Why Your ATS Can’t Stop Mass-Applications – and What You Can Do About It

ATS helps you manage applicants. But it is not made to stop mass applications.

Nov 22, 2024

It’s a recruitment nightmare: mass applications where the majority is an irrelevant candidate. While ATS plays a crucial role, it does not stop mass applications from coming in. You continue to spend hours on reviewing resumes, when you should be spending your time on pitching relevant applicants to your clients instead. With an average recruiter spending 10-30 hours per week on reviewing irrelevant resumes, it’s time we tackle this problem head on. Not only is it crucial how each top recruiter spends their time, your resources shouldn’t be left in the lurch. And your clients deserve an efficient recruitment process that isn’t interrupted by a flood of useless applications. With mass applications, no recruiter performing at the top of their game.

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In this article, we’ll go through the upsides of relevant recruitment tools – but also the limitations of ATS and what you can do to prevent these irrelevant applicants from applying. This recruitment challenge may be annoying and time-consuming but it can be prevented.

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What an ATS Does Well

For recruiters handlinghigh volumes of applicants, an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) serves as anessential tool for organising and managing applications efficiently. Here’swhat ATS systems excel at:

Storing and Organising Resumes:
ATS systems store and organise resumes in a searchable format, allowingrecruiters to sort applications by keywords or qualifications. This isinvaluable when managing hundreds of applications per position.

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Tracking Candidate Status:
An ATS provides real-time visibility into each candidate's progress in thehiring process. This streamlined tracking reduces reliance on spreadsheets ormanual updates, especially useful in high-volume recruitment.

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Team Collaboration:
ATS tools make it easy for hiring team members to collaborate, with featuresfor sharing feedback, scheduling interviews, and recording notes in one place.This ensures alignment and smooth communication across the team.

In summary, an ATS provides crucial support in managing applications after they’re received. However, to prevent mass applications adding more ATS is not the solution.

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The Limitations of ATS in Handling Mass Applications

ATS is made to handle all recruitment-related actions once applicants applied. So as soon as applicants apply, no ATS can prevent more mass applications from flooding in.

One issue of mass applications is the ease of applying, for which relevance of candidates is not guaranteed. An applicant may be a Graphic Designer and can apply to any job outside of their field. Great if they want to. But not great if you see a whole list of irrelevant candidates when you clarified the specific requirements.

The Limitations of ATS for Mass Applications

Whereas ATS is great at managing jobs, there is a lot that it does not do.Here we outline the biggest issues. We spoke to both top recruiters and applicants to get a clear picture of what makes ATS so inefficient.

Not Built for All Resumes

Not every applicant is well-versed in your ATS system. On the contrary, many do not know how an ATS works and why their resume falls through the cracks. But as they apply, they use the resume they wrote to the best of their abilities. Optimising their resume costs money many do not have (thanks to a lot of scams taking place online for the best resume services). As a result, their resume gets filtered out before you see them. And while your ATS does a crackin’ job at showing resumes that are ATS-optimised, ATS also filters out relevant candidates who simply did not optimise their resume for your beloved system.

Bias & Trust

It’s not only to keep recruitment effective for recruiters. More and more applicants have trouble trusting how recruiters work. Once they find out ATS is used with bias (due to assumptions) and more use of AI, trust is out the window. In fact, many applicants admit to going off of the main platforms. Only to speak to recruiters and make their job search more practical. It’s not up to applicants alone to show they can be trusted by submitting a relevant resume, recruiters have to prove they can be trusted as well.

Shows Irrelevant Candidates

The job market is tough, and many applicants do their best to get hired asap. That also means: having multiple resumes for a wide variety of jobs. And as they update each resume, your ATS will likely show you candidates that do not align. As a result, you have to spend hours on manual reviews of resume. Meanwhile,the most relevant candidates aren’t shown as fast, definitely if their resume is optimised less for your ATS system.

The Need for a Pre-Application Solution

ATS handles everything to manage the post-application process. But what comes before that? There is one big problem we need to discuss first to solve it.

Few Applicants Read..

This is the biggest issue top recruiters face. When applicants do not read, applying becomes so easy – and efficient recruitment becomes a science. How are you supposed to trust mass applications when you see how irrelevant resumes are? Not only does it waste hours per week, increases the need for more tools, these irrelevant applicants make it harder for you to see the most relevant top candidates. And your clients fill their jobs slower affecting your reputation as well.

Mass Application Culture

It’s online and it’s prevalent in offline conversations. ‘’Apply to at least 50 jobs per day to hit your daily quota’’. Yup, that is not the best advice but it gives us an insight how problematic recruitment has become. Applicants are desperate to be seen and get their foot in the door with the right recruiter, for the right job. But mass applications force them to participate: to hit ‘’Apply’’ as often as they can.

The ease of applying is a great thing but it harms your ability to do your job as well. Top recruitment agencies have the biggest job here to get through a large load of irrelevant resumes fast.

