The best applicant tracking system for education: What to look for and why it matters

The recruitment landscape in education is, unfortunately, not great right now – with the sector consistently missing its government recruitment target year on year. In 2023, for example, secondary teacher recruitment missed the mark by 50%. To add further insult to injury, 40,000 teachers left the profession that same year.

Of course, these issues go beyond recruitment and opens the debate about whether teaching is still an attractive profession given increasing workloads, pressures and inflexible working conditions.

But one thing is clear: the sector needs specialist recruitment tools so ensure they find the best candidates. 
And unfortunately, most applicant tracking systems are just not built for the education sector. Instead, they’re designed for a corporate environment where roles are standardised, compliance is minimal and recruitment is ongoing.  

A purpose-built ATS for schools will handle the admin load, advertise across multiple (education-specific) channels, track where your candidates are coming from and much more.

To find out more about why education needs a purpose-built ATS, read our detailed article:

• Why schools need an ATS

When in the market for an applicant tracking system for education, use this section as a checklist for your non-negotiable. Side note: SchoolRecruiter as all of this, and it now fully integrates with Access Education People. Find out more about the integration and its benefits here. 

1. Education-specific compliance tools

Look for a platform that has built-in tracking for DBS, Right to Work and references. Safeguarding and audit trails are also important. Finally, ensure your tool is GDPR and KCSIE-aligned.

2. Multichannel advertising and passive talent reach

Your ATS should have the functionality to post on job boards, LinkedIn and other relevant social media platforms, as well as email alerts when people interact with the advertisements. Also, look for ‘smart distribution’ – which essentially targets active and passive candidates.

It’s also important to consider visibility beyond TES. Schools tend to focus a lot of their efforts on TES, but there are a variety of other platforms out there to advertise your teaching positions, such as E-Teach, for example.

3. Automation and time-saving tools

It’s the manual, admin tasks that often take up the most time – especially with recruitment. Your ATS should automate things like shortlisting, scheduling and follow-up comms. This will reduce admin time for HR teams who, let’s face it, are already overstretched. There’s a mantra we live by:

Faster time-to-hire = lower cost-per-hire.

4. Talent pooling and pipeline management

Sometimes, recruitment can be a long game – especially with hard-to-fill roles. If your ATS can build up long-term pipelines, you stand a good chance of recruiting better fit applicants, especially for more specialist roles. With an ATS like SchoolRecruiter, you can tag and search past applicants and match candidates based on their skills or subject specialism.

5. Candidate experience

Let’s not forget that recruitment is a two-way process. Your ATS shouldn’t only reduce your workload, but it should provide candidates with the best possible experience too. Ensure your ATS is built for mobile-first. Most people are looking for their next roles on their mobiles, don’t forget. Additionally, a branded, user-friendly interface will make the experience feel more cohesive and professional. Timely updates and easy communication are also key things to bear in mind. 

When you use an ATS that’s not build for education, you can actually do more harm than good – slowing down recruitment and undermining the candidate experience.

Here’s what typically goes wrong:

The software doesn’t understand your roles

Corporate ATS platforms are built for standard job titles and rolling vacancies. In schools, you’re hiring everything from TAs to Headteachers – often within tight, seasonal windows. Generic systems don’t support the complexity or urgency of school-based hiring.

Compliance becomes a manual burden

Education hiring involves things like safeguarding, DBS checks and regulatory paperwork specific to the sector. If you use a generic ATS, chances are it doesn’t have this functionality built in, which means you’ll have to do it manually – increasing admin and the risk of human error. This leads us to the next point…

You end up duplicating work

Recruitment in education has workflows specific to the sector – such as term-based hiring cycles, role-based variations (lunch time supervisors is an entirely different process to a Headteacher), safeguarding and compliance. Without these in place, you end up doing more work than you need to.

No visibility across the Trust

In MATs, lack of standardization makes it hard to compare performance or share talent across academies. A generic ATS rarely offers custom reporting or centralised oversignt needed to make those data-driven hiring decisions. 

Throughout this article, we’ve mentioned the enhanced functionality SchoolRecruiter provides and why it’s an effective option for schools and Trusts who are looking for a school-specific ATS.

But recruitment is only one part of the picture when it comes to HR processes in schools. And when you can provide an amazing experience from hire to retire, you stand the best chances of hiring and retaining the best talent. 

SchoolRecruiter now integrates with Access Education People, meaning you get enhanced recruitment functionaliy as well as other broader people management to improve overall school operations.  

Find out more about Access Education and SchoolRecruiter here.

With so many tools on the market, it’s easy to get distracted by features that look good on paper but don’t solve the everyday challenges schools face. The best applicant tracking system for education should simplify your workload, not add to it, and support your team at every stage, from advertising roles to onboarding new hires.

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

Compliance built in

Safeguarding isn’t optional, and your ATS shouldn’t treat it like an afterthought. Look for a platform that includes:

• DBS tracking and expiry alerts
• Right to Work documentation
• KCSIE compliance support
• Full audit trails for inspections

Multichannel advertising

You can’t just post on one site and hope for the best. The best systems let you:

• Promote roles across multiple free and paid job boards
• Reach passive candidates via email alerts and social media
• Track where your applicants actually come from

Integration with HR, Payroll and Onboarding

If your recruitment system doesn’t connect to the rest of your HR tools, you’ll end up duplicating effort. Aim for:

• Seamless integration with existing HR and payroll platforms
• Shared data between recruitment, onboarding and employee records
• A smoother experience for both candidates and your internal team

Mobile-friendly candidate experience

Most applicants—especially early-career teachers—apply on their phones. If your process isn’t mobile-ready, you’re likely losing good candidates. Prioritise:

• Branded, mobile-optimised application forms
• Clear, easy-to-navigate vacancy pages
• Automated communications and updates to keep candidates engaged

Reporting that actually helps

You shouldn’t need to export spreadsheets just to see what’s working. Look for:

• Real-time dashboards
• Insights on time-to-hire, source of hire, and candidate drop-off
• Trust-wide visibility if you're part of a MAT

In case you hadn’t already noticed, what we’re trying to say here is that if you’re recruiting within the education sector, the best applicant tracking systems are the ones that are built for schools. With the right tools, you can reduce admin, improve the candidate experience and ultimately hire the best person for the job – whether you’re on the lookout for a lunchtime supervisor or deputy head.

If you’d like to learn more about the Access Educaiton People and SchoolRecruiter integration and what it can do for you, head over to our recruitment page for more information or arrange an informal chat with an expert.