Recruitment in 2025 is multifaceted, driven by economic shifts, talent shortages, and rapid technological advancements. The ManpowerGroup Talent Shortage Survey 2025 indicates that 74% of employers face challenges in filling essential positions. This is particularly true in sectors such as healthcare, technology, and skilled trades. [1] Here are the common problems recruiters face during recruitment, and we will explore the applicant tracking system benefits that can help solve these challenges effectively.
Common Problems Facing Recruiters
Time and Resources
Recruiters face pressure to fill roles quickly due to costly delays and operational impacts. Administrative tasks like scheduling interviews become especially time-consuming when handling hundreds or even thousands of applications. With an average of 200 applicants per job, time management is a major challenge. 55% of HR leaders report feeling overwhelmed by excessive data, according to Gartner. [2]
Finding Quality Candidates
Finding skilled candidates is increasingly difficult in a competitive and saturated market. In 2025, 87% of companies face talent shortages, especially in healthcare, tech, and engineering. [3]
Hiring Manager Expectations
Hiring managers often want fast results but may delay feedback or set unrealistic standards, particularly in technical roles. These delays can strain collaboration with recruiters.
Communication
In 2025, poor communications during recruitment remain a challenge: 69% of HR professionals report ongoing recruitment difficulties. [4] Consistent feedback loops and collaborative tools are essential to reducing friction and improving hiring outcomes.
How an ATS Can Help Benefit Your Recruitment Efforts
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a digital solution designed to make recruiters' lives easier. As a basic introduction to the system, it helps recruiters filter resumes, select top-qualified candidates, and handle time-consuming manual tasks like documentation. In a nutshell, an ATS provides the tools to manage recruitment operations from sourcing to onboarding. Here's how these powerful systems are transforming the recruitment landscape:
Time Saving
Manually sorting through resumes wastes hours, especially when over half aren’t even relevant. An ATS like Manatal filters out unqualified applicants fast, helping you build better shortlists in less time. What once took days can now be done in hours.
More time for what matters: building candidate relationships, aligning with hiring managers, and closing roles faster.
Using AI to leapfrog ahead
Designed for in-house teams and agencies, Manatal offers end-to-end candidate management with features like AI-powered resume parsing, candidate recommendations, and scoring, saving valuable time for recruiters to focus on what they do best.
Quality Candidates
You’ve likely faced it: 200 applications come in, and maybe five are worth a second look. The real challenge isn’t volume—it’s identifying quality in the clutter.
Resumes alone rarely tell the full story, and manually screening every applicant is a drain on your time and focus.
That’s where smarter sourcing makes a difference. With AI matching, you can instantly align candidates to job requirements based on skills and experience. Built-in assessments help filter out unqualified applicants before they hit your shortlist, so you spend less time sorting and more time hiring the right people.
Efficient Operations
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) offers a variety of features designed to enhance efficient operations in the recruitment process. These features streamline workflows, reduce manual effort, improve collaboration, and ensure a faster, more organized hiring process. Below is a comprehensive list of key features in Manatal that contribute to efficient operations:
Automation of Repetitive Tasks
- Automated Workflows: Automates routine tasks such as sending notifications, updating statuses, or triggering follow-ups based on predefined rules.
Collaboration and Team Communication
- Shared Candidate Profiles: Allows real-time access and updates for team alignment.
- Commenting and Feedback Features: Allows recruiters to leave notes and share feedback on candidate profiles, speeding up collaborative decision-making.
- Task Assignments: Assign tasks like reviewing applications or scheduling interviews to team members, improving accountability, and workflow efficiency.
Data Management
ATS technologies utilize artificial intelligence to identify top talent hidden within candidate databases. By swiftly pinpointing the most qualified individuals, the quality of hiring improves, as does the time to hire. Manatal offers a searchable repository of candidate profiles, consolidating all pertinent information in one location. This database benefits not only current vacancies but also future roles, allowing recruiters to revisit qualified candidates swiftly when new opportunities emerge.
Centralized Data Management
- Unified Candidate Database: Stores all candidate information in one accessible location, reducing data fragmentation and search time.
- Duplicate Candidate Detection: Identifies and merges duplicate profiles automatically, preventing redundant work.
- Advanced Search and Filtering: Offers tools like Quick Search, Boolean Search, and candidate tags for fast and precise retrieval of candidate data.
Data Security and Access Control
- Manatal includes data security features like encryption and role-based access to safeguard candidate and employee data. This ensures only authorized users can access sensitive information, maintaining data integrity and confidentiality
Conclusion
In summary, an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) revolutionizes recruitment by saving time, enhancing candidate quality, and streamlining operations, key to thriving in 2025’s competitive hiring landscape. Its features are specifically designed to optimize the recruiting process by centralizing information into a single platform while keeping all concerned individuals in continuous connection.
If your quest is to boost your productivity and elevate the hiring process with advanced technology while offering a higher quality of experience to both your candidates, an Applicant Tracking System is your answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) integrate with other HR software?
A: An ATS typically integrates with other HR software through:
- API connections that enable data sharing with HRIS platforms
- Pre-built integrations with background check providers
- Single sign-on capabilities with corporate authentication systems
- Bidirectional syncing with onboarding software
- Data export/import functionality with payroll systems
- Calendar integrations for scheduling interviews
- Connections to job boards and career sites for posting positions
Q: What metrics can an ATS track to measure recruitment success?
A: Key recruitment metrics an ATS can track include:
- Time-to-hire and time-to-fill
- Source effectiveness (which channels produce quality candidates)
- Cost-per-hire
- Application completion rates
- Candidate conversion rates through each stage
- Interview-to-offer ratios
- Offer acceptance rates
- New hire retention rates
- Diversity and inclusion metrics
- Recruiter performance and productivity
- Candidate experience scores
Q: How can organizations ensure their ATS complies with global data privacy regulations?
A: To ensure ATS compliance with global data privacy regulations:
- Obtain explicit consent for data collection and processing
- Provide candidates with access to their data
- Enable data portability and the right to be forgotten
- Ensure data is encrypted both in transit and at rest
- Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability testing
- Work with ATS vendors that offer data processing agreements
- Train HR staff on compliance requirements and best practices
- Document all compliance measures for regulatory purposes
Q: How does an ATS support remote and hybrid hiring teams?
A: An ATS supports remote and hybrid hiring by:
- Providing cloud-based access from anywhere with internet connectivity
- Enabling mobile accessibility for on-the-go hiring managers
- Offering video interview integration tools
- Supporting asynchronous collaboration with comment and feedback features
- Centralizing communication between distributed team members
- Automating workflow notifications to keep processes moving
- Standardizing hiring procedures across different locations
- Facilitating digital document signing and verification
- Providing virtual onboarding tools and checklists
- Supporting time zone management for globally distributed teams
Q: How does an ATS assist with managing high-volume job applications?
A: For high-volume recruiting, an ATS helps by:
- Implementing AI-powered screening to identify qualified candidates automatically
- Using knockout questions to filter applicants who don't meet minimum requirements
- Enabling bulk actions for processing multiple candidates simultaneously
- Providing customizable workflows to streamline repetitive tasks
- Offering candidate ranking algorithms to prioritize review of top applicants
- Supporting automated communication to maintain candidate engagement
- Enabling talent pooling to organize candidates for future opportunities
- Providing analytics to identify bottlenecks in high-volume processes
- Offering self-scheduling tools to reduce administrative burden
- Implementing chatbots for answering common candidate questions
Citations:
[1] ManpowerGroup
[2] Gartner
[3] McKinsey
[4] SHRM
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