Applicant Tracking Systems are essential for any modern recruiter, but they don’t come without their own major pain points. Things like clunky interfaces, flawed search functionality, and little automation make these essential tools frustrating to use, especially when you’re staring at them for 8 hours or more a day! It often seems like someone who has never recruited before is the one designing these platforms and telling recruiters what they want instead of asking them.

Whenever you meet another recruiter for coffee you know the first thing they’re bringing up about work is how much they hate their ATS platform. Let’s dig a little deeper into some of these topics and talk about the core problems with the current landscape of ATS platforms and maybe even a new and innovative solution!

Poor and Outdated User Experience (UX)

Poor and outdated user experience (UX) is the most frustrating part about modern ATS. General navigation can be unintuitive, with a myriad of clicks required just to get to something as simple as a candidate’s resume which often isn’t even the focal point of a candidate’s profile within the interface. The majority of the time you’re going to a candidate’s profile for two reasons: either to get contact information or to review their resume. Any platform that doesn’t make these a focal point has already failed in the UX department.

Another extremely common trait of the UX for these platforms is load times. You’ll just get these off-days where things are incredibly slow to load and immediately take you out of your workflow. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting three or four times as long as usual just to load a new candidate search! It’s no wonder the majority of recruiters go back to things like Excel for certain aspects because you know that you can easily customize the layout and prioritize information while also loading almost instantaneously!

Inconsistent and Ineffective Search Functionality

The search functionality varies greatly in both speed and usefulness. Boolean search functionality is a standard, but it can be a learning curve for newer recruiters or the less tech-savvy. Most are defined simply by keywords and lack the semantics needed for precise searches. They often can’t determine the difference between a truly good match and a resume loaded with keywords to trick the ATS. There are even AI services out right now to do exactly that for candidates so ATS will rank their profiles higher.

On top of that, poor filtering leads to constantly going through outdated or even duplicate profiles. Everyone has that one candidate that keeps coming up in their searches, but they know they won’t be contacting them anytime soon.

No True Ranking System

These platforms are missing a true ranking system. Something that doesn’t solely utilize binary filters to arbitrarily rule out candidates. Have you ever set the “years of experience” filter on and later found an excellent candidate hiding behind that filter? These systems are inherently flawed when dealing with the organization of people with drastically different backgrounds and ideas on what a resume should look like or contain. A true ranking system would be able to reflect an individual’s entire skill set and compare it against others.

Lack of True Automation

What these platforms advertise to have, yet also seem to inherently lack, is true automation. Most recruiters rely on external resources, Excel sheets, or other third-party tools to help with the more repetitive tasks. Sure, you can mass-reply denial emails, but what about customized tasks for follow-ups or even interview scheduling? These things need manual input and are often what your average recruiter is doing for the majority of their day. Imagine how much extra time you’d have for more critical tasks if you never had to worry about scheduling manually ever again? Almost the entire workflow is still manual, when almost every aspect of it could be automated, letting recruiters focus on the candidates instead of the mundane.

Clunky External Integrations

They also spout great external integration with things like email, calendars, or LinkedIn, but these things are so often extremely limited or entirely too clunky. There’s a lack of flexibility with adjusting calendar automation, clunky internal email tools (when you’d rather just open Outlook than ever even look at the internal ATS email user interface), and slow or non-functional LinkedIn integration. They seem to simply add these features as a way to advertise that they have them but once you actually get your hands on them you realize how shallow the features are. And you know with these platforms like Workday or Bullhorn that you won’t be seeing updates to them anytime soon!

The Hidden Cost of Inefficiency

When recruiters are stuck navigating broken search tools or spending hours on manual outreach, the cost isn’t just time, it’s lost hires. Top candidates drop off when communication is delayed or job matching is slow. Every extra step in the ATS is a risk as someone might get missed, drop off, or disengage.

Beyond the recruiter’s own frustration, there’s a reputational risk to the company. If your hiring process is slow or disjointed, candidates notice. A bad user experience for recruiters often means a bad experience for our candidates too.

Conclusion

While essential for your everyday use as a recruiter, it’s clear that there are glaring issues with modern day ATS platforms. There is a lack of innovation in the space, and current industry leaders are able to get away with barebones support, infrequent updates, and incomplete features. If you task me with choosing between one of these ATS platforms or going entirely manual, I’ll choose the lesser evil ATS because I know how essential the basic functionality is but I won’t be too happy about it.

They’re missing streamlined and intuitive UX, a true ranking search functionality, and simple yet effective automation. There needs to be a new and innovative leader in the space to draw out competition and make our lives as recruiters easier—because believe me, we need it!