How do you choose between an applicant tracking system and a recruitment marketing platform?

Choosing between an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and a Recruitment Marketing Platform depends on your specific organizational needs. An ATS primarily focuses on managing the recruitment process, including job postings, candidate tracking, and managing applications. On the other hand, a Recruitment Marketing Platform concentrates on promoting the employer brand, attracting top talent, and engaging with potential candidates. Assess your priorities is important if you primarily seek efficient application management and tracking, an ATS might be more suitable. If you aim to build brand visibility, engage with candidates, and create a talent pipeline, a Recruitment Marketing Platform might better serve your objectives.

Recruitment Marketing Platform is used to enhance the organization's appeal to prospective candidates and create a talent pipeline for future hiring needs.

When I talk to TA leaders I often feel the emphasis is on candidates dropping out of the ATS mid-application. We forget that the average person only spends 2 minutes on a careers site before applying or leaving, therefore there is a vast amount of potential talent that is lost without a trace. By putting more focus on ensuring visitors are captured, they stand a much better chance of applying for a role, even if it isn't straight away. Talent pools are invaluable, but you need to get the data to do this and ensuring your site has the tools and appeal to grab some basic details can make a huge difference to the volume of applications with little effort.

From my experience having one or the other isn't really a choice you'd want to make. If you use RMP to boost applications, but then can't handle the extra volume without an ATS you are potentially harming your brand, or creating an unmanageable workload for your TA team. The key is finding two that can talk seamlessly to one another, and enable you to grab key analytics and data that flows through. I have seen a number of RMPs that don't do this well, so I would say when choosing either, do your research about intigrations

One thing that I've noticed from my past experiences is that these softwares work meticulously well together however it is wise to look at the size of your organization as well as the scope of your organizations brand first and foremost when making a final decision. For a big organization with smooth HR operations and functions, I would recommend using both ATS and RMP to appreciate the optimum performance of these softwares within your structure. However for a startup, the best thing to do would be to focus on a software that matches your capacity as a whole and will ultimately get you the talent that you need.