An ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is software that centralises your job openings, applications and their progress, from the moment a CV arrives through to the hire. This FAQ is for companies that hire directly, for recruitment and executive search agencies, for ESN (IT staffing companies) and for temp agencies: it covers definition, how it works, how to choose one, pricing, AI and switching tools, in 35 questions grouped by topic so you can jump straight to the one you need.
We publish Marvin, the ATS and CRM used by 400+ agencies since 2018, and we say in every answer when another tool is a better fit for your situation than ours.
ATS: definition, meaning and differences with a CRM or an HRIS
Before comparing tools, it helps to agree on what each term covers: ATS, CRM, HRIS and "recruitment software" do not mean the same thing, even though they are often used interchangeably. That confusion of vocabulary explains a good part of the misunderstandings in sales demos, when two people use the same word without meaning the same scope.
What is an ATS?
An ATS centralises your job openings, incoming applications and their progress through a stage-based pipeline, so the whole team works from the same data. It brings together CVs, exchanges with each candidate and the status of their application, instead of a shared inbox and scattered spreadsheets. It serves recruiters who publish openings, screen applications and move an interview process forward, whatever the industry. Without it, the same information ends up spread across several personal inboxes and files that everyone updates their own way.
What does ATS stand for?
ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System, a system that tracks applications. It is also found under the broader label "recruitment software", which often adds sourcing, multiposting, a CRM and AI to application tracking itself. These labels overlap heavily in vendors' own marketing, which explains part of the confusion over what each tool actually covers.
What is the difference between an ATS and recruitment software?
The ATS is the core: it tracks applications for a given opening. Recruitment software is often a broader bundle that adds sourcing, multiposting to job boards, a sales CRM and AI. Two vendors using the same word to describe their product can therefore cover very different ground, which makes comparison harder than it looks. To go further on the criteria for choosing between these building blocks, our guide to choosing an ATS for a recruitment agency covers the method in detail.
What is the difference between an ATS and a recruitment CRM?
The ATS tracks candidates and open roles. A recruitment CRM tracks clients, prospects and deals in progress, similar to a standard sales CRM but built for the trade. An agency needs both because the same contact is often a client on one assignment and a candidate on another: our guide to recruitment CRM details how the two fit together.
What is the difference between an ATS and an HRIS?
An HRIS (human resources information system) manages employees who are already on staff: payroll, time off, administrative records, annual reviews. The ATS steps in before the hire, on recruitment itself. The two are complementary and typically hand off at the moment a candidate becomes an employee, but they do not cover the same stretch of an employee's lifecycle. A company that hires directly generally uses both, one after the other, while a recruitment agency only needs the ATS since the relationship ends once the candidate is hired by its client.
Who uses an ATS?
Companies that hire directly use it for their own open roles. Recruitment and executive search agencies add a CRM to track their clients. ESN and temp agencies attach assignment, timesheet and billing tracking to it. Independent recruiters look first for simplicity and a price that works for a single seat. The volume of applications handled also varies a lot from one profile to another, from a handful of roles open at any time to several hundred applications a week at a high-volume agency.
How ATS software works: CV screening, parsing and application tracking
An ATS follows a fairly stable cycle from one tool to the next: publishing the opening, receiving applications, screening, a stage-based pipeline, communication with the candidate, the decision. What changes from one vendor to another is how much of each step is automated, and how reliable that automation is on real CVs rather than on clean examples prepared for a demo.
How does an ATS work?
The opening is published, applications arrive and are attached to the right role, each candidate moves through a pipeline split into stages (application received, interview, offer, hire), and communications with them are logged on their record. At Marvin, Desk offers several pipeline views and a single inbox that brings together LinkedIn, email and WhatsApp exchanges attached to each candidate.
How does an ATS screen CVs?
Screening relies on keywords, role criteria and sometimes a score calculated from how well the CV matches the opening. This lexical matching has limits: two different ways of phrasing the same skill may not be recognised as equivalent. Our article on screening CVs with an ATS details these limits and the good practices to offset them.
