In absences of my posts on TheATSGuy.com, many of my readers have been sending me questions directly, which I’m absolutely thrilled about. I thought that it might be helpful to introduce a Q&A section to my blog where I answer all of these questions and make them available to others. I will only using the questions and not private information such as names, emails, or companies. With that being said, please feel free to send me any applicant tracking system (ATS) questions that you might have.

Below is the first related post for an ATS Q&A. I’ve posted the questions exactly how I’ve received them. The questions stem from the reader considering signing up for several ATS trials.

Question
When I fill out these forms and am contacted by one the ATS companies, how does the job posting functionality work in the trial period?
Will I actually be able to post jobs to my company career site during the trial period or is everything is a demo environment and not in real life?

Answer
It really depends how involved of a trial is it. Most trials are simple a "testing ground" to see how the application is going to work. An ATS trial, mainly the Career Center/Applicant Portal, typically will not be implemented on your site. However, depending on how you want to test the system (remember you are the boss), you may work with the vendor to implement it on your site. I would have a few bogus positions and candidates ready to go to start the trial. Please keep in mind your Career Center/Applicant Portal piece should also be created, however, it most like will have limited functionality or basic configuration options.

Question
Am I working with system default job titles or can I have my company job titles loaded in the trial period?
Answer
You should be able to use your company job titles in 99% of ATS trials.

Question
I guess all in all, I am trying to understand how much of this is evaluating a demo site instance of the ATS versus evaluating the ATS as applied to my company dynamics?

Answer
Good question. The first aspect is to address your current situation and then identify any challenges and business objectives you believe an ATS would help you solve and/or improve. Once you have these aspects identified, it should be easier to see if there is a fit for the ATS. Also, you should be willing to work with an ATS vendor as they will most likely have several good suggestions for improvement that you may not have considered. Second, the demo is really just trying to find a solution that works the way you need it to while balancing a good ROI.

Again, if you have any questions in regards this post or ATSs in general, please feel free to contact me.

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