Top 10 Innovative ways to cut time to hire with an ATS

In this blog, we cover:

• Why time to hire can make or break the candidate experience
• Whether an ATS can help you speed up your hiring process
• 10 innovative ways to cut your time to hire with an ATS

How does Time to Hire affect candidate experience?

Candidate experience is one of the main priorities for 60% of Talent Acquisition professionals, according to the UK Candidate Attraction Report 2025. The report also reveals that improving time to hire is prioritised by 30% respondents.

A short time-to-hire goes hand in hand with providing an excellent candidate experience. It shows the candidate that their time is valued while maintaining engagement and showcasing a streamlined approach. The latter is important in attracting high-quality candidates, since 60% of applicants abandon job applications if the process is too rigid and time-consuming.

Can an ATS reduce time to hire?

The right Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can help you recruit faster, smarter, and more efficiently. A modern ATS system goes far beyond helping Talent Acquisition teams manage applications, it automates workflows, centralises communication, and helps TAs make data-driven hiring decisions to further streamline and speed up the hiring process.

Here are 10 innovative ways to cut your time-to-hire using the power of an ATS.

Automate Resume Screening

Resume screening is one of the most time-consuming parts of recruitment, especially if the TA team is swamped with a high volume of applications, which they have to review manually. A modern ATS can instantly analyse resumes and rank applicants based on job requirements, skills, and experience. This helps speed up the hiring process, since recruiters can spend less time filtering and more time engaging with top candidates.

Create Smart Workflows

Building job postings from scratch every time you hire slows down the process. Using an ATS with customisable job templates allows Talent Acquisition professionals to configure the template forms, so that any fields included are automatically added to relevant vacancies when a role is raised.

This standardisation ensures consistency, saves hours of admin work, and helps hiring managers post openings faster across multiple job boards.

Streamline Interview Scheduling

Coordinating interview times can be a logistical nightmare that often involves multiple email chains and calls. An ATS with online interview scheduling that connects to your work calendars, adds value and saves time for everyone throughout the recruitment journey.

Using Eploy’s ATS, you can create single or multiple interview slots for individual or groups of vacancies. You can invite other attendees, provide instructions for your candidates, and even add break times between interviews. Just select the time you want to make available, as well as how many slots you want to offer, and Eploy will work out the rest for you.

You can learn more about reducing time to hire with Eploy by booking a no-hard-sell demo today.

Centralise Team Collaboration

Information and communication that is spread across multiple platforms and sources can create delays and miscommunication between recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates.

A centralised ATS platform brings everyone together, providing access to shared notes, workflows, interview feedback and tools. This ensures a consistent process and experience for all stakeholders involved.

Use Automated Candidate Communication

78% of candidates expect regular communication throughout the hiring process, but only 37% report receiving updates from employers. This is understandable, as recruitment teams often lack the capacity to update each candidate individually. This is where an ATS can turn things around with automated engagement tools.

An Applicant Tracking System like Eploy allows Talent Acquisition teams to create automated, yet highly personalised, candidate communications via email and SMS. This helps keep candidates engaged and up to date with the process, without adding more to the team’s to-do list. This communication also often speeds up the hiring process, since engaged candidates respond more quickly to interview requests, complete assessments on time, and are more likely to accept offers, helping reduce time to hire.

Proactive hiring with Talent Pools

An ATS that allows you to build talent pools of qualified candidates who’ve previously applied or expressed interest can significantly reduce your time to hire.

When a new role opens, recruiters can quickly source talent from existing pipelines instead of starting from scratch, significantly shortening time-to-hire.

Optimise Job Posting Distribution

Manually posting jobs to multiple platforms wastes valuable time. Using an ATS that offers multi-posting capabilities and integrates with popular job boards and social media sites to distribute listings automatically with one click broadens your reach and ensures faster candidate flow into the pipeline.

Use Recruitment Data to Identify Bottlenecks

An ATS with built-in recruitment analytics enables recruitment teams to track where delays happen throughout the hiring process. Whether it’s sourcing, screening, or scheduling, having visibility helps find solutions to speed up the process.

By monitoring metrics like time-in-stage, offer acceptance rate, and hiring source effectiveness, you can make data-driven improvements that continually reduce time-to-hire. And to really drill into the measures that make a difference, you can learn all about the key recruitment data metrics by downloading the free Recruitment Metrics Cookbook.

Enable Mobile Recruiting

86% of job seekers who have a smartphone would use it to search for a job. Ensuring that your hiring process is mobile-friendly can significantly speed up the hiring process, since the candidates can apply from wherever they are, as long as they have access to their phone.

Meanwhile, for hiring teams, a mobile-friendly ATS enables them to review candidates, leave feedback, and move people through the pipeline from anywhere. This flexibility prevents delays and ensures hiring momentum continues, even when key decision-makers are on the go.

Automate Offer Management and Onboarding

Modern ATS platforms help streamline the last steps of your hiring process, such as issuing offer letters, approvals, and onboarding with e-signature integrations and automated workflows. Using an ATS also helps ensure that the onboarding process is consistent and all the steps have been completed, removing any chance of delaying the candidate’s start date.