What is an applicant tracking system? A plain definition from people who build one (2026)

What an applicant tracking system stores, how the hiring pipeline inside it works, what an ATS is not, who needs one, and what one costs — written by the team that builds ofper.

Last updated 3 September 2026. Competitor pricing and plan limits are re-verified against each vendor’s own pages.

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that receives job applications, stores each candidate's details and resume, and records where every candidate is in a company's hiring process.

It replaces the spreadsheet, the shared inbox and the folder of resumes that a hiring process otherwise runs on, and it keeps a history of every decision.

ofper is an applicant tracking system. This page describes what that kind of software does, including where it stops.

What does an applicant tracking system store?

An ATS is a database with a hiring process drawn on top of it. The records it keeps are the same in every product, whatever the interface looks like.

Jobs: the title, description, location, salary range, employment type and a reference number such as OF-014
Candidates: name, email, phone, resume file and the text extracted from it
Applications: which candidate applied to which job, when, and their answers to any screening questions
Stage history: every move from one pipeline stage to the next, with who made it and when
Communication: interview invitations, confirmations, reminders, rejections and offers, and the candidate's responses
Outcomes: hired, rejected or screened out, kept as a record rather than deleted

How does an applicant tracking system work?

Every ATS organises applications as a pipeline: a fixed sequence of stages that each candidate passes through, usually shown as columns on a board. A candidate sits in exactly one stage at a time and moves forward, or out, by a deliberate action.

ofper's pipeline is a fixed template: Pool, Shortlisted, Round 1 to Round 5, Offered and Offer accepted, plus two terminal stages, Rejected and Screened out. New applications land in Pool. A recruiter drags a candidate to Shortlisted, schedules a Round 1 interview from the card, records the outcome, and continues until an offer is made or the candidate is rejected. Each move is written to the stage history, so anyone on the team can see how a candidate got where they are.

The pipeline is what makes an ATS different from a folder of resumes: the state of every application is explicit, shared and dated.

What is an applicant tracking system not?

The term gets stretched to cover neighbouring products, which causes companies to buy the wrong thing. An applicant tracking system is not any of the following.

Not an HRMS. Payroll, attendance, leave and statutory compliance concern employees; an ATS concerns applicants. Some vendors bundle both in a suite.
Not a job board. A job board is where candidates search for work. An ATS is the employer's system for the applications it receives. ofper publishes a public company page and job pages from the ATS, but it has no job-search page; candidates find those pages through search engines and the company's own links.
Not a candidate database to search. A recruitment CRM or sourcing tool holds people who have not applied. ofper deliberately has no such database: an employer sees only the candidates who applied to it or that it added by hand.
Not a resume scorer. Most applicant tracking systems, including ofper, do not rank or reject resumes by algorithm.

Who needs an applicant tracking system?

A single hire with a handful of applicants does not need software. The signs that a company has outgrown email and a spreadsheet are consistent across industries.

More than one role is open at the same time, so applications for different jobs arrive in the same inbox
More than about thirty applicants for a role, at which point a spreadsheet stops being scannable
More than one person makes hiring decisions, so the current state of each candidate has to be shared rather than remembered
Candidates are asked to wait, and nobody is sure who was told what
The company needs a record of why each candidate was rejected, for its own consistency or for compliance

What does an applicant tracking system cost?

Applicant tracking systems are priced per recruiter seat, per open job, per employee, or as a flat monthly fee. Workable is priced by employee headcount band from $299 a month and BambooHR from $250 a month for companies of 25 employees or fewer; Breezy HR's free plan allows one active job and Zoho Recruit's free plan allows one active job opening. These figures were checked against each vendor's own pricing page on 29 August 2026.

ofper is free with unlimited jobs, candidates and team members and no paid tier for core recruiting. It is free because it is cheap to run: there is no AI, no platform-paid recruiting email and no server-side resume parsing. The free-plan limits of each product, with sources, are on the free applicant tracking system page.

Does an applicant tracking system reject resumes?

Most do not. An ATS stores and filters; a person decides. The exception is employer-defined screening questions: on ofper, up to five yes/no or numeric questions per job can be marked as knockouts, and a failing answer moves the application to Screened out, where it is kept and visible, and triggers a rejection email from the company's own mailbox. The resume itself is never scored.

Questions, answered straight

What is an applicant tracking system in simple words?

An applicant tracking system is a program that keeps every job application in one place and shows which stage of hiring each candidate has reached, instead of tracking them in email and a spreadsheet.

What is the difference between an ATS and a CRM?

An ATS tracks people who have applied for a specific job. A recruitment CRM tracks people a recruiter wants to stay in touch with whether or not they have applied. ofper is an ATS and has no CRM or searchable candidate database.

What is an example of an applicant tracking system?

ofper, Greenhouse, Lever, Workable, JazzHR, Zoho Recruit, Breezy HR and Keka Hire are applicant tracking systems. They differ mainly in pricing, in integrations with job boards, and in whether they include AI features.

How do candidates get into an applicant tracking system?

By applying through the job page the ATS publishes, or by a recruiter adding them manually. On ofper, candidates apply on the company's public job page once the company has verified its domain, and recruiters can add candidates by hand at any tier.

Is an applicant tracking system worth it for a small business?

Once two or more roles are open at the same time, or more than one person is deciding, yes. Below that, email and a spreadsheet work. Because ofper is free with no job or seat limits, the cost of trying one is time rather than money.

Does an applicant tracking system use AI?

Some do, for resume ranking or generated job descriptions. ofper has no AI features at all: candidates are reviewed by people, and screening is limited to the employer's own yes/no and numeric questions.