Choosing the perfect ATS for a growing startup
Please note that this is not a paid article.
Over the past year, the Mistplay team has more than doubled in size. We’ve been hiring nonstop — and it hasn’t been simple. As we scale our startup, there are so many considerations to keep in mind: providing a smooth onboarding process for our new team members, ensuring our culture stays supportive and fun, and maintaining a balanced organization. Doing it all during a global pandemic doesn’t make things easier. Yet, as we faced these critical challenges, our time and energy were being wasted in the wrong places.
Time to let grow
When Mistplay was still a small team, we created a minimalistic spreadsheet to keep track of our new hires. As we grew, this became unsustainable. We found ourselves spending way too much time coordinating interviews and fielding emails. It was also difficult to keep track of all our applicants, since they were scattered across a dozen different places. Spending so much time on coordination meant we weren’t able to respond to applicants quickly, which damaged their candidate experience. The tools we were using just weren’t effective — and this meant it took us longer to hire people. Ultimately, recruitment required so much attention that the Talent team couldn’t focus on any other tasks.
Finding the perfect match
Clearly, something needed to change. But with dozens of excellent services out there, how could we be sure to find the best one for our needs? Here are the steps we took to find the perfect ATS for our team:
How to choose an Applicant Tracking Service (ATS)
- The first step is to consider whether you really need an ATS, which might be an unnecessary expense for a startup with a tight budget. On the other hand, if you’re growing very quickly, it could be a wise investment.
- To pick the best ATS available, it’s important to do your research. Schedule calls with different services and come prepared with a list of questions. During your calls, you might find it helpful to create a decision table, so that you can easily compare the different attributes of each option.
- At this stage, it’s a good idea to request demos from the services that look promising, and try them out for a couple of days.
- Once you’ve narrowed it down to just a couple of providers, it’s time to negotiate! It’s a good idea to go through multiple rounds of negotiation with your top two choices. This can lead to a better price, and will also give you the opportunity to evaluate their customer service.
Questions to ask when comparing services
- How does the implementation period work? Does the timeline suit your needs?
- What kind of support does this service provide?
- What existing tools does your company already use? How does the ATS integrate with them?
- Do you feel comfortable using the system? If not, are there resources available to help you learn?
- Where are the jobs published? Will the ATS publish free jobs on key sites such as Indeed and LinkedIn?
- Does the ATS provide reports? Will it allow you to measure the KPIs you need to track?
- What does your team think?
Moving the world
As we began to learn more about the platform, Lever’s customer service representatives were instrumental in answering all of our questions in a timely manner. They were also open to negotiation, which helped us meet our budgeting needs. Choosing Lever has completely upgraded the way our team approaches recruitment. With Lever, all of our jobs are listed in one clean, centralized portal. We were able to create customized application forms for each role, which allowed us to create a more efficient, specialized candidate experience. These days, Lever takes care of coordination, and we can focus on the important stuff! We’ve broken up with our old spreadsheet, and we’re never looking back.
