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ATS

An applicant tracking system for managing jobs, candidates, hiring stages, and recruiting workflows.

technicalPublished 2026/06/06Last verified 2026/06/06

FAQs

Is an ATS the same as recruiting CRM?
No. An ATS usually manages active hiring workflows, while recruiting CRM focuses more on talent pipelines and candidate nurturing before an application.

Related Terms

  • Applicant Tracking

    The workflow for recording candidates, applications, stages, decisions, and hiring activity across open roles.

  • Candidate Experience

    The quality of a candidate's interactions with an employer during sourcing, application, interviews, and offers.

  • Time to Hire

    A recruiting metric that measures how long it takes to move a candidate from application or contact to hire.

Related Items

  • Greenhouse

    Applicant tracking and structured hiring platform for recruiting teams, interview plans, and hiring operations.

  • Lever

    Recruiting platform with ATS and CRM workflows for candidate pipelines, collaboration, and hiring operations.

  • Workable

    Recruiting software for applicant tracking, job posting, candidate evaluation, and hiring workflows.

  • Ashby

    Recruiting platform for ATS, CRM, scheduling, analytics, and hiring team collaboration workflows.

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What it means

ATS stands for applicant tracking system. In HR software buying, it usually means the system of record for open roles, applications, candidate status, interview stages, and hiring team activity.

Buyer checks

  • Confirm how jobs, candidates, stages, and approvals are modeled.
  • Check reporting for time to hire, pipeline health, and source performance.
  • Review integrations with job boards, background checks, HRIS, and onboarding tools.

An ATS should make hiring operations easier to audit, not just store resumes.