Recruiting in 2025 isn’t just about finding talent: it’s about finding it faster, smarter, and with less administrative effort. That’s where recruiting software solutions such as applicant tracking systems come in!
Whether you are currently scaling up, hiring regularly, or just tired of losing track of resumes and motivation letters in your inbox, choosing the right recruiting platform can be a game-changer for your company.
But with so many options, how do you choose the best solution for your business? In this article, we will dig into the essentials to help you make the right decision.
What Is Recruiting Software?
Applicant Tracking Systems, or ATS, are recruiting software solutions that help companies manage the entire hiring process, from posting jobs to evaluating candidates, scheduling interviews and making offers.
Key features also include recruitment analytics and reports, resume parser and matchmaking functionalities. The goal of these platforms is to centralize candidate information and automate recruitment steps to save time and energy.
What Should You Look for in a Recruiting Software Solution?
No matter the size of your organization or its industry, there are essential aspects you should look for when evaluating recruiting software solutions.
1. Ease of Use
First and foremost, your recruiters and HR department should enjoy using the platform. If they dread logging into the ATS to search for candidates, that means the solution is simply not the right fit.
Your Applicant Tracking System should provide intuitive dashboards, simple workflows and clear candidate pipelines, among other essential features. Navigation between the different functionalities should also be easy for everyone.
To make the right choice in terms of user-friendliness, ask for a live demonstration of the platform and involve your hiring managers in the process. After all, they are often the ones who will use it daily.
2. Customization to Fit Your Reality
Every company recruits a little differently depending on their industry, organizational reality and seasonal context. Therefore, your recruiting solution should let you customize hiring stages, automate communication with candidates and adjust workflows by department or role.
In short, the right recruiting software should adapt to you, not the other way around!
3. Bilingual & Localized Features
Depending on where you operate, you should look for a platform that:
- Provides a bilingual interface
- Supports local labour laws
- Is compatible with local job boards
If you are in Canada, Folks ATS is built with these features in mind and provides a bilingual interface, making it a smart choice for Canadian SMBs!
4. Integration with Other Tools
Integration capabilities are crucial: your candidates will eventually become employees, and their profiles should be easily transferable to your HR software solution. Of course, integration with the most popular job boards is also a must to gain time and efficiency on a daily basis. Here are integration possibilities you should look for:
- HRIS and payroll systems
- Email and calendar tools
- Job boards such as Indeed, LinkedIn or Jobillico.
Seamless integration with these platforms means fewer errors and double entries, and less time wasted looking for or transferring information.
5. Analytics and Reporting
Ever heard the saying “what gets measured gets improved”? Recruitment is no exception to the rule. Your recruiting software should not only let you automate and streamline all the steps throughout the recruitment process, but also provide extensive analytics and reporting features.
A good ATS lets you track and analyze time-to-hire, cost-per-hire and candidate source tracking among other key metrics. This data helps you optimize recruitment strategies and justify investments in technological tools and HR action plans.
6. Candidate Experience
On top of simplifying your daily life, recruiting software solutions are meant to improve the entire candidate experience, from brand career page generation to email automation for quick and clear communication.
Your hiring tool should facilitate the application and hiring process, not make it clunkier. Make sure that the solution you choose is not only recruiter-focused, but also candidate-oriented.
7. Scalability
Just like any other investment, you should always evaluate scalability. Today, you’re hiring 5 people. Next year? Maybe you will need 50 new talents. That’s why you need to make sure your ATS can grow with you. Features that are important for this aspect are:
- Multi-user access
- Role-based permissions
- Unlimited job postings or custom pipelines
Most solutions offer different pricing packages depending on your needs. Feel free to ask the provider about it during demonstrations and meetings.
8. Support and Training
Even if you choose the most user-friendly software, you are likely to need human assistance sooner or later. Remember to evaluate support and training options when reviewing recruiting solutions. Here are important questions to ask:
- Is customer support in your time zone? Are there bilingual options available?
- Do they offer onboarding help and training resources?
- Will they effectively train your team and answer their questions in the long run?
Providers that offer proper documentation and support should be at the top of your consideration list.
Understand the ROI of Recruiting Software
Need help convincing management that your company needs a recruiting solution? No surprises here: return on investment (ROI) remains your best asset to win the argument.
Statistics support recruiting technology adoption: using Applicant Tracking Systems reduces recruiters’ workload by about 20% (which means less paid hours completing administrating tasks and filing resumes).
On the other hand, if you are still using spreadsheets or manual processes, here is what you’re actually spending:
- Extra hours spent looking for resumes = $ you cannot get back.
- Delayed roles = lost productivity and drops in motivation.
- Bad hires due to poor matchmaking = expensive replacements and useless onboarding and training costs.
- Lack of strategic visibility = repeated hiring errors that slow down your overall business success.
- Manual processes = poor candidate experience and decrease in talent attractivity.
These are the most obvious downsides of relying on manual hiring processes. If you want to focus on the real benefits of recruiting software solutions, check out our document summarizing the ROI of an ATS!
Want to invest in a powerful Applicant Tracking System with extensive reporting and analytics features, AI-powered resume parsing and effective matchmaking features? Discover more about Folks ATS by downloading our complete guide!
And if you simply want to optimize your hiring strategies, we’ve got you covered: our recruitment ebook is a must-have to be on top of your recruiting game.
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