Which stakeholders to involve in your ATS decision (and when)

Start by mapping out who actually has a say in this decision. It’s not just HR. You’ll need buy-in from IT (they’re the ones who’ll have to make it work), finance (they’re writing the checks), and the hiring managers who’ll use it daily. Don’t forget about your candidates either. If your new ATS makes applying feel like filling out a tax return, you’ll lose good people before they even get through the door.

Phase 1: Discovery. Talk to each stakeholder group individually first. This is when you gather the input that becomes your hiring DNA profile from section 2. One-on-one conversations or small group sessions work better than big committee meetings at this stage.

Phase 2: Alignment. Bring groups together to review findings and build consensus around priorities. This is when you resolve conflicts between competing needs and establish evaluation criteria.

Phase 3: Evaluation. Include key representatives in demos and trials, but keep the core evaluation team small and consistent. Too many voices during vendor evaluation creates chaos.

Recruiters want something that makes their job easier, not harder. They’re drowning in admin and need tools that actually save time.

Hiring managers want visibility and speed. They don’t care about fancy features. They want to see good candidates quickly and move them through the process without chasing emails.

IT teams worry about security, integrations, and support. They’ve seen too many “plug and play” systems that definitely don’t just plug and play.

Finance needs to see clear ROI. Show them how faster hiring saves money, or how better candidate experience improves your employer brand.

Senior leadership cares about outcomes: better hires, faster fills, lower costs.

Run workshops with each group to understand their priorities. Ask specific questions: what would make your day better? What slows you down right now? What would success look like in 6 months? Document these conversations because they’ll become your success criteria later.

Most importantly, start talking about change early. People hate surprises, especially when it comes to tools they use every day. Be honest about what’s changing and why, but also what’s staying the same. Your best recruiters probably have workarounds and shortcuts they’ve perfected over years. Understand these before you accidentally break their favorite workflow.

Beyond the obvious players, there are stakeholders who might not sit in your evaluation meetings but will absolutely make or break your implementation. Your company’s data protection officer will have strong opinions about candidate data handling. The person who manages your career website won’t be thrilled if the new ATS breaks the integration that feeds job postings.

Don’t forget about the people who’ll inherit this decision in 2-3 years. Staff turnover is real, and the ATS you choose today needs to work for the team you’ll have tomorrow, not just the team you have now. Consider how well the system handles knowledge transfer, documentation, and onboarding new users.

External recruitment agencies deserve consideration too, especially if you use them regularly. Some ATS platforms make it easy for agencies to submit candidates and track progress. Others turn it into a painful email exchange that slows everything down. If agency relationships matter to your hiring strategy, factor their experience into your decision.

Getting stakeholder alignment isn’t just about understanding what people want. It’s about building genuine enthusiasm for the change. The most successful ATS implementations have champions in each department who actively sell the benefits to their colleagues.

Identify potential champions early. Look for people who are frustrated with current processes and excited about improvement. They don’t need to be senior (sometimes junior staff are more enthusiastic about change), but they need credibility with their peers.

Give your champions real input into the selection process. Let them attend demos, ask questions, and provide feedback. When they help choose the system, they’re invested in making it work. When you just present them with a done deal, they’re more likely to resist or passively undermine the implementation.

Create opportunities for stakeholders to see problems firsthand. If your hiring managers complain about lack of visibility, show them the current reporting gaps. If IT worries about security, walk through your current vulnerabilities. People support changes when they understand why the status quo isn’t working.

Remember though that different stakeholders will want mutually exclusive things. Finance wants the cheapest option, recruiters want the most features, IT wants the most secure, and hiring managers want the simplest. You can’t optimize for everything simultaneously.

This is where your hiring DNA from section 2 becomes crucial. Use it to resolve conflicts objectively. If your biggest problem is slow time-to-hire, prioritize features that address speed and efficiency over other nice-to-haves. If recruiting the right talent is more challenging than managing volume, invest in better search and sourcing tools rather than bulk processing features.

Be transparent about trade-offs. Don’t pretend you can have everything. Explain why you’re prioritizing certain features over others. People accept compromises much better when they understand the reasoning behind them.

Consider phased implementations to address different priorities over time. Maybe you start with core recruiting functionality to solve immediate pain points, then add advanced reporting and automation in phase two. This approach can satisfy stakeholders who feel their needs aren’t being addressed in the initial rollout.

Start communicating about the ATS change long before you’ve chosen a system. People need time to process change, especially when it affects their daily work. Begin with why you’re changing, not what you’re changing to.

Use specific examples rather than abstract benefits. Instead of saying “the new ATS will improve efficiency,” say “you’ll spend 30 minutes less per day on admin tasks because candidate information will sync automatically with our HRIS.” Concrete benefits taken from your business case (see section 7) are more believable and more motivating.

Address fears directly. People worry about learning new systems, losing familiar processes, and looking incompetent during transitions. Acknowledge these concerns and explain how you’ll support people through the change. Training programs, transition support, and patience go a long way.

Create regular feedback loops throughout the selection process. Send updates about what you’re evaluating, what you’re learning, and how stakeholder input is influencing decisions. People are more supportive when they feel heard and included.

Consider running a pilot program with a subset of users before full implementation. This serves multiple purposes: it tests the system in your real environment, identifies unexpected issues, and creates a group of experienced users who can support the broader rollout.

Choose your pilot group carefully. You want people who are representative of your broader user base but also willing to work through teething problems. Mix enthusiasts with skeptics. You need both perspectives to identify real issues.

Use the pilot to refine your processes, not just test the technology. The new ATS might work perfectly but require changes to your workflows. Better to discover and address these during a pilot than during full rollout when everyone’s watching.

Document everything that happens during the pilot: what works well, what doesn’t, what training gaps you discover, what change management approaches are most effective. This information becomes invaluable for the broader implementation.

Most importantly, celebrate pilot successes publicly. When the rest of your team sees pilot users achieving better results with the new system, they’ll be more excited about their own transition. Success stories are more persuasive than any training manual.