There are a number of different applicant tracking system (ATS) guides available to help both HR professionals and recruiters narrow down on the vast amount of solutions. These guides typically come from separate angles ranging from ATS vendors steering clients towards their solutions to 3rd party sources with a large amount of ATS experience.

While I have created, reviewed, and purchased many of these guides, I haven’t found one all-inclusive guide that covers all of the features, benefits, and components of an ATS to ultimately find the perfect alignment. So with that being said, I thought I would share some of my favorites:

•Considerations for ATS Selection (okay…of course I’m a bit biased on this one)

•Personified’s Applicant Tracking System Guide 2008 – This guide reviews ATSs from 25 different vendors in an unbiased view. This guide goes for $350. This is a great guide if you are a larger company, however, smaller companies might not be able to afford most of the systems.

•Personified’s Staffing Front Office Guide 2008 – This guide reviews ATSs for staffing companies from 15 different vendors in an unbiased view. This also goes for $350, however, I haven’t had an opportunity to review this guide yet.
*Please note that the Personified mentions a form which actually isn’t there, so you will need to use their contact page if you would like a copy.

•Sharkstrike’s Applicant Tracking System Requirements Analysis – This guide is more of a bullet point checklist of considerations when looking at an ATS. I’m pretty sure that I’ve actually seen this entire guide in RFPs a few times. The guide goes for $74.99.

•swatrecruiting’s ATS Self-Evaluation Questionnaire – This is a pretty neat comparison guide that you fill out when evaluating different ATSs. While you won’t find it on swatrecruiting’s site, it is available on Sendout’s website.

While this is only small list of guides, please comment on other guides out there that you feel others might find helpful.

Best of luck!!!
Jake Stupak
www.TheATSGuy.com
www.JobDigTracker.com