Applicant tracking systems (otherwise known as an ATS) have never been so needed to streamline recruitment in today’s talent-driven and remote working landscape. As organisations compete for skilled workers and hire across distributed teams, the need for structured applicant tracking system recruitment software has grown rapidly.
But what exactly does an ATS do – and what are the benefits of using an applicant tracking system for businesses managing modern hiring processes?
What is an applicant tracking system?
An applicant tracking system or ATS is just a fancier name for hiring technology. It allows you to connect to multiple job boards and increases your chances of finding the best skilled talent by utilising keywords to filter job applications based on your job posting requirements. It also provides a centralised place to track and communicate with candidates as they progress through the recruitment pipeline.
In simple terms, an applicant tracking system is recruitment software that manages the entire hiring process, from posting a job advertisement through to selecting a successful candidate. Many businesses use ATS hiring software to organise applications, automate communication with candidates, and ensure hiring teams stay aligned throughout the recruitment process.
In practical terms, an ATS acts as the operating system for recruitment. It stores candidate profiles, manages applications, and organises hiring activity across your organisation in a structured, auditable way. For companies handling dozens, or even hundreds, of applications per vacancy, this kind of centralised platform helps prevent administrative bottlenecks and improves visibility across the entire hiring pipeline.
Modern applicant tracking systems also help organisations maintain stronger hiring governance. Because candidate information, communication, and decisions are stored in one place, HR teams can ensure processes are applied consistently – an important consideration when complying with employment regulations and internal hiring policies.
Platforms such as Xemplo Hire, which forms part of the broader Xemplo workforce management ecosystem, extend this functionality even further by connecting recruitment with onboarding, HR administration, and compliance management within a single environment. Xemplo itself is a workforce management platform designed to support the full employee lifecycle – from sourcing talent through onboarding, payroll, training, and compliance tracking.
This kind of end-to-end integration means that information captured during recruitment can seamlessly move into the next stages of employment, eliminating duplicated data entry and helping HR teams maintain a consistent record of employee information across systems.
Do I need an ATS if I’m not a recruiter?
Applicant tracking systems aren’t just for recruiters. An ATS can transform your in-house hiring processes by making them a whole lot more efficient. They can filter through hundreds of applicants, ranking candidates on how suitable they are for the role. Think of the time that can save!
For hiring managers and internal HR teams, an ATS also introduces structure into what can otherwise become a fragmented process. Email threads, spreadsheets, and shared folders quickly become difficult to manage once applications start arriving in high volume. An ATS consolidates these activities in a single interface where each candidate’s application, documents, interview notes, and communications are linked to a single profile.
Because of this, many organisations adopt applicant tracking systems for small business hiring teams, internal HR departments, and fast-growing companies that need scalable recruitment technology without relying on external recruiters.
This structured approach supports better collaboration between hiring managers, HR teams, and interview panels. Permissions and workflows ensure that everyone involved in the hiring process can contribute feedback, review candidates, and make informed decisions without losing track of where each applicant sits in the pipeline.
For organisations operating across multiple locations or jurisdictions – something increasingly common with remote and hybrid workforces – this centralised system becomes even more valuable.
Let’s break down what exactly a good ATS (like Xemplo Hire) can do for you.
Create job ads that sing
Xemplo can pull existing position descriptions and responsibilities directly from your HR database, providing the perfect base to creating job advertisements that attract star talent.
Beyond simply generating advertisements, many applicant tracking systems also support templated job descriptions and approval workflows. This ensures roles are advertised with consistent language, appropriate requirements, and accurate responsibilities – something particularly important in regulated industries, or organisations with strict job classification frameworks.
Creating structured job advertisements is also important for ATS-friendly job descriptions, which improve the way recruitment software organises and categorises incoming applications.
Structured job advertisements also help improve candidate matching. When responsibilities, skills, and qualifications are clearly defined in the system, the ATS can more effectively organise incoming applications and surface candidates whose experience aligns with the requirements of the role.
Post to job boards
You want to make you’ve cast the net wide to reach the right prospects. Using one single interface, and with one click, you can send a job posting live across multiple job boards such as SEEK, Indeed, and LinkedIn.
Many organisations adopt an applicant tracking system with job board integration because it eliminates the need to manually post roles across multiple recruitment platforms.
This multi-channel distribution is a key reason organisations adopt applicant tracking systems. Rather than manually posting vacancies on each platform, recruiters can publish a role across several job boards simultaneously while tracking application sources from one dashboard.
The added benefit is visibility. By capturing where each application originated, HR teams gain insight into which channels consistently deliver strong candidates. This information becomes valuable when refining future recruitment strategies, or allocating advertising budgets.
Create talent pools
Resume parsing extracts key information and selection criteria from applications as they come in, filtering and grouping candidates into talent pools for your fast review, and creating instant profiles with all their information attached.
