An ATS — applicant tracking system — is the heart of virtually every recruitment agency: that is where your vacancies, candidates and placements live. Yet at most agencies the real time loss isn't inside the ATS, but around it: candidates retyped out of email, placements that land manually in sheets and invoicing, and a pipeline overview that gets rebuilt in Excel every Monday. In this article we explain what an ATS does, which systems you encounter most often in the Netherlands and — more importantly — how to automate away the manual work around it.
What is an ATS and what does it do?
ATS stands for applicant tracking system: software that keeps track of vacancies, candidates and every step in between. From first contact to placement it records who is where in the process, which conversations have taken place and which documents belong to them. Think of it as the CRM of your candidate side.
In practice there are two flavours. In-house recruitment — companies that recruit for themselves — mainly uses an ATS as a streamlined application pipeline: publish the vacancy, collect responses, schedule interviews, hire. Agencies (recruitment & selection, temporary staffing and secondment) ask more of their system: besides candidates they also manage clients, requests, placements, rates and often time tracking. That is why agency-focused systems combine ATS and CRM features in one platform.
A well-filled ATS is worth its weight in gold — but only if the information in it is up to date. And that is exactly where things go wrong at many agencies, as we'll see further on.
Well-known ATS systems in the Netherlands
Which systems do you encounter most often in the Dutch market? Below are the four best-known, described neutrally. To be clear: we don't sell an ATS and have no preferred deal — we connect and automate around it, whichever system you use.
| System | In short | Mainly used by |
|---|---|---|
| Bullhorn | Large international player with a broad ecosystem of integrations and an extensive API | Temporary staffing, secondment and larger recruitment agencies |
| Carerix | Dutch platform that combines ATS and CRM, with a focus on the flexible-staffing sector | Recruitment & selection and flex agencies in NL and BE |
| OTYS | Dutch system with extensive configuration options, including its own job sites | Agencies that want to tailor their process to their own needs |
| Recruitee | User-friendly, strong at collaborating around vacancies and employer branding | Companies that recruit for themselves (in-house recruitment) |
The honest answer to "which is best?" is: the best fit with your way of working. When choosing, be sure to watch one thing that is often skipped — integrability. An ATS with a good, open API determines how much of the manual work around it you can later automate away.
Where the manual work leaks: ATS, email, sheets and invoicing
The ATS itself usually does its job just fine. The time loss is in the handovers — every place where information has to move from one system to another and that happens by hand. The five leaks we see most often at agencies:
1. The intake. Candidates come in via job boards, email and the web form, and are then entered into the ATS by hand: retyping the CV, filling in fields, checking for duplicates. Fifteen minutes per candidate, and when it's busy it piles up — precisely when speed matters.
2. Duplicate client management. The client is in the ATS, again in email and again in the accounting. Three places, three versions of the truth, and with every change someone has to remember to update all three.
3. The placement. A candidate is placed — good news. Then the retyping begins: rate and margin into a sheet, details into time tracking, a line into the accounting. Every placement is a small administrative project, with a chance every time of a typo in exactly the field that costs money.
4. The invoicing. Because placements and hours live separately from the accounting, invoicing is a monthly puzzle: sheets side by side, copying over amounts, hoping nothing was missed. Invoicing late or wrongly isn't bad luck here, it's a built-in property of the process.
5. The reporting. How many candidates are in the pipeline, how many placements this month, what is the margin per client? At many agencies that overview is rebuilt every week with cut-and-paste work — and it's out of date by the time it's finished.
What you can connect and automate
Each of those five leaks can be closed with an integration. The well-known ATSs have APIs that let data flow automatically back and forth between your systems. What that delivers in practice:
- Intake automatically in the ATS. A candidate who comes in via your site or a job board is instantly in the system as a candidate — with the CV attached, without retyping, with an automatic acknowledgement going out.
- Placement triggers the admin. Set a candidate to 'placed' in the ATS, and the corresponding line is created automatically in your accounting and time tracking. One action instead of four.
- Client data in one place. Change a client in the ATS, and that change carries through automatically to your accounting. One version of the truth.
- Status communication without manual work. Candidates are automatically notified of a status change — neatly formatted, at the right moment, without a recruiter having to think about it.
- A pipeline dashboard that refreshes itself. Placements, margin per client and the state of the funnel live on one screen, instead of a weekly Excel exercise. Which figures belong on it, you can read in KPI dashboard examples by role.
How you build that depends on the complexity. For straightforward flows a tool such as Make, Zapier or Power Automate often suffices — in our comparison we put those three side by side. For flows with more logic (rates, margins, exceptions per client) you build a custom integration on your ATS's API; what that costs you can read in What does an API integration cost?. Curious what such an automated workflow looks like? In the Flow-Lab you build one yourself in an interactive demo.
Where do you start?
Not with the tooling, but with the process. Shadow your own agency for one week and note down every time someone retypes data from one system into another. The leak that occurs most often and directly touches money — usually the placement-to-invoicing flow — is your best starting point.
Two things you don't need to do along the way: buy a new ATS (the leak is almost never in the system itself, but in the connections) and automate everything at once (one well-working integration convinces more than a big plan). How we approach this for recruitment and staffing agencies, you can read on IT & automation for recruitment (agencies). And if you'd first like it in black and white where your time leaks away: the free Operations Scan maps out your processes and lines up the opportunities — the report is yours either way.
In short
- An ATS (applicant tracking system) keeps track of vacancies, candidates and placements; for agencies it is often the client system too.
- Well-known systems in the Netherlands: Bullhorn, Carerix, OTYS and Recruitee — the best choice depends on your way of working and the openness of the API.
- The time loss is rarely in the ATS itself, but in the handovers: intake, placement, invoicing and reporting that are retyped by hand between systems.
- Virtually every leak can be closed with an integration — via tools such as Make or Power Automate, or with custom work on your ATS's API.
- Start with the leak that directly touches money (usually placement to invoicing), not with a new system or a big plan.
Further reading
- IT & automation for recruitment (agencies)
- Zapier vs Make vs Power Automate: which one to choose?
- What does an API integration cost?
- KPI dashboard examples by role
- Build a workflow yourself in the Flow-Lab
Frequently asked questions
What does ATS stand for?
ATS stands for applicant tracking system: software that keeps track of vacancies, candidates and every step in between — from first contact to placement. For recruitment agencies the ATS is usually the heart of the operation, often combined with CRM features for client management.
Which ATS is best for a recruitment agency?
There is no single best one; there is a best fit with your way of working. Bullhorn is a large international player widely used in temporary staffing and secondment, Carerix and OTYS are well-known Dutch platforms for agencies, and Recruitee is mostly seen at companies that recruit for themselves. Alongside functionality, look above all at integrability: an ATS with a good, open API determines how much manual work you can later automate away around it.
Can I connect my ATS to my accounting or CRM?
Almost always. The well-known ATSs have APIs that let you exchange data automatically with your accounting, CRM, time tracking or email environment. Sometimes an integration via a tool such as Make, Zapier or Power Automate is enough; for more complex scenarios you build a custom integration on the API.
Do I need to buy a new ATS in order to automate?
Usually not. The leak is rarely in the ATS itself, but in the connections around it: candidates that are retyped by hand, placements that end up separately in sheets and invoicing. Those connections can almost always be automated on the system you already have — which is faster and cheaper than switching.
What does connecting an ATS to other systems cost?
A simple integration via a tool such as Make or Zapier is often built within a few days and mainly costs a small monthly fee for licences. A custom API integration costs roughly €1,500–€15,000, depending on the number of systems and the complexity of the logic between them. In What does an API integration cost? we break that down.
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