Best applicant tracking system features for the Education sector

In this education recruitment blog, we cover:

• Why schools, universities and other educational institutions need an Applicant Tracking System for recruitment?
• The most important features to look for in an applicant tracking system for education.
• How to evaluate the best ATS for your school, trust or university?
• Frequently asked questions about using an Applicant Tracking System in education recruitment.

Why do schools, universities and other educational institutions need an Applicant Tracking System for recruitment?

Recruitment in the education sector comes with unique challenges. Affected by skilled talent shortages, schools, colleges, and universities face high competition for top talent, complex hiring requirements, and high activity during peak recruitment periods. Without the right tools, these pressures can lead to unfilled positions, rushed hiring decisions, manual admin overload and a poor candidate experience.

An Applicant Tracking System helps educational institutions overcome these challenges by:

• Streamlining the recruitment process from posting vacancies to managing applications, scheduling interviews and onboarding successful candidates. An ATS automates time-consuming administrative tasks, freeing recruiters to focus on engaging with candidates.
• Improving candidate experience through a seamless, user-friendly application process, mobile optimisation, and clear Employer Brand, making it easier for candidates to apply, improving the school’s reputation and attractiveness in a competitive market.
• Supporting data-driven decisions by providing insights into sourcing channels, recruitment metrics, and trends, which helps education recruiters to identify what works and continuously improve their hiring strategy.
• Ensuring compliance and robust recruitment with integrations for Right to Work checks and other compliance requirements, an ATS helps schools and universities meet regulatory requirements.
• Facilitating consistent hiring across locations for multi-campus universities or education trusts. An ATS ensures standardised workflows, fair evaluation processes, and consistent candidate communication.

The most important features to look for in an applicant tracking system for the education sector

Enhanced Candidate Experience

75% of recruitment in the education sector can happen in what is known as the teacher resignation window, meaning that other schools and universities may be competing for the same limited talent pool. Ensuring a good candidate experience is crucial in attracting top talent and being seen as the top choice for your candidates amongst your competition.

ATS systems enable a good candidate experience through:

• User-friendly interface, which offers an intuitive platform for both candidates and hiring teams.
• Candidate-focused application process, which can be paused and resumed at the applicant's convenience.
• Mobile optimisation allowing candidates to apply via mobile devices, increasing accessibility. In fact, 86% of job seekers who have a smartphone would use it to search for a job. With such a large number of mobile users, it’s important to ensure that your application process is equally good and accessible across all devices.
• Branded Career Sites ensure that web applicants can see a professional and consistent brand presence, with content that resonates with your organisation values and hiring process.

These features ensure that candidates have a seamless and engaging application experience, reflecting well on the school, college or university’s reputation.

Data-Driven Recruitment Decisions

With the lack of recruitment marketing budget being recognised as one of the Education Sector challenges (source: UK Candidate Attraction Report 2025), it’s crucial to get a clear understanding of the sourcing channels that perform well, and those that don’t provide desirable ROI.

An ATS, like Eploy, provides powerful recruitment analytics tools to support informed decision-making:

• Customisable dashboards offer real-time insights into recruitment metrics and KPIs.
• Reporting capabilities enable Talent Acquisition teams to create detailed reports to assess and improve recruitment strategies.
• Trend analysis, enabled through recruitment data, empowers TAs to identify patterns in candidate drop-offs, churn rate and more, to refine future hiring approaches and resolve bottlenecks in the hiring process.

By leveraging data, educational institutions can continuously improve their recruitment processes and outcomes.

Efficient Onboarding Process

A well-structured onboarding process turns promising new recruits into engaged team members. And ensuring candidates receive a good onboarding experience goes beyond a basic welcome. Instead, it helps new hires understand the culture and values of your organisation and feel confident that they have enough insight into your educational organisation to successfully carry out their new responsibilities from day one.

Ensuring a smooth onboarding process can be difficult; however, using an ATS with built-in onboarding tools allows education recruiters to:

• Streamline offer management by simplifying the creation and distribution of job offers.
• Collect e-signatures through the ATS, facilitating quick and secure acceptance of offers and contracts.
• Automated onboarding workflows to ensure a smooth start for new hires, who receive all required documents and contracts on time.

These features help educational institutions onboard new staff efficiently, reducing delays and enhancing the new hire experience.

Safer Recruitment via ATS Background Checking and Right to Work Integrations

The best ATS for the education sector is one that supports integrations with platforms that help ensure compliant recruitment practices. For example, DBS and Right to Work Checks. This can help automate essential checks to ensure compliance with regulations.

What are the drawbacks of not using an Applicant Tracking System for education hiring?

How to evaluate the best ATS for your school, trust or university?

With so many applicant tracking systems to choose from, it can be difficult to choose one that suits your requirements. The best recruitment system for the education sector should streamline the entire hiring process, reduce administrative burden and offer ways to grow with your organisation’s requirements.

Here’s what to look for when evaluating your options:

• Look for a platform that integrates with Right to Work and background-checking platforms.
• Is the ATS GDPR compliant and offers a reliable audit trail when required?
• Multi-posting on job boards to increase vacancy visibility whilst reducing the administrative burden of your recruitment teams.
• Visibility of recruitment data and analytics to track where your applicants come from, which channels convert the best, what is your time to hire and where most candidates drop out.
• Exceptional candidate experience through a user-friendly application process and brand experience, mobile-friendly candidate portal.
• Automated communication features to keep candidates engaged and informed without adding more to the recruitment team’s plate.
• Built-in onboarding to manage the entire hiring process without leaving the ATS.