Resume parsing technology analyses key details within a CV – such as employment history, qualifications, certifications, and skills – and converts them into structured candidate profiles within the ATS. This allows hiring teams to search, filter, and categorise candidates quickly.
This is one of the most widely used features of recruitment automation software, helping HR teams quickly identify candidates whose experience matches the requirements of the role.
Talent pooling becomes particularly valuable for organisations with recurring hiring needs. Instead of starting each recruitment campaign from scratch, recruiters can revisit previous applicants who may already meet the requirements of new roles.
Over time, this creates a growing internal talent database that can significantly shorten recruitment timelines.
Manage candidates
An ATS helps you track candidates as they progress through shortlisting, interview rounds, final selections, and reference checks. You can set up automated communication workflows to keep candidates informed as they move through each stage, notifying unsuccessful candidates, scheduling interviews with front runners, and extending an offer to the successful talent.
Remember, the employee experience starts in the hiring process. If you can deliver an informed candidate experience with clear communication at each step, you’ve already started establishing yourself as a reputable employer.
Many companies rely on ATS candidate management tools to ensure each applicant receives consistent communication throughout the recruitment process.
Structured candidate management also improves transparency. Hiring teams can quickly see where each candidate sits in the recruitment pipeline, and what actions need to be taken next – whether that involves scheduling an interview, collecting documentation, or conducting background checks.
Manage hiring teams
A good ATS should have the ability to also keep your own people informed. Status alerts and candidate data can be pushed to hiring teams with customised permissions, defining tasks or actions they need to complete, and inviting interview feedback on candidates in-app instantly.
This functionality is especially valuable for organisations adopting collaborative hiring software, where multiple managers participate in interviews and decision-making.
For larger organisations, this collaborative functionality is essential. Interview panels may include managers from different teams, HR representatives, or subject matter experts. An ATS ensures that feedback is captured consistently and stored alongside the candidate’s profile.
Efficient onboarding
Xemplo Hire is an integrated part of a wider HCM platform that includes HR and onboarding. This means you can introduce further efficiencies by automatically feeding your new starter’s information into a contract, and initiate onboarding, all in the same platform.
Because Xemplo is designed as an end-to-end workforce management solution, candidate data collected during recruitment can flow directly into onboarding workflows, payroll systems, and compliance records.
This integration is particularly valuable for organisations looking for applicant tracking systems with onboarding software, allowing HR teams to transition candidates directly into employment without duplicating administrative work.
Still unsure as to whether an applicant tracking system is for you?
Here are a few more benefits and considerations…
Unplaced skilled talent doesn’t need to go to waste
Once a recruitment drive ends, leading applicants are typically pushed to the side and forgotten. But these stars should be kept on file in the event your first-choice applicant doesn’t turn out as expected.
Xemplo Hire lets you keep great candidate applications saved in talent pools for future opportunities, saving you time later, and minimising your overall hiring costs from re-posting an ad.
Maintaining a structured database of past candidates also helps organisations build relationships with potential future hires.
This approach is often described as building a candidate talent pipeline, a common strategy used by organisations that hire frequently or operate in competitive labour markets.
Cost-efficiency
The average cost per hire sits at just over $4,000 while the average time to fill a vacant position is 42 days (depending obviously on the type of role).
Bringing an ATS into your operations can help reduce this average cost per hire by equipping you with all the tools to manage the end-to-end recruitment journey as efficiently and easily as possible.
Organisations implementing ATS recruitment software for small and mid-sized businesses often report improvements in hiring speed, communication, and administrative efficiency.
Recruitment intelligence
By drilling into your technology’s recruitment analytics, you can see which channels delivered the best quality candidates to inform future talent drives.
Most modern applicant tracking systems offer reporting dashboards that track metrics such as:
- Time to hire
- Source of hire
- Application-to-interview ratios
- Candidate drop-off rates
- Hiring team activity
These insights help organisations make more informed decisions about their recruitment strategies, and identify opportunities to improve efficiency across hiring processes.
Hiring remote or global teams
With remote teams now becoming much more common, the ability to source talent across multiple jurisdictions is imperative. Xemplo Hire’s global job board capabilities allow you to use a recruiter, or hire directly, supporting all your recruitment activities to meet in-country legal requirements and hire overseas employees in your business.
For companies building distributed workforces, adopting an ATS for remote hiring and global recruitment can simplify the process of managing applicants from multiple locations.
You can give all your recruiting parties access to Xemplo and have them co-exist in the one environment – which is pretty unique in the ATS tech space.
Because Xemplo also supports broader workforce compliance management, businesses hiring across borders can manage onboarding documentation, work rights verification, as well as employment records in a centralised system. This becomes increasingly important when navigating different labour laws and employment frameworks across countries.
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