Does an ATS automatically reject candidates?
Only if you configure elimination filters on specific criteria. By default, an ATS ranks and surfaces candidates, it does not decide in the recruiter's place. Good practice is to keep the final decision human, especially on criteria that could introduce bias, and to reserve automatic filters for strictly factual criteria, such as a legally required qualification or work authorisation. A poorly calibrated filter can silently screen out valid candidates, which is why it is worth reviewing applied criteria regularly rather than setting them once and forgetting them.
What is CV parsing?
CV parsing is the automatic extraction of information from a CV, such as job title, skills, experience and contact details, to fill in the candidate's record without manual re-entry. This extraction is never perfect: an unusual layout or a scanned CV can cause information to be lost, which is why it is worth checking the generated record before relying on it entirely. Structured PDF and Word files give the best results; a CV that is an image or has a highly graphical layout remains the hardest case for any extraction engine.
What are the essential features of an ATS?
A stage-based pipeline, search that covers the text of CVs and notes (not just the fields on the record), multiposting to job boards, centralised messaging per candidate, role-based permissions and basic pipeline reporting. For an agency or an ESN, what really makes the difference is a built-in client CRM and the ability to search across the history of the whole pool, not just applications for the role currently open.
Does an ATS improve the candidate experience?
A good ATS shortens response times, gives a clear application status and keeps a file from getting lost in an inbox. These are the three points that come up most often in feedback from candidates let down by a recruitment process. Our article on the ATS as a lever for candidate experience details how to turn these principles into practice.
Choosing your ATS or recruitment software: agency, ESN, independent
Choosing an ATS depends mostly on your structure and what you bill for: a generalist agency, an ESN tracking timesheets, or an independent recruiter do not have the same priorities. The same tool can be excellent for one and a poor fit for another, which is why it pays to start from your own activity rather than from a generic ranking.
How do you choose an ATS?
Ask five questions in a demo: does search cover the text of CVs and notes, or only the fields on the record? Is the client CRM in the same tool or separate? Is multiposting included or billed extra? How long does migrating your existing data take? What is the all-in price, licences and add-ons combined? Above all, ask to try the tool on a sample of your own data rather than on a demo set prepared by the vendor. Our guide to choosing an ATS for a recruitment agency goes through these criteria in detail.
What is the best ATS + CRM for a recruitment agency?
There is no universal best ATS: what really sets tools apart is search across your own candidate pool, multiposting built into the subscription, public pricing rather than an opaque quote, and a CRM that lives in the same base as the ATS rather than beside it. At Marvin, Desk brings together candidates, clients and outreach on a single record. Our comparison of the best ATS compares the alternatives with their public prices.
Which software combines ATS, CRM and AI sourcing?
Few vendors bring all three together in a single subscription: many sell AI sourcing as a separate add-on, or have no sales CRM at all. Check in a demo whether AI sourcing is genuinely included or charged as an extra per user. At Marvin, Desk carries the ATS and the CRM, and Scout adds AI sourcing on top of your own pool and then LinkedIn.
Can LinkedIn Recruiter, an ATS and a CRM be replaced by a single tool?
An ATS + CRM brings your candidates and your clients into a single base, which is already a real gain. LinkedIn nonetheless remains a source of profiles in its own right, especially for people who have never applied to you directly. At Marvin, Scout searches your own pool first, then LinkedIn live when your pool is not enough: the honest promise is a unified base that reduces reliance on LinkedIn, not its disappearance.
Which ATS offers multiposting to job boards?
Multiposting publishes the same opening across several job boards in one action, instead of re-entering it on each site. At Marvin, Career distributes your openings to 89 job boards and brings every application back into the ATS with its source, so you can later tell which board actually brought in candidates. Our article on multiposting in recruitment explains how to evaluate it and avoid openings that get duplicated across sites.
What software should an ESN use?
An ESN (IT staffing company) has specific needs that generalist ATS rarely cover well: tracking consultants already on assignment, managing time between assignments, collecting timesheets, calculating the day rate and the billing that follows. Our comparison of software for ESN and our guide to CRM for ESN detail the criteria specific to this trade.
