Centralized application intake
An ATS collects applications from job boards, career pages, and referrals into one place, so nothing falls through the cracks and every candidate gets a record.
What Is an ATS (Applicant Tracking System)?
Understand what applicant tracking systems do well, where they stop short, and how AI screening fills the gap.
What is an ATS?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is software that manages the administrative side of recruiting: posting jobs, collecting applications, tracking candidate status, and routing resumes to hiring managers. It organizes your pipeline but does not assess candidates. It cannot hold a conversation, evaluate communication skills, or rank applicants by fit — that screening work still falls to your recruiters unless you add a dedicated screening tool.
Why every hiring team uses an ATS — and what it leaves undone
An ATS is the backbone of modern recruiting. It eliminates paper, centralizes candidate data, and keeps your team aligned from job post to offer letter. Most mid-size and enterprise hiring teams have one. What an ATS does not do is screen. It can filter resumes by keyword, but keyword matching misses qualified candidates and passes through unqualified ones. The actual work of understanding whether a candidate can do the job — asking questions, hearing answers, weighing responses — requires human time or a tool built for that purpose. Criba is that tool: a voice-first AI that runs a structured ~5-minute screening interview on each applicant and returns a ranked shortlist labeled Pass, Borderline, or Reject, with every score backed by direct candidate quotes.
What an ATS does well
Pipeline visibility
Recruiters and hiring managers see where every candidate stands at a glance — applied, phone screen, interview, offer — without chasing email threads.
Collaborative hiring
An ATS lets multiple stakeholders leave feedback, score interviews, and make decisions in one system, reducing miscommunication across teams.
Compliance and record-keeping
Storing candidate data, communication logs, and decision history in a structured system helps teams meet legal and audit requirements.
Job posting distribution
Most ATS platforms push job listings to LinkedIn, Indeed, and niche boards simultaneously, expanding reach without manual reposting.
Offer and onboarding handoff
Leading ATS tools carry candidate data through the offer stage and hand it off to HRIS or onboarding software, reducing duplicate data entry.
How an ATS fits into your hiring workflow
Post and collect
Your ATS publishes the role and aggregates every inbound application. At this point you have a volume of applicants but no signal on fit.
Screen with Criba
Criba sends each applicant a ~5-minute AI voice interview tied to your specific role criteria. You get a ranked Pass / Borderline / Reject shortlist with direct candidate quotes — without reviewing every resume manually.
Advance the shortlist
Move shortlisted candidates into your ATS pipeline for structured interviews. Your recruiters spend their time on conversations that matter, not on first-round filtering.
Decide and close
Use your ATS to coordinate offers, collect e-signatures, and hand off to onboarding. Criba's screening data stays attached to the candidate record for audit and reference.
Frequently asked questions about ATS software
Does an ATS screen candidates automatically?
Most ATS platforms apply basic keyword or rule-based filters, but that is not the same as screening. They cannot ask follow-up questions, evaluate communication skills, or weigh candidate responses against job-specific criteria. For real screening depth, teams add a dedicated tool like Criba on top of their ATS.
What is the difference between an ATS and AI candidate screening?
An ATS tracks and organizes applications; AI candidate screening actively evaluates applicants. Criba conducts a structured voice interview, scores each candidate, and explains every score with direct quotes from the candidate. The two tools are complementary: the ATS manages the pipeline while Criba surfaces who is actually worth advancing.
Will Criba replace my ATS?
No. Criba is designed to work alongside your existing ATS, not replace it. Your ATS handles job posting, pipeline tracking, compliance, and offer management. Criba handles the screening bottleneck — the step between receiving applications and knowing who deserves a human interview.
How long does ATS implementation take?
Enterprise ATS platforms can take weeks to configure and integrate. Criba, by contrast, is free to start and can be running in a single session. You create a role, set your criteria, and Criba starts screening applicants the same day.
Is an ATS worth it for small teams?
For very small teams, a spreadsheet sometimes suffices. But as soon as volume grows, an ATS pays for itself in coordination time saved. Criba is especially valuable for small teams because it removes the screening burden that would otherwise consume a recruiter's entire week.
How does Criba's scoring differ from ATS keyword filtering?
Keyword filters match text; they miss strong candidates who phrase things differently and pass through candidates who keyword-stuffed their resume. Criba's AI listens to spoken answers, evaluates them against your criteria, and produces a Pass / Borderline / Reject rating backed by verbatim candidate quotes you can audit.