tracking System is no longer optional for growing businesses. Hiring has become faster, more competitive, and more complex, and manual processes simply can’t keep up.
An ATS brings structure, speed, and clarity to recruitment. Whether you’re a startup building your first team or an enterprise managing large-scale hiring, you need to analyze the necessity of the ATS. The right ATS can transform recruitment from chaos into a competitive advantage.
FAQs
1. What is an Applicant Tracking System?
An ATS is software that manages job applications, candidate screening, interviews, and hiring workflows.
2. What are the key features of an ATS?
Resume parsing, automation, candidate tracking, collaboration tools, and analytics.
3. How much does an ATS cost?
Pricing varies based on features and team size, from affordable plans to enterprise subscriptions.
4. Can large companies build their own ATS?
Yes, but custom ATS development is costly and requires ongoing maintenance and compliance updates.
5. What factors should be considered when selecting an ATS?
Ease of use, automation, scalability, reporting, support, security, and demo availability.
6. What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and how does it work?
An ATS is software that helps companies manage hiring by collecting and organizing applications, screening resumes, and tracking candidates through each stage of the recruitment process.