Which ATS should an independent recruiter use?
An independent recruiter looks first for a price that works for a single seat, a quick setup with no lengthy training, and a simple CRM to track clients without a technical team to configure it. A tool built for teams of dozens of people often forces unnecessary setup on a single user, which slows adoption without adding any benefit. Our article dedicated to choosing an ATS as an independent recruiter details these criteria.
What options exist for a multi-site or multi-entity ATS?
A multi-site ATS needs to let you set permissions by team or by entity, not just by individual user, and to consolidate reporting at group level without losing the separation between entities. An agency with several offices also needs to know whether a recruiter at one office can see another office's pool, and whether that behaviour can be finely tuned or only switched on or off globally. At Marvin, permissions are set by role, down to a team-level restriction: the detail of this permission model is on our security page. Check in a demo that the level of granularity matches your actual organisation.
ATS pricing: cost, free versions and return on investment
The sticker price of an ATS often hides options billed separately: multiposting, note-taker, AI sourcing or enrichment credits. Comparing sticker prices without checking what they include leads to misleading gaps, sometimes doubling the real cost once every option needed for the same use is added up.
How much does an ATS cost?
Pricing models vary by vendor: per user and per month, per open role, or as a flat package. Most ATS aimed at agencies do not publish a price list and work on quotes based on team size. At Marvin, pricing is public, with a 12-month commitment: the current detail of both plans is on our pricing page.
Is there a free ATS?
Yes, in the form of versions limited by number of users or features, or open-source solutions you host yourself. The hidden costs of a free version are real: more administration time, no built-in CRM, no AI, reduced or non-existent support. A free version can be enough for a single independent recruiter with low volume, but quickly becomes limiting once several people work on the same base. Hosting an open-source solution also requires in-house technical skills for security updates, a cost that never appears on any invoice but is real nonetheless.
Which ATS offers the best value for money for an agency?
Compare the full cost rather than the sticker price alone: a cheaper subscription that leaves a CRM, a multiposting tool and a note-taker to manage separately often costs more once all of those are added up. At Marvin, Desk and the associated apps replace up to 7 tools used separately. Our stack cost simulator and our comparison of the best ATS make that full calculation possible.
How do you calculate the ROI of recruitment software?
The formula: ROI = (gains minus cost) divided by cost, multiplied by 100. Gains are counted in hours saved on administrative tasks valued at your fully loaded hourly cost, subscriptions to tools you no longer need, and additional placements if you can attribute them reliably to the tool. Fictional example, to adapt to your own agency: 20 hours saved a month at $40 an hour, plus $300 of tools dropped, against a subscription cost of $600 a month, gives an ROI of (1,100 minus 600) divided by 600, times 100, or roughly 83%. Our stack cost simulator gives you a first real figure based on your own situation.
AI and recruitment software: scoring, AI agents and ChatGPT
AI has made its way into most recent ATS, to very different degrees: some bolt on a single feature, others build the whole product around it. The difference shows up in what the AI actually does, not in the word used to sell it, and it is better checked in a demo than read on a product page.
What does AI bring to an ATS?
Natural-language search lets you describe a profile the way you would to a colleague, instead of building a technical query. AI can also screen applications, summarise an interview or draft a message. The difference that matters is between AI that only suggests and AI that actually acts on your base, under your control: our article on the AI recruiting agent details that distinction. Always ask for a demo built around a search phrased in your own words, not a pre-prepared example from the vendor.
What is an "AI-native" ATS?
An AI-native ATS is built with AI at the centre of how it works, such as semantic search and actions on the base, rather than as a feature bolted onto a classic tool after the fact. Ask for a demo that proves it concretely, not just a sales pitch. At Marvin, the Copilot searches your base, compares profiles, drafts your messages and updates your records, and by default sends wait for your go-ahead.
Can you use ChatGPT or Claude with your ATS?