Benefits of Pre-Application Filter

Mass applications aren’t going anywhere. But we can prevent the impact it has on recruitment agencies. Here are the top benefits of using a pre-application filter:

Get 10-30 hours back per week‍

Recruiters no longer spend most of their working hours on rejecting irrelevant candidates and finding the top candidate in a pool of hundreds of applicants.

Pitch Candidates Faster‍

Your clients are waiting and so are applicants – before they continue their job search for better opportunities. With a pre-application filter, you speed up your recruitment process. Not only do you reduce mass applications, you speed up your interview process significantly. At a glance you see which applicants applied with serious intent.

Build Trust

Your clients can rely on your promises. What you said is put into action and proven by sending top candidates their way. This isn’t limited to your clients, candidates see that your recruitment process is fast: respecting their time and they can rely on a recruitment agency who does not see their application as a numbers game.

Close Jobs within Weeks

It will no longer take months to recruit for 1 job. Instead, you close jobs successfully within weeks. When you use a pre-application filter you make it super likely that only relevant applicants apply. You add a small barrier to prevent mass applications. Now you know serious applicants are going the extra mile. No need to repost jobs constantly.

How a Pre-ApplicationFilter Works

A pre-application filter is designed to help recruiters screen candidates before applications reach your inbox, creating an effective barrier against mass applications and irrelevant resumes. Unlike traditional ATS filters, which sort resumes after they’re received, pre-application filters deter unqualified applicants upfront,ensuring recruiters spend time only on candidates who show serious intent.

Here’s how it works

Simple, Purposeful Barriers
Pre-application filters typically introduce a few strategic steps that help differentiate serious candidates from casual job-seekers. For example, the filter might require applicants to answer specific qualifying questions or complete a short task directly related to the job. This process encourages only those who show serious intent to proceed.

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Customisable Screening Criteria
Pre-application filters can be tailored to the job’s unique requirements. Recruiters can set custom screening questions or requirements that align withthe specific qualifications needed for the role. These filters assess candidates’ readiness without relying on keywords or complex algorithms, reducing the chance of missing out on qualified applicants.

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Automated, Time-Saving Process
Once set up, a pre-application filter works automatically, allowing recruitersto review only those candidates who have passed the initial criteria. This significantly reduces the time spent on initial resume screening and improves applicant quality, allowing recruiters to focus their efforts on higher-quality candidates.

In summary, pre-application filters streamline the recruitment process by ensuring thatonly the most committed applicants are seen by you. This approach can save recruiters hours each week, all while improving the quality of their candidate pool.

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The Practical Solution for Recruiters: How to Implement a Pre-Application Filter

For recruiters managing high volumes of candidates, a pre-application filter offers a strategic way toattract only serious applicants without manual review or overreliance on ATS. Here’s how you can implement a pre-application filter—and how Readlead can simplify the recruitment process.

1. Define What Candidate You Seek

To distinguish genuinely interested candidates from casual applicants, create a straightforward but practical pre-application steps. These could be qualifying questions or a short task related to the role. The aim is to signal to candidates that a basic level of effort is expected before they can apply.

How Readlead Helps: Readlead detects active reading as you market your job. You will no longer have to wonder if applicants that apply are aware of what candidate you seek. We take this burden off of you by tracking active reading before allowing access to apply. You easily filter out non-serious candidates and you also will not see them in your inbox.

2. Invite Applicants to Show Serious Intent

No more overreliance on ATS means equal opportunity for all applicants. Each applicant gets the same task. You can’t be blamed for using ATS at this stage.

How Readlead Helps: With Readlead you market and recruit for your job. Each applicant reads your job post in a distraction-free reading zone. They can’t hack your ATS-system at this stage. It’s the same action for each applicant. It results in fewer irrelevant applicants as applying is only allowed if they proved to read.

3. Ask ValidatingQuestions

To first get the most relevant resumes in your ATS, you can take it one step further. You can ask validating questions. This invites applicants to give a more detailed answer than regular checkboxes allow. This way, you give applicants a way to prove themselves by providing you with thoughtful responses.

How Readlead Helps: You can add Messagelead to your link. We analyse your question and the response to check first if the answer is giving you the basic context you need. Applicants’ answers are only accepted if they directly answer your question (we constantly add more questions). By default, you prevent common lazy answers. This is another way for applicants to prove to you their relevance in regard to the job you’re filling.

4. Receive Resumes Without ATS

Finally, once it’s validated the applicant read, they can submit their resume. By not using ATS at this stage (yet) you ensure that no resume slips through the net. You build trust showing to applicants the recruitment process is practical – by using less bias and technical assumptions where common systems rely on.

How Readlead Helps: Readlead does not use AI nor ATS. You simply receive all resumes from applicants that proved to read. If you need to use ATS to filter out candidates you easily upload resumes. And if the applicant turns out to be no match, you reject the applicant with 1 click.

Conclusion

While ATS is crucial in recruitment it is not an all-in-one tool. Mass applications are tough to navigate but when you combine your tools and set up a plan, recruitment becomes more manageable. Here are the key takeaways: