Glossary
Applicant tracking system (ATS)
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that stores job openings, applications and records about each applicant, and tracks where each applicant is in the hiring process.
An ATS is the main place a company keeps its hiring records. Job posts are created there, applications arrive there, applicants are moved from one step to the next, and every decision is recorded.
What an ATS usually does
- Posts jobs to your company’s careers page and to job sites.
- Collects applications, including résumés and form answers.
- Tracks each applicant’s step, such as applied, first checks, interviewing, offer, hired.
- Stores notes and feedback from interviewers.
- Sends emails to applicants, often from templates.
- Reports on numbers such as how many applied, how long hiring takes and where applicants came from.
- Keeps records in case the company needs to show it followed the law.
What it usually doesn’t do
Most ATS products are built to organize applicants, not to judge them in depth. They can apply knockout questions and filters that search résumés for keywords, but they don’t interview anyone or rate spoken answers. Teams add separate tools for tests, scheduling and interviews, then bring the results back into the ATS.
Common myths
- “The ATS rejects most résumés automatically.” Only if it’s set up to. Many automatic rejections come from knockout questions or filters that someone on the team created.
- “You need special formatting to get past the ATS.” The software reads clean, simple résumés correctly. Tricks like hidden keywords mostly annoy the people who read the résumé later.
- “A new ATS will fix our hiring.” It will organize whatever process you have, good or bad.
Choosing and using one
If you hire only a handful of people a year, a spreadsheet or a simple tracker may be enough. Once several people are involved in hiring, or you’re hiring all the time, an ATS pays for itself: fewer applicants get lost, and you have a clearer record.
Make sure the steps in the system match what actually happens. If “Screening” means three different things on three different teams, the reports won’t mean much.
How interview tools fit in
A pre-screening or AI interview tool usually sits between “applied” and “interviewing.” Its results either flow into the ATS automatically through a built-in connection (an integration) or are moved across by exporting a file. LessRounds has no built-in ATS integrations. Instead, it can send each result to other tools with webhooks and an API, which automation tools like Make and n8n can pass on to an ATS. Results can also be exported as a CSV file, which opens in any spreadsheet, and imported from there.