The simplest approach, copying and pasting between the ATS and the AI assistant, loses context and the link to your up-to-date data. A connection through the MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets your assistant query your base directly, with your own access rights. At Marvin, the MCP server exposes 53 tools to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, and our article on what MCP changes for your ATS explains how it works in detail.
Is automatic application scoring reliable?
A score is useful for screening a large volume of applications, not for deciding a hire on its own: it depends entirely on the criteria chosen to calculate it, and can reproduce a bias already present in those criteria. A good scoring tool explains the reasons behind the score rather than handing over a bare number, which lets the recruiter check whether the reasoning holds up. Our guide to recruitment scoring details how to build defensible criteria and keep a human decision as the last word.
Switching ATS: data migration, GDPR and hosting
Switching tools is intimidating for a legitimate reason: losing the history built up over years of recruitment, or interrupting activity during the switch. A well-run migration process addresses both of those concerns, one step at a time.
How do you switch ATS without losing your data?
The usual steps are exporting from the old tool, cleaning and deduplicating records, importing into the new ATS, a cross-check, then a short period where both tools run side by side before the final cutover. At Marvin, carrying over your history (candidates, contacts, companies, notes and attachments) is offered free of charge on annual billing, worth €1,500, while your teams keep working in the old tool right up until the day before the cutover.
How long does it take to set up an ATS?
It depends on the volume of data to carry over, the number of custom fields and integrations to configure, and the time needed to train your teams. At Marvin, migration takes about a month from start to finish, with no interruption to your activity: an initial export, a month of structuring while your teams still work in the old tool, then a final export the day before the cutover. An agency with few custom fields and a clean base will move faster than one that has built up years of duplicates and exceptions to clean up before the import.
Is an ATS GDPR-compliant, and how long should you keep CVs?
Compliant processing rests on a clear legal basis, informing the candidate about how their data is used, and a retention period that is limited in time. Under GDPR, personal data, including CVs, must only be kept for as long as necessary, for a duration that is defined and justified in advance rather than indefinite by default. A good ATS makes this easier to comply with through automatic purging and consent-management features: the detail of our own approach is on our security page.
Where is an ATS's data hosted?
Before signing, ask three precise questions: in which country is the data hosted, with which host, and with what security certifications? Also ask for the list of subprocessors handling your data, including AI providers, and where that list is documented. At Marvin, data is hosted in France, at Scaleway in Paris, with encryption in transit and for secrets, strict isolation between agencies, and a daily backup also hosted in France.
ATS and recruitment CRM for agencies and ESN
For an agency or an ESN, the ATS on its own is never enough for long: the commercial side (clients, assignments, billing) needs to connect to the same records as recruitment, or you end up re-entering the same information in two tools that do not talk to each other.
Why does an agency need an ATS and a CRM brought together?
The same contact is often a client on one assignment and a potential candidate on another, which makes a strict separation between an ATS and a sales CRM artificial. Keeping the two in separate tools multiplies re-entry and loses the shared history behind every exchange, especially when a recruiter changes and has to rebuild context from two different sources. At Marvin, Desk brings together candidates, clients and outreach in the same base, with no syncing to manage between two systems.
Does software for an ESN handle consultants and timesheets?
An ESN needs to track consultants on assignment, the time between assignments, timesheets and the day-rate billing that follows, a scope that generalist ATS do not cover natively. At Marvin, People handles timesheet entry on the consultant's side and sign-off on the client's side, and Cash prepares the invoice as soon as the timesheet is approved, with no re-entry between steps. Our article on timesheet software details what a good tool should cover on this specific point.
How does an ATS help reactivate a candidate pool?
Search that covers the full history of the pool, not just open applications, makes it possible to find a profile met months earlier that has become available again or relevant for a new role. At Marvin, Scout offers this search across your pool before looking anywhere else. Our guide to building a candidate pool details the method for building it and reactivating it effectively.
Want to see these answers applied to your own base? Book a demo: we will show you Marvin on your own recruitment, and tell you honestly if it is not the right tool for you.
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CEO and founder of Marvin. A former recruiter turned tech entrepreneur, he is building the operating system for modern recruiting.