Supercharge your restaurant’s hiring process with these simple strategies to get the most out of your Applicant Tracking System and streamline your recruitment efforts.
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February 11, 2025
Whether you use ADP, Workday, TalentReef, UKG Pro, or any of the other Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) out there, one thing is clear:
Your ATS is only as good as how you use it.
While your chosen system may boost all of the latest bells and whistles, if you haven’t figured out a way to optimize it for your restaurant’s hiring process, all of those features may as well be moot.
In fact, an underutilized ATS system may be slowing down your operators and adding more frustration to their already overfilled schedules.
Today, we’re diving into 5 top tips to supercharge your restaurant’s Applicant Tracking System and secure the best hires in the shortest time.
And don’t worry! Our tips apply to any ATS.
Before we begin, let’s take a quick refresher on what an Applicant Tracking System is.
An Applicant Tracking System is a software tool used by businesses to track candidates through the recruiting process. From posting a job description to delivering a final offer, your ATS system should be your source of truth for all things hiring.
Some of the most popular ATS systems used by restaurant businesses include:
All ATS systems serve the same purpose – to help your restaurant manage their talent acquisition process.
But, certain features, such as integrations, candidate tracking metrics, and AI-powered capabilities, set certain ATS’s apart from others.
Now that we’ve covered what an ATS system is, let’s dive into our 5 top tips to help you leverage the system that you already have.
Begin by auditing the ways your team currently uses your ATS, taking a detailed look at the entire hiring process. This will help to identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement.
Consider these questions:
By compiling companywide knowledge, you can create a manual of best practices tailored to your restaurant’s needs. Encourage regular reviews of key ATS processes, including candidate vetting, applicant-to-interview rates, interview-to-hire rates, and hiring manager feedback.
Implementing a regular audit schedule will ensure that your restaurant’s hiring process remains fresh and relevant.
This schedule will also come in handy as you onboard new managers. After all, it’s important to know how to use an ATS, but even more crucial is understanding the nuances of how your team uses the ATS.
A regular review cadence provides an accessible point of entry for new hires to understand the ATS culture of your business.
Your ATS provider isn’t just a vendor—they’re a partner in optimizing your hiring process. After all, there’s no bigger expert than the provider themselves.
If your ATS provider offers customer support or consulting, make sure to take advantage of it.
Here are a couple topics to kick off the conversation:
One of the best ways to optimize your ATS is to implement a structured framework for hiring.
To avoid confusion, create and maintain standardized procedures for your hiring managers to follow when using the ATS. Regularly review and update vetting criteria—especially for management roles—to ensure that you’re selecting the right candidates for every position.
Sit down with your team to clearly define how to handle candidates, ensuring they are given priority and visibility.
If you haven’t done so recently, coordinate a database cleanup to get rid of outdated data. Duplicate submissions or misfiled information can lead to missed opportunities.
You might also consider setting up a structured feedback process for departments to review hiring data regularly. Adjust your strategy based on real insights.
Establishing a clear framework will prevent missteps, keep your team aligned, and allow your ATS to truly work as intended.
Chances are that your business uses multiple tech tools to keep your restaurant running smoothly.
But did you know that toggling between applications may be taking up a significant portion of your time?
According to the Harvard Business Review, the “toggle tax” – that is, switching back and forth between different windows or apps – can take up an estimated 9% of annual work time.
Reduce your “toggle tax” by taking advantage of the many ATS integrations that exist, such as:
Consider integrating your ATS with other platforms you use regularly, like your Human Resources Information System (HRIS).
This allows your teams to automatically generate reports for workforce analysis and seamlessly manage employee changes.
Integrating your ATS system with an e-signature application such as Dropbox, Namely, or DocuSign allows you to save time on one of the most important steps of the interview process: sending an offer letter to successful candidates.
Given the high volume of hourly workers employed by multi-unit franchises, any way to cut down on the time it takes to hire talent is a win in our book.
Collaboration apps are often the backbone of communication between leadership, whether at the same location or across the larger franchise family.
Integrating your chat app with your ATS can streamline the recruitment process through real-time communication. Via instant message, hiring teams can make faster decisions, keep track of candidate updates, and easily share feedback.
A faster hiring process has multiple benefits, including a better employee experience.
In a landscape where job seekers apply for up to 14 positions in one sitting, speed to respond is key to elevating their experience while securing the talent you want. And given that companies that focus on building a positive employee experience are 4x more profitable than others and generate 2x the average revenue (Harvard Business Review), boosting your employer brand is something that you’ll want to pay close attention to.
By connecting your collaboration apps to your ATS, you’ll create a more efficient, transparent hiring workflow that benefits both your team and your candidates.
Ultimately, you may simply not have enough hours in the day to make the most of your ATS or alter your existing workflows.
After all, any sort of change management costs time that you likely don’t have.
LANDED integrates with all major ATS systems and serves as the ultimate end-to-end hiring solution.
It manages and maximizes your ATS, taking care of sourcing, vetting, candidate engagement, and interview scheduling.
With an SMS-powered candidate communication tool that responds to candidates in as little as 15 minutes and a 24/7 human support team, LANDED has helped some of the biggest names in the industry (Tao Group Hospitality, KFC, McDonalds, Torchy’s Tacos, to name a few) to exceed their hiring goals.
And the best part? Minimal change management. No new systems to learn. No huge switching costs.
LANDED is a no-brainer for restaurants looking to level up their existing ATS system while saving time and boosting candidate quality.
➡️ Check out how LANDED helped Erewhon save 646 hours a month while driving a 4 hour time-to-interview.
Data is your best friend when it comes to improving your hiring outcomes.
Your ATS generates valuable metrics that can guide decision making and help you finetune your process.
Here are some questions to approach your data with:
By searching for data driven answers to these questions, you’ll be able to implement meaningful solutions.
For example, certain job boards might be more popular with certain age ranges. Maybe your Millennial candidates are more active on Indeed, while Gen X candidates prefer to come into the store with a paper resume.
Multigenerational hiring is crucial to your long term hiring success, and is one use case for data that should certainly be considered.
Given that >40% of hourly restaurant workers are Gen Z and >21% are Gen X, ensuring that your hiring process appeals to all age verticals is an important factor to achieve lasting candidate volume.
Your team members are the backbone of every restaurant.
And while it’s easy to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of managing an ATS, remember the ultimate goal – to build a strong team that accurately represents your brand and delivers the best guest experience.
If you’re interested in taking the next step with your Applicant Tracking System and achieving results like the following…
Then LANDED is the solution for you.
